Austin Film Festival

Between the Austin Movie Awards, The Independent Spirit Awards, and the Academy Awards, the past month has been an exciting one for Austin Film Festival's friends, panelists, and filmmakers and their amazing films! We even won an award!

(Below: Awardees at the 2007 Austin Film Festival and Conference)

Austin is home to more than a few festivals. Recently topping the list of MovieMaker Magazine's "best places to live, work, and make movies", Austin has more than it's share of film buffs and an incredible variety of film events in town. As such, it was a great honor to be named "Best Film Festival in Austin" by the Austin American Statesman as part of the Austin Movie Awards. Not only that, but our Narrative Jury winner Shotgun Stories took "Best Film with Austin Ties," while our Audience Award winner Juno took "Best Indie/Arthouse Feature" with Ellen Page taking "Best Actress."

All this on top of Juno's recent sweep of the Independent Spirit Awards and Diablo Cody's Oscar win shows us that our audience was a few steps ahead of the jurors. Another AFF favorite, The Savages garnered a Best Actor for Phillip Seymour Hoffman and a Best Screenplay for Tamara Jenkins at the Spirits. The same night, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, another Austin fave, won a Best Director for Julian Schnabel and Best Cinematography for Janusz Kaminski.

The next night at the Oscars, AFF documentary selection Taxi to the Darkside took Best Documentary while AFF selections War/Dance, The Savages, Lars and the Real Girl, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly were celebrated nominees. 3:10 to Yuma, Rattatouille, and Away from Her which screened as part of AFF's year round screening series were likewise honored.

Congrats to the winners. It was a great year for film. We can't wait to see what 2008 brings.

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