The Austin Film Festival is dedicated to championing the work of aspiring and established filmmakers, defined as screenwriters, directors, editors, producers, actors and all those artists who use the language of film to tell a story. The AFF furthers the art, craft and business of filmmaking by providing unique cultural events and services, enhancing public awareness and participation, and encouraging dynamic and long-lasting community partnerships.

The Austin Film Festival is a not for profit 501c3 corporation.

Jay A. Fernandez

Jay A. Fernandez has been covering pop culture and the entertainment industry for ten years as a writer and reporter. He is currently a senior film reporter for the Hollywood Reporter, the entertainment industry’s top trade paper.

Fernandez grew up outside of Philadelphia, PA, then endured a zero-sum college experience at a southern school except for two intellectually stimulating semesters he spent off-campus at American University studying political science and foreign policy. After getting his start writing book criticism at The Washington Post, he moved to New York City and worked in the editorial departments of Barnesandnoble.com and Premiere. In 2000, love took him to Los Angeles, where he became managing editor of Code, a minority men’s culture magazine. Since then, he has co-written several (un-produced) screenplays, done copywriting for a progressive film production company, associate produced a DVD series of in-depth interviews with Hollywood's biggest screenwriters, and worked in marketing at Universal Music Group. From 2006 to 2008, he wrote “Scriptland," a lively weekly column on the work and professional lives of screenwriters, for the Los Angeles Times. As a freelance journalist since 1996, he has written cover stories, news items, profiles, scene and set pieces, book and music reviews, business stories, Q&As, crossword puzzles, and humor pieces for The Los Angeles Times, Time Out New York, Premiere, The Washington Post Book World, TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, Savoy, Variety, USA Today, Los Angeles, LIFE, USA Weekend, ELLE, National Geographic KIDS, In Style, Seventeen, ACCESS DirecTV, Boston Review, and Code.

 

He currently lives in Venice, CA, with his wife, a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly, and two sons.