AFF: Ken’s Take

Posted on October 23, 2007
Filed Under Film Fests |

The Austin Film Festival is one of the premier film festivals in the country. This year’s festival ran from October 11th through the 18th. Myself along with my wife, Christy, and fellow writers Julie Fay, Corey Bond, and Vic DiGiovanni attended the conference on Saturday, October 13th.

Ken, Vic, Julie, Corey and Christy in front of the Driskill Hotel, Austin Film Festival 2007

The festival was hosted at several locations in downtown Austin as well as other venues around the city. The beautiful Driskill Hotel seemed to be the primary venue for most of the programs on Saturday with a few others within a block of that location. The weather was perfect, we got a great parking space and we got to hear from some amazing filmmakers.

Christy and I attended the Writer-Director: Creative Compromises panel at 9:00am. This panel was made up of Terry George (Hotel Rwanda, Reservation Road), Harris Goldberg (Numb), Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Juno) and Robin Swicord (Memoirs of a Geisha, The Jane Austen Book Club) and was moderated by Andrew Shea.

These auteurs discussed the transition from writer to director and shared some of their personal stories about their first time directing. They entertained a variety of questions from the audience. The collective message they delivered was that directing what you’ve written may be the ultimate form of both creative expression and creative control.

At 10:45 Christy and I joined Julie and Corey at A Conversation With Oliver Stone. Moderated by Jane Sumner and featuring the legendary writer-director Oliver Stone, this program was standing room only. Mr. Stone discussed several of his films, shared his very well known political views and awed us all with his vision. It was an extraordinary session with an extraordinary man.

After a nutritious lunch of burgers and tasty beverages at a nearby sports bar, all five of us attended Tell Your Story: Scott Alexander. Scott Alexander (Ed Wood, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, 1408) entertained us for well over an hour with tales of his adventures in screenwriting. The session was very relaxed. The questions from the attendees were very relevant and Scott’s answers were detailed, relevant and entertaining. Of all the sessions on Saturday, this was my favorite.

Overall, I enjoyed my first visit to the AFF. The only downside, and it almost became a big one, was the total lack of organization we experienced several times during the day. Sessions were moved and times were changed. To accomodate these changes, the festival organizers printed a schedule correction sheet they conveniently passed out that morning. Unfortunately, the schedule correction sheet was also completely wrong. We were also unable to find a consistent answer from the staff who appeared to be as confused as we were. While we did find sessions to attend, we did not attend the ones we originally planned.

I’ll attend again next year. Christy and I are planning to attend the entire festival rather that just the Saturday. I’m confident that the quality of the individual programs will be as excellent as this year. Hopefully, it will also be better organized.

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AFF: Ken’s Take

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