Five Texas Tales at Austin Film Festival

Eghhead & Twinkie

I'll Be There

UT associate professor Cindy McCreery let the bizarre synchronicity of having her brother in hospital with cancer while Michael Jackson lay in the morgue next door inspire the script for I'll Be There, and last year she and her colleague, director Andrew Shea (Portrait of Wally), filmed it in Austin.

Egghead & Twinkie

Native Austinite Sarah Kambe Holland has moved back to ATX just in time for the local premiere of her new coming-of-age-and-coming-out comedy: filmed in Orlando, Florida, made for the TikTok generation.

Home Free

An Austin true-life tale of homelessness and college life becomes a moving and funny story of unlikely community from two UT alums, writer Lenny Barszap and director Aaron Brown, with a soundtrack curated by Grammy winner Adrian Quesada (Black Pumas), making for what Kevin Smith has called "the most important comedy you'll see this year."

The Stars at Night

Longtime local producer Betty A. Buckley makes her directorial debut with this documentary about our relationship with the celestial bodies – scientific, mythological, supernatural. Look for former Texas Film Commissioner Tom Copeland's name cropping up with a producer credit.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves

First episode of the new Paramount+ anthology series about outlaws and lawmen of the Old West begins by getting in the saddle with David Oyelowo as Texas Trail of Fame inductee Bass Reeves, the first Black U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi. Filmed around Lubbock and Fort Worth, and presented by the Texas Motion Picture Alliance ahead of its Nov. 5 streaming debut.

Austin Film Festival runs Oct. 26-Nov. 3. Badges available now at austinfilmfestival.com.
Find more news, reviews, and interviews at Austinchronicle.com/AFF.