The Austin Film Festival announced this week the last of its three heavy-hitter awardees this year: Steven Zaillian, who will receive the Distinguished Screenwriter Award at this year’s festival and conference (Oct. 22-29). Zaillian has worked with Scorsese, Spielberg, and Ridley Scott, to name a few, and has also had a sideline gig in directing (we think his debut, Searching for Bobby Fischer, is perfectly wonderful). He’s been nominated for the Oscar three times and won for his script for Schindler’s List.
The festival doesn’t happen till October, but AFF has a vigorous, all-year round presence in town. Case in point: their ongoing Conversations in Film program, sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Next month, writer/director and Longview native John Lee Hancock (The Rookie) takes the stage to talk shop and then screen A Perfect World, the 1993 Clint Eastwood/Kevin Costner film he wrote (only his second produced credit). We’re betting Hancock have something to say about his new movie, too – that’s The Blind Side (starring Sandra Bullock and Kathy Bates), and it opens in theatres Nov. 20. Hancock is also writing the script for The Goree Girls, based on the true story of a Texas prisoners forming an country & western group in the Forties (Jennifer Aniston is attached to star).
Go here for all things AFF (including ticket info for the Hancock talk).
This article appears in August 21 • 2009.
