Austin Film Festival alumni news; best-of-year music videos; and Sexy Sax Man sexy-saxxes up Austin.
Former AFF head programmer Kelly Williams is going to be mighty busy come January. On the heels of the announcement Kat Candler’s new short, “Hellion,” which Williams produced, was heading to Sundance, another Williams’ production got the greenlight for Slamdance. Comic anthology film Holiday Road will show in the special screenings sidebar. The film consists of 12 shorts centered around 12 holidays; participating directors include UT alumni Todd Berger, Helena Wei, Mike Suter, and Dee Austin Robertson.
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In other AFF-related news, alumni of the 2011 fest will be swinging through town again: Dennis Quaid-creeper Beneath the Darkness, which was filmed just outside of Austin, opens locally on Jan. 6, while stoner comedy Austin High, from Beef & Sage’s Kirk Johnson and Will Elliott screens at the Alamo Ritz on Dec. 27 and again on Jan. 4 at the Alamo South Lamar. A rep from the film also says there’s been some distributor interest.
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Back in early December, art collective Okay Mountain made the cut for Pitchfork’s annual list of the top music videos of the year with their animated, awesomely trippy video for Bill Callahan’s “America!”
And while we’re singling out standout locally produced music videos of the year, we’d like you to direct you to Paul Beck’s deeply unnerving work on Calm Blue Sea’s “Literal” and design studio Ptarmak’s video of Explosions in the Sky’s “Last Known Surroundings,” which Wired called “a celestial lovechild of the original Tron, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Japanese art.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
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Finally, ad agency Greatest Common Factory decided to give Austin the gift of Sexy Sax Man for the holidays. You remember Sexy Sax Man, that shirtless YouTube wunderkind. Now enjoy him sexy-saxxing his way through various Austin landmarks. Sexy Festivus, indeed.
This article appears in December 23 • 2011.
