We've Moved

Hey guys! We've moved. Check out our new website: austinwomenincinema.tumblr.com

Film Festival Scholarship Winners Announced!

Women in Cinema Film Festival Scholarship Winners

The three winners will receive waived submission fees to Indie Memphis Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Lone Star Film Festival, Cucalorus Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival and Citizen Jane Film Festival. Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to all of the talented filmmakers who submitted their work!

Leaves on Trees

Producer: Kelly Ota
Nine-year old Ira Harris navigates a new neighborhood, 
new peers, and his first set of prescription glasses.

Ronnie Monsters

Director: Amanda Gotera
Back from summer vacation with no best friend and a supernatural secret,
fourteen-year old Ronnie just wants to survive the first day of school.

Stowaway

Director: Maddy Bethard
After missing her favorite band's show, Hazel stows away in their tour van
only to discover that the band is on the verge of breaking up.

SPECIAL MENTION

Evidence of Santa

Director Mei Makino

Thank you so much to our three judges: award winning filmmaker Lauren Wolkstein (The Strange Ones, Social Butterfly), Emmy winning documentarian Heather Courtney (Where Soldiers Come From) and Texas Film Commission representative Laura Kincaid.

Film Festival Scholarship Spring 2014

We're excited to announce the details to our Film Festival Scholarship! Women in Cinema is offering waived fees to the following film festivals to three lucky winners chosen by a panel of filmmakers including Heather Courtney (Where Soldiers Come From), Lauren Wolkstein (The Strange Ones, Social Butterfly) and Laura Kincaid (Texas Film Commission).

Indie Memphis Film Festival

Cucalorus Film Festival

Sundance Film Festival

Citizen Jane Film Festival

Oxford Film Festival

Lone Star Film Festival

Previous winners have gone on to play festivals including Sarasota Film Festival, deadCenter Film Festival, Citizen Jane Film Festival, AFS SXSW Shortscase and even win the IDA for Best Student Documentary.

To apply for the scholarship, you MUST be a paid member of Women in Cinema and submit your film by Friday, May 9th at noon.

You can find the application along with the officials rules on our 'Scholarship' page at the top. 

Laura Kincaid is the Senior Marketing Coordinator at the Texas Film Commission, a division of the Office of the Governor. She supports the creative industries of Texas by developing marketing opportunities to promote Texas Film Commission services, and works with the state’s regional film commissions, industry organizations, film festivals and conferences, and constituents. Laura is a native Austinite, and graduated from UT Austin in 2006 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Radio, Television & Film. She’s been on staff at the Texas Film Commission since 2007 and has served on the Advisory Board of the ATX Television Festival since 2012. She has co-edited numerous short films (and one very long documentary in French, Arabic and Portuguese, none of which she speaks) and is a spontaneous world traveler.

Lauren Wolkstein is an award-winning filmmaker whose films have screened worldwide. Her film THE STRANGE ONES (co-dir. Christopher Radcliff) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, and has since screened at over 100 festivals worldwide, including SXSW, Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, and Tokyo and has received numerous awards, including several Oscar-qualifying festival wins. Lauren Wolkstein has also directed the acclaimed short films CIGARETTE CANDY (best short film, SXSW 2010), and SOCIAL BUTTERFLY, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. She earned her MFA in film from Columbia University, where she received the Plum Pictures Most Promising Filmmaker Award. Lauren was also recently selected as one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film.

Austin Film Organizations Panel

We're excited to announce Women in Cinema's April Panel on Austin Film Organizations. This is a great panel for those who are looking for summer internships and organizations to volunteer for and get involved with. These panelists will share with us their knowledge about working the film scene in Austin and working for these amazing groups!

Join us April 24th at 7PM at the CMB Studio 4D. See you there! 

Kim LeBlanc, Texas Film Commission

 Since 2009, Kim LeBlanc has been on staff at the Texas Film Commission helping to spread the good word about all of the wonderful resources available for creative industries in Texas. As a Production Consultant, she works closely with Writers, Directors, Producers, Production Designers, Studio Executives and Community Representatives, promoting Texas as a destination for filmmaking, television production, commercials, music videos, video games and still photography. Her travels have taken her to the far corners of the state and her efforts have been put forth on projects such as TRUE GRIT, TOP CHEF TEXAS and BERNIE among many others.

Prior to working for the Texas Film Commission, she had the incredibly good fortune to work for the Austin Film Society, the Austin Film Festival and Troublemaker Studios, where she was on board as an Executive Office Assistant and Assistant to Director, Robert Rodriguez. She has also served as a volunteer for SXSW Film Festival since 2009. Kim is a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, where she double majored in Urban Studies and History and co-founded the university’s Film Studies minor program. 

Holly Herrick, Artistic Director, Austin Film Society

Holly Herrick joined the Austin Film Society in 2012 as Associate Artistic Director, overseeing the organization’s celebrated artist services and film programming departments.  Prior to joining AFS, she served as Deputy Programs Director at the Hamptons International Film Festival in New York, and Director of Programming at the Sarasota Film Festival in Florida.  Herrick also programmed an edition of the Newport International Film Festival in Rhode Island.  In 2011, she established a partnership between the Sarasota Film Festival and Women Make Movies. Together, the organizations created Side By Side, a symposium for the mentorship and promotion of women filmmakers, which continues to take place at the festival.  Holly associate produced Michael Tully’s narrative feature SEPTIEN (Sundance 2011), and co-produced his upcoming narrative feature, PING PONG SUMMER (Sundance 2014). Her writing has appeared on the Resources Blog of the Independent Feature Project, the editorial film website Hammer To Nail, and on IndieWire.

Elizabeth Mims, Senior Programmer, Austin Film Festival

Elizabeth Mims grew up in Austin, Texas and graduated with a BFA from CalArts. Her 2012 film Only The Young was theatrically released by Oscilloscope and won numerous awards including the Silverdoc’s Sterling Silver Award for best US documentary, American Film Institute Audience Award, and was nominated for a Spirit Award. She is currently the Senior Programmer for Austin Film Festival. 

Claudette Godfrey, Short Film Programmer and Operations Manager, South by Southwest

Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Claudette began her career at SXSW in 2006 as an enthusiastic volunteer. Currently she is responsible for the curation of the 10 short film programs the festival screens each year, overseeing film submissions to the festival, and managing the organizational big picture for the event. A University of Texas Film graduate, Claudette previously worked as a Corporate Relations Coordinator at the CineVegas Film Festival and served as a Shorts Programmer for the Alamo Drafthouse's Fantastic Fest from 2010-2012. Notably, and perhaps most importantly, she does a mean karaoke version of Notorious B.I.G.'s ‘Hypnotize.’ @claudasaur

Post Production Panel

We hope everyone had an awesome spring break and SXSW! 

We’re excited to be back and kicking off the second half of the spring semester with a Post Production Panel on March 27th. As usual, there will be some awesome panelists, and we hope to everyone there!

Sandra Adair

Sandra Adair, A.C.E. is an award winning feature film editor who resides in Austin, Texas. Adair has enjoyed an ongoing artistic collaboration with film director Richard Linklater, having edited 18 films for him over the past 20 years, including the 2012 comedy Bernie, the 2013 critically acclaimed Before Midnight, and in 2014, Boyhood.  She was nominated for an Eddie Award for Best Editing of a Musical or Comedy by the American Cinema Editors in 2003 for School of Rock, and won the Best Edited Documentary at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2012 for the feature doc Shepard and Dark. Some of her other credits include Everything Must Go, starring Will Ferrell, and the award winning documentary Sushi: The Global Catch. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and American Cinema Editors and continues to support and mentor new filmmakers in the Austin area.

Angela K. Pires

Angela K. Pires was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 1994 she began her career as editor, working mainly with advertising. In 1999 she moved to fiction and documentaries films, working as both editor and director. She edited the short doc The Invention of Childhood, winner of 17 awards, including Best Editor and Best Film. She wrote and directed The Color White, winner of 16 awards, including Best 

Film, Best Screenplay, Best Director and received a Special Mention from the Jury at Berlin 

Film Festival. In 2001 Ms. Pires moved to Austin, Texas, where she edited Born in Brazil, The Package, The Prison and The Street, Better Golf With Bruce, Lasting Images, Sweet Dutch Brazil, Trash Dance, and The Village. Trash Dance premiered at SXSW 2012 and has been an audience favorite in film festivals around the USA. The Village had its international premiere at SXSW 2013.

Lauren Sanders

As Senior Editor at Arts+Labor, Lauren oversees editorial on a wide range of projects for clients ranging from Dell to the National Cooperative Grocers Association. Her experience also includes event coverage of SXSW, Austin City Limits, Lollapalooza, Sundance Film Festival, and Fantastic Fest.  Her most recent credits are post-production supervisor, assistant editor, and DIT for Kat Candler's Hellion. Currently, she's working on the documentary The Spirit Speaks, about the critically acclaimed gospel group The Jones Family Singers. Lauren is a graduate of the Radio-Television-Film program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Allison Turrell

Allison Turrell got her start in music combing the record stores in New England and hosted a grrrl centered punk rock radio show at WMPG in college. She fell in love with color photography in an Austin darkroom. She mastered the Adobe Creative Suite, working in all phases of multimedia production for several publishing companies in Austin. Allison moonlighted as a freelance photographer before getting her MFA in Photographic and Electronic Media at Maryland Institute of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. While at MICA, she co-taught several courses in photography, video art and post production. Her love of the technical and creative surged in the Video and Film Arts Department where she installed video exhibits, fixed tape decks, dubbed (literally and figuratively) and helped the library build a digital arts archive. She's authored several Photoshop CS 3-5 interactive training-video series with Firefly Learning Inc. Her art has been exhibited in Austin, Baltimore, Germany and published in The Boston Review,Locus, Guernica, Now Public and the Chicago Schmap Guides. She serves as the Executive Producer and manages all phases of the post process. She co-founded Stuck On in 2007.

Details

Thursday, March 27th

Meeting 7-7:15pm

Panel 7:15pm-9pm

CMB Building

Studio 4D

Facebook Event

Women in Cinema Field Trip

Women in Cinema is excited to announce a field trip to Arts + Labor, a production office in Austin, on March 25th (Tuesday) from 4-6pm. There will be a tour of A+L followed by a panel with several of their employees. There are ten slots available for paid WIC members and will be first come first serve for those who RSVP to the email (utwomenincinema@gmail.com). There will also be a car pool available for anyone who needs a ride. 

Our wonderful panelists will be:

Erik Horn, Executive Creative Director + Principal
Erik’s diverse career includes directing a short cartoon series with Billy Bob Thornton for Dell, producing the video highlight reels for both Lollapalooza and ACL Fest, and creating branded content for The Plug Awards, featuring comedian Michael Showalter. His music videos have been showcased on MTV, Fuse, RollingStone.com, SXSW and at The Edinburgh International Film Festival. Currently, he is developing a feature film script based on the work of cult author Jim Knipfel.

Susan Lazarus, Executive Producer
Susan honed her Executive Producer skills with brand marketing at a boutique Austin production and post company. There she managed creative aspects of production for spot work and the Emmy award-winning series Downtown for Austin's PBS affiliate, KLRU. Susan then launched herself as an independent producer. Her first project, Jason Marlow's film short The Big Bends, merited selection and screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Next, as Unit Production Manager for director Aaron Burns's first independent feature Blacktino, her savvy with delivering top quality on a low budget was a critical contribution. She then went back to the agency side and produced commercials for national clients at GSD&M, including AT&T and Southwest Airlines. From college gigs waitressing at Chuy's and the Continental Club to her present work with Arts+Labor Susan Lazarus knows Austin intimately and enjoys the amazing creative vibe.

Joe Nicolosi, Director + Animator
Joe Nicolosi was named by Filmmaker Magazine as one of 2011′s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Born and raised in the suburbs of New York City, he attended Ithaca College in upstate New York and studied Film, Theater, and Writing. In 2009, his short film Star Wars: Retold was selected by George Lucas for top honors in the Star Wars Fan Film Challenge at the San Diego Comic-Con. The short went on to become a viral hit, with over 2 million views to date. Joe was formerly employed as a Graphic Designer + Video Editor at The Alamo Drafthouse, and as production manager for the SXSW New Media Department. He produced short film bumpers for the SXSW Film Festival in 2010 and 2011.

Stephanie Noone, Senior Producer
Stephanie has a deep background in film production, having spent five years at SXSW where she was a programmer and production coordinator. She was the Art Director for Tribeca Film's Zero Charisma, and has served as Director Joe Nicolosi's producer on several award-winning shorts, including Kittywood, The Lego Wire, and the recent online and festival hit HELL NO. In addition to her film work, Stephanie's produced numerous commercials for clients ranging from Dell to AMD. She also produced Fantastic Corpse at this year's Fantastic Fest. Stephanie graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with an RTF degree in 2004.

Details
ARTS+LABOR 
7010 Easy Wind Drive, Suite 210 Austin, TX 78752
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
4-6pm

SXSW 2014

South by Southwest 2014 

will be upon the city in a few short weeks, and we couldn't be more excited for the 10 days that will be filled with fantastic films, panels, speakers, and parties. Below, we have outlined (in no particular order) films that will be at the festival with a female director. 

Congrats to all you ladies out there!

In the NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION

Fort Tilden

Directors/Screenwriters: Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers

I Believe in Unicorns

Director/Screenwriter: Leah Meyerhoff 

In the DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION

Born to Fly

Director: Catherine Gund

The Great Invisible

Director: Margaret Brown

Vessel

Director: Diana Whitten

In the NARRATIVE SPOTLIGHT

Kelly & Cal

Director: Jen McGowan, Screenwriter: Amy Lowe

She's Lost Control

Director/Screenwriter: Anja Marquardt

Take Care

Director/Screenwriter: Liz Tuccillo

We'll Never Have Paris

Directors: Jocelyn Towne, Simon Helberg

In the DOCUMENTARY SPOTLIGHT

Butterfly Girl

Director: Cary Bell

LADY VALOR: The Kristin Beck Story

Directors: Sandrine Orabona, Mark Herzog

Wicker Kittens

Director: Amy C. Elliott

In VISIONS

Evaporating Borders

Director: Iva Radivojevic

In 24 BEATS PER SECOND

Que Caramba es la Vida (Germany)

Director: Doris Dorrie

The Winding Stream

Director: Beth Harrington

In MIDNIGHTERS

Honeymoon (US)

Director: Leigh Janiak

In SXGLOBAL

Ukraine Is Not A Brothel (Australia)

Director: Kitty Green

In FESTIVAL FAVORITES

The Dog

Directors: Allison Berg, Frank Keraudren

Hellion

Director/Screenwriter: Kat Candler

Obvious Child

Director/Screenwriter: Gillian Robespierre

Casting and Directing Actors Panel

Come out to our Casting and Directing Actors Panel on Monday, February 24th! We have some wonderful panelists to look forward to, and we hope to see everyone there!

PANELISTS
Vicky Boone's recent casting credits include Jason Reitman's Men Women and Children, Kat Candler's Hellion, Terrence Malick's Untitled Austin Project, and David Lowery's Ain't Them Bodies Saints. Other favorite casting projects include Malick's The Tree of Life, Scenes from the Suburbs directed by Spike Jonze in collaboration with Arcade Fire, Parkland directed by Peter Landesman, The Girl directed by David Riker, Fourplay: Tampa directed by Kyle Henry, The Fickle and Lover's of Hate with Bryan Poyser and Steve Collin's Gretchen, with producers Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen and Anish Savjani. She lives in Austin, TX. 

Katie Graham is a Producer/Director currently living in Austin, TX with roots in Los Angeles, CA. Her first feature film, ZERO CHARISMA, which she co-directed with her partner Andrew Matthews, won the Audience Award in the Narrative Spotlight Category at SXSW 2013. Prior to that, she was the Director of Photography and Assistant Editor of the award winning documentaries BEST WORST MOVIE which premiered by SXSW 2009 and the Chiller Network's THE AMERICAN SCREAM which won best documentary at Fantastic Fest 2012. ZERO CHARISMA was released through Tribeca Films and the Nerdist Industries in the fall of 2013. She is currently in development on her next narrative feature.

Emily Hagins has written and directed four feature films by the age of 21. Her film My Sucky Teen Romance was released by Dark Sky Films in 2012, and her most recent film Grow Up, Tony Phillips will be released Halloween 2014.

Katherine Willis has been acting on television and film for 24 years. Some of her notable credits include: 2 seasons on the Emmy award-winning drama "Friday Night Lights" playing Joanne Street, the mother of paralyzed quarterback Jason Street, guest starring roles in Fox's "Prison Break", Lifetime Network's "Drop Dead Diva", and a recurring role on "The Lying Game". Film fans know her work from Robert Rodriguez's "Sin City" and "The Faculty", the "Friday Night Lights" film where she played opposite Billy Bob Thornton, and the psychological thriller "The Return" opposite Sam Shepard. Katherine recently wrapped filming a leading role on "Deliverance Creek" - a backdoor pilot for Lifetime TV from NIcholas Sparks Productions (The Notebook, Safe Haven). In 2014, Katherine will also appear in a recurring role on the highly anticipated ABC series "Resurrection".

Moderator: Kat Candler (Hellion)

DETAILS
Monday, February 24th
7pm-9pm
(WIC meeting from 7-7:30pm; Panel from 7:30-9pm)
CMB Building, Studio 4D

Facebook Event

Camera, Sound, Lighting Workshop!

Women in Cinema will be hosting a Camera, Sound, and Lighting Workshop on February 8! This workshop covers all the basics and will provide a great refresher for everyone.

Saturday, February 8, 2014
10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
@ 701 Tillery St., Picturebox Studios

The workshop costs $5 for Women in Cinema members and $15 for non-members. 

Email utwomenincinema@gmail.com to reserve your spot at the workshop. 

Lunch will be provided. If you need transportation to and from the workshop, please email and let us know! 

Hope to see you there! 

Our Facebook Event

Women in Cinema Spring Social

Join us at Spider House on Wednesday, January 29 to catch up with old friends, meet new people, and renew your membership for the semester or become a new member. This is going to be a fun and relaxing event so we hope to see you there!

DETAILS

Wednesday, January 29, 2014 at 7pm

Spiderhouse Cafe (29th and Fruth)

RSVP to our Facebook Event