Austin Film Festival Announces 2021 Award Winners
Larry Flynt for President, Disfluency take top nods
By Richard Whittaker, 4:37PM, Tue. Nov. 2, 2021
Austin Film Festival has announced the winners of the 2021 audience and jury awards, as well as the script competition, with indie drama Disfluency and historical documentary Larry Flynt for President taking the top awards.
The debut feature of writer/director Anna Baumgarten, Disfluency won the jury award for best narrative feature. It stars Libe Barer as Jane, a college senior trying to bring order to her life in the fog of miscommunication after she fails her final class.
On the audience award side, the prize for marquee feature goes to Nadia Szold's Larry Flynt for President, a look back at the Hustler publisher's life, cultural impact, and the personal war with the forces of reactionary evangelical politics that lead to his disastrous 1984 run for the presidency.
The award announcement comes as AFF announced the dates for next year's festival: October 27 to November 3, 2022, meaning it will be right across Halloween.
Here is the full lost of winners in all three categories:
JURY AWARD WINNERS
• Narrative Feature: Disfluency, D: Anna Baumgarten (read our review here)
• Documentary Feature presented by FloSports: Buried, D: Jared Drake and Steven Siig
• Comedy Vanguard Feature: Holidays at All Costs, D: Stevan Lee Mraovitch (read our review here)
• Dark Matters Feature: Jacinto, written and D: Javi Camino
• Narrative Short: "Play it Again" D: Dan Abramovici, written by Liam Gareau and Myrthin Stagg
• Narrative Student Short: "Umothered" D: Urvashi Pathania
• Documentary Short presented by FloSports: "Wonderfully Made" D: Benita Ozoude
• Animated Short: "Red Shoes" D: Anna Paděrová, written by Anna Paděrová and Matěj Podskalský
• Produced Digital Series: Cary in Retrograde, written and D: Priya Domfeh and Philipp Yaw
• Enderby Entertainment Fellowship Award: Faranak, written and D: Mehrnoush Alia
Film Jury winners were selected by jurors including Robert Townsend (writer/director Hollywood Shuffle, The Five Heartbeats), Claire Bargout (Director of TV Development, SpectreVision), Dave Kajganich (creator/showrunner of The Terror) and Siqi Song (Academy Award-nominated director of Sister).
AUDIENCE AWARD WINNERS
• Marquee Feature: Larry Flynt for President, D: Nadia Szold (read our review here)
• Narrative Feature: Unsilenced, D: Leon Lee
• Documentary Feature: With This Breath I Fly, D: Sam French and Clementine Malpas (read our review here)
• Dark Matters Feature: Cram, D: Abie Sidell
• Comedy Feature: Holidays at All Costs D: Stevan Lee Mraovitch
• Texas Independent Feature: Buck Alamo, D: Ben Epstein (read our review here)
• Narrative Short: "Jeff Can't Swim" D: Michaela Myers
• Documentary Short: Street Reporter D: Laura Waters Hinson
• Animated Short: "The Snow Ball" D: Rick MacDonald
• Narrative Student Short: "Last Strike" D: Zan Gillies
• Produced Digital Series: Flux, D: Jacob Stern and Alex DiBucci
SCRIPT COMPETITION
• Drama Feature Screenplay Award presented by Writers Guild of America, East: ATALANTA by Amanda Smith
• Comedy Feature Screenplay Award: OLIVER AND THE FIREFLY by Brandon Steiner
• Horror Feature Screenplay Award: Cauliflower by Daniel Jackson
• Sci-Fi Feature Screenplay Award: Minimum Comfortable Distance by Steven Snell
• Drama Teleplay Pilot Award: Blackjack by Emily Kim
• Comedy Teleplay Pilot Award: Cuddlebug by Jenna-Marie Warnecke
• Drama Teleplay Spec Award: Mindhunter "Sometimes the Dragon Wins by Peter Lee
• Comedy Teleplay Spec Award: Pen15, "Best Friends Forever" by Hannah Rae Dillon
• Short Screenplay Award: The Great Wingzini by Shaun Radecki
• Playwriting Award: From the Perspective of a Canoe by Amy Dellagiarino
• Fiction Podcast Award: Pearls & Pie With Greta by Jake Hart and Rebecca Ann Johnson
• Digital Series Award: Plasmadrome by Kendra Viteri-Lynn and Phoebe Zimmerer
• Enderby Entertainment Award: Whiz Bang by Joshua Sheehan
• AMC One-Hour Pilot Award: Meaderville by Bryce Berkowitz
• Warner Bros. Television Pilot Award presented by WarnerMedia: A Whole Production by Pam Hugi and Jen Diamond
• Rooster Teeth BIPOC Fellowship: Heartstrings by Jasper Chen
• Rooster Teeth Women & Animation Fellowship: Green-Wood: An Animated Series by Rebecca Louise Miller
• Josephson Entertainment Fellowship: Were by Carter Friend and Lost and Found by Theresa Chiu
The 2021 Script Competition winners were chosen from a record field of 14,648 scripts entered in the Screenplay, Digital Series, Playwriting, and Fiction Podcast Competitions. The winners were selected by a distinguished panel of industry judges including, Matthew Michael Carnahan (writer, Dark Waters), Felischa Marye (creator, Bigger), Peter Craig (writer, The Town), and April Shih (writer, You're the Worst).
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Nov. 30, 2023
Austin Film Festival, Austin Film Festival 2021, AFF 2021, Buck Alamo, Disfluency
