Michael Moore sure does like Austin comedies. A year after ATX films Winnebago Man and Harmony and Me went over big at Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival, Paul Gordon‘s The Happy Poet walked away with a top prize at this weekend’s fest.
The Happy Poet, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March, won the Fiction Jury Prize for Emerging Talent, sharing the award with another SXSW ’10 alum, Lena Durham‘s Tiny Furniture.
In another spot of good news for the film, The Happy Poet will play this September at Venice Days, an independents sidebar to the prestigious Venice International Film Festival (where Robert Rodriguez‘s hotly anticipated Machete will premiere as the opening night midnight movie). The Happy Poet is the only American film to enjoy official selection status at Venice Days this year.
For a recent interview with Happy Poet producer and costar Jonny Mars, go here.
This article appears in July 30 • 2010.
A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.
A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...
More by Kimberley Jones
