AFF Alumni News: Wayne McClammy

Congrats to former AFF audience award winner Wayne McClammy:

MGM has purchased a comedy spec from Wayne McClammy and Will Burke, both Jimmy Kimmel writers, McClammy having directed "I'm F*****g Matt Damon" and its sequel. "'Le Car' is designed to unspool as a "found film" made in the 1980s about a group of CIA agents who try to foil a plot by an evil car aiming to detonate an H-bomb at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y." (HR)

Sonic Youth: Sleeping Nights Awake | Thursday, June 26 | 7:30PM

AFF Presents...at the Alamo Lakecreek
"Sonic Youth: Sleeping Nights Awake"
http://www.drafthouse.com/lakecreek/shows.php?id=213
FREE for AFF Members, $4 Public
Thursday, June 26, 7:30PM
Alamo Lakecreek (13729 Research Blvd)

WRITER/DIRECTOR Michael Albright in attendance!

Take a behind the scenes look at one of the most influential indie bands of all time when a group of seven high school students set out to make a documentary on Sonic Youth!



As part of a non-profit called 'Project Moonshine', these teens were given cameras and a few days to be let loose and record a day in the life of Sonic Youth. The film is filled with behind-the-scenes interviews, original performances and the enveloping experience of a Sonic Youth concert from a new perspective. The result is a point of view that is authentically refreshing; a unique situation that allows the students to approach the band with an honesty and innocence that's hard to find in veteran documentary filmmakers.

Conversations in Film: The Last Picture Show w/ Polly Platt & Tom Schatz

Father's Day is just days away, but it's not too late to show the favorite man in your life just how much you appreciate his love for cinema - by reserving him tickets to an intimate, one-night-only Austin Film Festival Conversations in Film Event!

Seating is limited for the discussion. Tickets can be reserved online here.



Sunday, July 13, 2008
3:00PM-5:00PM Discussion w/ Polly Platt & Tom Schatz To Be Announced Location Downtown Austin
6:00PM Screening of The Last Picture Show at the Paramount Theatre
$12 - AFF Members,
$17- Non-AFF Members
(Price Includes Discussion & Ticket to The Last Picture Show screening!)
Tickets available here!



INFO:
It has been called "the most impressive work by an American director since Citizen Kane". It was nominated for eight Academy Awards (winning two), was ranked as one of the 100 greatest American films of all time by AFI, and was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. But how did this low budget art film about a small town in Texas take America by storm, let alone get made?

Join producer, production designer and screenwriter Polly Platt for the next segment of the Austin Film Festival's "Conversations in Film" series where she'll talk about making the film "THE LAST PICTURE SHOW", along with celebrated film historian Tom Schatz who will place the film in historical context. We'll hear about the film's beginnings (Sal Mineo passed on Larry McMurty's dime store novel to Polly) all the way to it's place as a seminal work of the new maverick cinema of the 1970s.

This intimate event will include a ticket to the screening of the film at the historic Paramount Theatre immediately following the talk. AFF's "Conversations in Film" series is sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®.

There will be a short break for dinner on your own before the film. The seminar location will be downtown near the Paramount and will be announced shortly.

More about Polly Platt:
Platt is an acclaimed production designer best known for her work on films directed by former husband Peter Bogdanovich: "Targets" (1968), "The Last Picture Show" (1971). "What's Up, Doc?" (1972) and "Paper Moon" (1973). She went on to work on such diverse projects as the remake of "A Star is Born" (1976), "Young Doctors in Love" (1982) and "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987). Platt wrote the screenplay for Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby" (1978) but was unhappy with casting decisions and has distanced herself from the final film. She earned her first executive producer credit on James Brooks' "Broadcast News" (1987), which she also designed, and went on to produce "Say Anything" (1989), "I'll Do Anything" (1994), and "Bottle Rocket" (1996) which launched the careers of Wes Anderson, Owen and Luke Wilson.

More about Tom Schatz:
Tom Schatz is the Mary Gibbs Jones Centennial Chair (and former Chair) of the Department of Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin, where he has been on the faculty since 1976, and is currently the Executive Director of the UT Film Institute. He has written four books about Hollywood films and filmmaking. These include Hollywood Genres, widely considered the standard academic text on that subject; The Genius of the System, a highly acclaimed book about the "studio system" during Hollywood's classical era; and most recently Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s, which is volume six of Scribner's ten-volume History of American Film series. His writing on film has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and academic journals, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Premiere, The Nation, Film Comment, and Cineaste.

Austin Film Festival members are invited to buy their tickets over the phone for the discounted price of $12 by calling 512.478.4795, M-F during business hours.

"Year at Danger" | Thursday June 12 | 7:30PM

YEAR AT DANGER http://yearatdanger.com/
Thursday, June 12 7:30PM
Regal Arbor Cinema 9828 Great Hills Trail
FREE for AFF Members, $4 Public

**Filmmakers Steve Metze & Don Swaynos in attendance.

For operations in Iraq, the National Guard mobilized teachers, police officers, bankers, mechanics... and one filmmaker.

Nine days after getting married, Steve Metze found out he was being deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Metze, a West Point graduate, Desert Storm veteran, and documentary filmmaker, decided to pack a camera and document his year in Iraq. Metze gets closer to his subjects than even the most embedded reporter, and is able to use his eye for filmmaking to bring back more than simple home movies. The resulting film is an objective look at the lives of National Guard soldiers.



There are no politics on the front line, only personalities and Metze captures all of them in a film that combines humor with the, often grim, realities of a war-torn country and the brave soldiers who live there."Year at Danger" is a soldier's story, told by the soldier.

No bias, no headlines, just the day-to-day reality of life in Iraq.

See the news piece on FOX News!