Over the last 30 years, Austin Film Society’s AFS Grants have provided a small but substantial boost for hundreds of Texas filmmakers. Now, as the society announces the latest round of recipients, it’s also launching the Texas Lights initiative, a new program that will give a bigger boost to projects from proven filmmakers.
While the AFS Grants provide up to $20,000 for new and developing feature projects from filmmakers resident in the Lone Star State, Texas Lights ups the stakes, with over $50,000 in cash and support going to mid-career filmmakers. It’s a long-gestating project for AFS, and now comes to fruition through partnerships with Fort Worth’s Lone Star Film Society and Round Top Film Festival, and funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Moody Foundation, and a new consortium of investors gathered together by AFS.
Explaining the new program, AFS Founder and Artistic Director Richard Linklater wrote, “When we started a grant for Texas filmmakers, the idea that artists could live and work here wasn’t taken very seriously. In looking back at the caliber of work and the artists supported through this program over the years, we’ve proven that artists can come from anywhere. With the launch of this new Texas Lights fund, we’re renewing our commitment to something we truly believe in – expanding creative culture by funding artists locally.”
The purpose of the Texas Lights Grant is to help filmmakers who have previously been beneficiaries of the AFS Grants program make that next big leap and next bigger project. That’s why this year’s inaugural recipients include three familiar names invited to participate by AFS.
Margaret Brown has been a beneficiary of the AFS Grants back to her early films The Order of Myths and The Great Invisible and now becomes one of the first filmmakers to have her work illuminated by this new program via an untitled documentary feature currently filming with Oscar-winning Navalny producer Diane Becker.
Joining her are two other familiar names, writer/director Annie Silverstein and Independent Spirit Award-winning producer Monique Walton. The pair worked together on Silverstein’s Bull and now receive Texas Lights support for a new fiction project.
Rounding out the trio is writer/director Diffan Sina Norman, who has been selected for support for his new daylight horror, Sitora, which will be produced by Armen Aghaeian, Tara Ansley, and Abhi Goel as the first feature for the newly launched Fangoria Studios.
This morning’s announcement also includes the traditional AFS Feature Grants, and the recipients include additional familiar names from the Austin film scene, including new works from Keith Maitland (Tower) and Karen Skloss (The Honor Farm). Linklater added, “Thirty years of the AFS Grant is a major milestone for the Austin Film Society. I’m so proud of what we have accomplished by committing our organization to funding filmmakers and showing films.”
Here’s the full list of this year’s AFS Grants for Feature Films recipients:
Leo Aguirre (San Antonio) for Verano, narrative feature in post-production. Special Award: Stuck On On DCP Award.
Miguel Alvarez (Austin) for The Return, narrative feature in pre-production
Fernando Andrés (Austin) for The Movie Lovers, narrative feature in production.
Alexis Franco (Houston) for Where It All Begins, documentary feature in production.
Katy McCarthy (Austin) for The Heart Is a Cul-de-sac, narrative feature in production.
Keith Maitland (Austin) for Gods of Fire, documentary feature in production.
Camille Morales-Zayas (San Antonio) for Alma, narrative feature in pre-production. Special Award: New Texas Voices Award.
Sachin Dheeraj Mudigonda (Liberty Hill) for A Silent Wave, narrative feature in post-production. Special Award: Stuck On On DCP Award.
Matthew Q. Nelson (Dallas) for State of Care, documentary feature in production. Special Award: North Texas Pioneer Award.
Sara Nimeh (Dallas) for Jedo, narrative feature in pre-production. Special Award: North Texas Pioneer Award
Lanre’ Obisesan (El Paso) for The Orange Seller, narrative feature in production.
Travis Lee Ratcliff (Austin) for Under My Command, documentary feature in pre-production.
Karen Skloss, co-directed by Douglas Ridloff (Austin) for Interpreter, documentary feature in production.
Louise Min Van Assche (Austin), co-director Kwinten Gernay (Brussels, Belgium) for Huntsville Dreams, documentary feature in production. Special Award: MPS Camera and Lighting Award.
