2019 Films
We’re excited to announce the first wave of films for the 26th Anniversary Austin Film Festival!
Purchase your Film Pass today!
Check out the films below:
Marquee Features
A Hidden Life
Writer/Director: Terrence Malick
Starring: August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Maria Simon, Tobias Moretti, Bruno Ganz, Matthias Schoenaerts, Karin Neuhäuser, Ulrich Matthes
Based on real events, from visionary writer-director Terrence Malick, A HIDDEN LIFE is the story of an unsung hero, Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. When the Austrian peasant farmer is faced with the threat of execution for treason, it is his unwavering faith and his love for his wife Fani and children that keeps his spirit alive.
Clemency
Writer/Director: Chinonye Chukwu
Starring: Alfre Woodard, Aldis Hodge, Wendell Pierce, Richard Schiff, Danielle Brooks
Years of carrying out death row executions have taken a toll on prison warden, Bernadine Williams. The emotional wedge in her marriage grows. Memories of a recently botched execution plague her daily. As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Oh My God I Think It's Over
Director: Katie Hyde
“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Oh My God I Think It’s Over” is a peek behind the curtain as the team behind the award-winning comedy series “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” wraps up its final season. We watch as co-creators Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna and their many talented collaborators steer the show through its final episode. The film highlights their unique process as they juggle writing, songwriting, choreography on a spinning turntable, last minute big ideas and emergencies, and the “impossible task” of creating a smart, feminist, musical comedy show that’s a process unlike any other show ever to air on network TV.
Ford V Ferrari
Writer: Jez & John Henry Butterworth, Jason Keller
Director: James Mangold
Cast: Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe, Tracy Letts, Josh Lucas, Noah Jupe, Remo Girone, Ray McKinnon
Academy Award®-winners Matt Damon and Christian Bale star in Ford v Ferrari/Le Mans ‘66, inspired by the remarkable true story of the visionary American car designer Carroll Shelby (Damon) and the fearless British driver Ken Miles (Bale), who together battled corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominating race cars of Enzo Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.
Harriet
Writers: Gregory Allen Howard, Kasi Lemmons
Director: Kasi Lemmons
Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Janelle Monáe, Joe Alwyn, Jennifer Nettles, Clarke Peters
Based on the thrilling and inspirational life of an iconic American freedom fighter, HARRIET tells the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman’s escape from slavery and transformation into one of America’s greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.
Honey Boy
Writer: Shia LaBeouf
Director: Alma Har’el
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges, Noah Jupe, FKA Twigs
From a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences, award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el (Bombay Beach, LoveTrue) brings to life a young actor’s stormy childhood and early adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father and deal with his mental health. Fictionalizing his ascent to stardom, and subsequent crash-landing into rehab and recovery, Har’el casts Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) and Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased, Manchester by the Sea) as Otis Lort, navigating different stages in a frenetic career. LaBeouf takes on the therapeutic challenge of playing a version of his own father, an ex-rodeo clown and a felon. Dancer-singer FKA twigs makes her feature-film debut, playing neighbor and kindred spirit to the younger Otis in their garden-court motel home. Har’el’s feature narrative debut is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between filmmaker and subject, exploring art as medicine and imagination as hope through the life and times of a talented, traumatized performer who dares to go in search of himself.
Just Mercy
Writer(s): Destin Daniel Cretton (screenplay); Andrew Lanham (screenplay)(in attendance); Bryan Stevenson (book)
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson (in attendance), Rafe Spall, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Brie Larson
A powerful and thought-provoking true story, “Just Mercy” follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley (Larson). One of his first, and most incendiary, cases is that of Walter McMillian (Foxx), who, in 1987, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and the fact that the only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie. In the years that follow, Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter, and others like him, with the odds—and the system—stacked against them.

Last Week at Ed’s
Director: Meg Kasdan, Lawrence Kasdan
For years, filmmakers Lawrence and Meg Kasdan ate at a 60 year-old diner in WestHollywood called Ed’s Coffee Shop. When Ada, the diner’s manager and daughter of its original owners, announced that she was closing the place, her large circle of regulars was crushed. LAST WEEK AT ED’S is a film the Kasdans made about the final days of the diner, its eccentric characters, and the depth of feeling a beloved business can generate in a close-knit community.
Marriage Story
Writer/Director: Noah Baumbach
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta
Marriage Story is Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Noah Baumbach’s incisive and compassionate portrait of a marriage breaking up and a family staying together. The film stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. Laura Dern, Alan Alda, and Ray Liotta co-star.
Motherless Brooklyn
Writer: Jonathan Lethem (based on the novel by), Edward Norton (screenplay)
Director: Edward Norton
Cast: Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Cherry Jones, Willem Dafoe, Alec Baldwin, Ethan Suplee, Leslie Mann
Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely guarded secrets that hold the fate of New York in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls of New York’s power brokers, Lionel contends with thugs, corruption and the most dangerous man in the city to honor his friend and save the woman who might be his own salvation.

Peace
Writer/Director: Robert Port
Starring: Alexander Ludwig, Sam Keeley, Chris Brochu, Franco Nero, Lochlyn Munro, Tyler Hynes, RJ Fetherstonhaugh
A thriller set in the mountains of Italy at the close of the Second World War. Adapted from the critically acclaimed New York Times best seller by famed author Richard Bausch, and based on a true event – PEACE tells the story of four American soldiers in WW2, who after they witness a vicious murder of an innocent civilian at the hands of their platoon Sergeant, are sent on a reconnaissance/suicide mission lead by a local partisan, an elderly man whose indeterminate loyalties add to the terror and confusion that engulfs the Americans as they are hunted by an unseen enemy.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Writer/Director: Céline Sciamma
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel
France, 1760. Marianne is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent. Because she is a reluctant bride-to-be, Marianne arrives under the guise of companionship, observing Héloïse by day and secretly painting her by firelight at night. As the two women orbit one another, intimacy and attraction grow as they share Héloïse’s first moments of freedom. Héloïse’s portrait soon becomes a collaborative act of and testament to their love.

Rattlesnake
Writer/Director: Zak Hilditch (in attendance)
Starring: Carmen Ejogo, Theo Rossi, Emma Greenwell
Katrina (Carmen Ejogo) is a single mother driving cross country to start a new life with her young daughter Clara (Apollina Pratt) when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. As Katrina changes the tire, Clara wanders off the desert road and is bitten by a venomous rattlesnake. Desperate to save her daughter’s life, Katrina accepts the help of a mysterious woman, but after she miraculously heals Clara, Katrina is asked to repay the good deed by killing a stranger in exchange for the life saved. Without time to lose, she must wrestle with the morality of who deserves to live and who should die, before her daughter’s life is once again put in peril at sundown.
Skyman
Writer/Director: Daniel Myrick (in attendance)
Starring: Michael Selle, Nicholette Sweeny, Faleolo Alailima
Is self-proclaimed alien “experiencer”, Carl Merryweather, on the path to filming his own alien abduction? Or, is he just another crackpot looking for fame and fortune? Carl himself may not be completely sure, but he is determined to take us on a journey in search of the answer. And that journey ends at the very spot in the desert where it all began almost 30 years ago…a chance meeting with an alien he calls the “Skyman”.
The Blair Witch Project (1999) Presented by Daniel Myrick
Writer: Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick
Director: Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick
Starring: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard, Bob Griffith, Jim King
Three filmmakers disappear in a forest.
The Kill Team
Writer/Director: Dan Krauss
Starring: Nat Wolff, Alexander Skarsgård, Adam Long, Jonathan Whitesell, Brian “Sene” Marc, Rob Morrow
When Andrew Briggman (Nat Wolff), a young soldier in the US invasion of Afghanistan, witnesses other recruits killing innocent civilians under the direction of a sadistic leader, Sergeant Deeks (Alexander Skarsgård), he considers reporting them to higher-ups — but the heavily-armed, increasingly violent platoon becomes suspicious that someone in their ranks has turned on them, and Andrew begins to fear that he’ll be the next target.
The Report
Writer/Director: Scott Z. Burns
Cast: Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Ted Levine, Maura Tierney, and Michael C. Hall
The Report is a riveting political thriller based on actual events. Idealistic staffer Daniel J. Jones (Adam Driver) is tasked by his boss Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening) to lead an investigation into the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program created in the aftermath of 9/11. Tenacious by nature, he pursues the truth when others would have given up, and his explosive findings uncover a conspiracy by top government officials to destroy evidence, subvert the law, and hide a brutal secret from the American public.

The Truth
Writer: Hirokazu Koreeda, Adaption by Lea Le Dimna
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke, Ludivine Saginer, Roger Van Hool
Fabienne is a star; a star of French cinema. She reigns amongst men who love and admire her. When she publishes her memoirs, her daughter Lumir returns from New York to Paris with her husband and young child. The reunion between mother and daughter will quickly turn to confrontation: truths will be told, accounts settled, loves and resentments confessed.
The Two Popes
Writer: Anthony McCarten
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, Juan Minujin
From Fernando Meirelles, the Academy Award-nominated director of City of God, and three-time Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten, comes an intimate story of one of the most dramatic transitions of power in the last 2,000 years. Frustrated with the direction of the church, Cardinal Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) requests permission to retire in 2012 from Pope Benedict (Anthony Hopkins). Instead, facing scandal and self-doubt, the introspective Pope Benedict summons his harshest critic and future successor to Rome to reveal a secret that would shake the foundations of the Catholic Church. Behind Vatican walls, a struggle commences between both tradition and progress, guilt and forgiveness, as these two very different men confront their pasts in order to find common ground and forge a future for a billion followers around the world.
Inspired by true events.
Waves
Writer/Director: Trey Edward Shults (in attendance)
Starring: Kelvin Harrison, Jr. (in attendance), Lucas Hedges, Taylor Russell, Alexa Demie, Neal Huff, Clifton Collins, Jr., with Renée Elise Goldsberry and Sterling K. Brown
Set against the vibrant landscape of South Florida, and featuring an astonishing ensemble of award-winning actors and breakouts alike, Waves traces the epic emotional journey of a suburban African-American family— led by a well-intentioned but domineering father—as they navigate love, forgiveness and coming together in the aftermath of a loss. From acclaimed director Trey Edward Shults, Waves is a heartrending story about the universal capacity for compassion and growth even in the darkest of times.
What Dreams May Come (1998) Presented by Ronald Bass
Writer: Ronald Bass
Director: Vincent Ward
Starring: Max Von Sydow, Robin Williams, Annabella Sciorra , Cuba Gooding Jr., Jessica Brooks Grant, Josh Paddock
A Doctor dies in a car accident and ends up in the afterlife which is very beautiful. His wife, overcome with grief at his death and the previous deaths of their two children, commits suicide. An adventurous search for his wife ensues.
Yellow Rose
Writer: Diane Paragas & Annie J. Howell
Director: Diane Paragas (in attendance)
Cast: Eva Noblezada, Dale Watson, Lea Salonga, Princess Punzalan, Liam Booth, Libby Villari, Gustavo Gomez
Rose, an undocumented 17 year old Filipina, dreams of one day leaving her small Texas town to pursue her country music dreams. Her world is shattered when her mom suddenly gets picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Rose, facing this new realty, is forced to flee the scene, leaving behind the only life she knows, and embarks on a journey of self-discovery as she searches for a new home in the honky-tonk world of Austin, Texas.
Narrative Features

DC Noir
Director: George Pelecanos, Gbenga Akinnagbe – Multiple: Nick Pelecanos, Stephen Kinigopoulos
Writer: George Pelecanos
An anthology of noir short stories based on the works of acclaimed novelist George Pelecanos.

Drowning
Writer/Director: Melora Walters
A mother deals with the grief associated with her son going off to war.

Family Obligations
Writer/Director: Kenneth R Frank
When isolationist Peter becomes the unlikely caretaker for his rowdy, terminally-ill Uncle Frank, he chooses to engage in meaningful relationships for the first time in his life.

Limbo
Director: Tim Dunschede
Kicked off by an ethical bank worker’s discovery of a money laundering network, her trek through a crime ring’s fight club intersects by chance with crooks, gangsters, and an undercover agent.

Not to be Unpleasant but we need to have a serious talk
Writer: Giorgos Georgopoulos, Maria Fakinou
Director: Giorgos Georgopoulos
When a womanizing businessman finds out he carries an STD that will cause his past lovers to spontaneously die, he embarks on a tour through past relationships to find the one who infected him.

The Bygone
Writer/Director: Graham Phillips, Parker Phillips
A naive rancher enamored with a Lakota Sioux woman searches for answers after her sudden disappearance, but what he uncovers is a legacy of violence beyond his reckoning.

The Illegal
Writer/Director: Danish Renzu
A student filmmaker moves to Los Angeles in pursuit of his dream, but his ambitions are disrupted when he must drop out to support the family he left in India.

The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain
Writer/Director: David Midell
Based on the true events that led to the death of an elderly African American veteran with bipolar disorder — a man killed during a conflict with police officers who were dispatched to check on him.

The Witness
Writer: Mitko Panov, Pasikowski, Riker
Director: Mitko Panov
A determined officer of the International Criminal Court in seeks out the one person who can testify against a colonel accused of crimes against humanity.

Undertow
Writer/Director: Miranda Nation
Adrift in grief from the loss of her stillborn child, a woman develops a dangerous obsession with a pregnant teenager.

Wade in the Water
Writer: Chris Retts
Director: Mark Wilson
A mis-delivered package arrives in a man’s post office box bearing a horrifying secret — one that will set him on a collision course with his own dark past, a peodphile, and the predator’s disillusioned daughter.
Documentary Features
Against the Tides
North American Premiere
Director: Stefan Stuckert
One woman’s ambition to swim all 7 of the world’s most harrowing sea-channels in a single year tests her athletic limits and her personal relationships.
Cowboys
World Premiere
Writer/Director: John Langmore, Bud Force
Told in the cinematic tradition of classic westerns, this feature documentary offers the opportunity to ride alongside modern working cowboys on some of America’s largest and most remote cattle ranches. Cowboys documents the lives of the men and women working on “big outfit” cattle ranches – some of which are over one million acres – and still require a crew of horseback workers to tend large herds of cattle.

Cows with No Name
Director: Hubert Charuel
A filmmaker documents his parent’s retirement from their dairy farm, as his mother comes to terms with letting go of her beloved cows.

Guest House
Director: Hannah Dweck & Yael Luttwak
Three women are released from incarceration to a re-entry house, where they are given the chance reacclimate to life and battle addiction

Flannery
Director: Elizabeth Coffman
A portrait of Georgia writer Flannery O’Connor, vividly detailed with the life experiences that provided inspiration for her iconic stories.

Making Apes: The Artists Who Changed Film
Director: Thomas R. Burman, William Conlin
The special effects team responsible for creating the makeup for sci fi classic Planet of the Apes look back at how they revolutionized the film industry.

Paradise Without People
Director: Francesca Trianni
During the height of Europe’s refugee crisis, two Syrian women give birth and navigate motherhood and marriage while struggling to seek asylum.

Pipe Dreams
Writer/Director: Stacey Tenenbaum
The stakes are high for five young organists competing through grueling elimination rounds of the Canada International Organ Competition to prove their musical worth.

The Animal People
World Premiere
Writer: Cassandra Suchan, Denis Henry Hennelly, Sasha Perry, Brian Palmer
Director: Cassandra Suchan, Denis Henry Hennelly
A chilling portrait of what happens when activism rattles the institutions of power.

There are No Lions in Tel Aviv
Director: Duki Dror
A Rabbi’s adoration for animals inspired him to found Tel Aviv’s zoo in the 1930s, but also caused him to clash with other humans.

This Might Hurt
Director: Kent Bassett, Marion Cunningham
Chronic pain patients take part in a ‘mind-body medicine’ program, headed by a doctor with the theory that their pain isn’t physical, but rather neurological.
Dark Matters

A Patient Man
Texas Premiere
Writer/Director: Kevin Ward
In the aftermath of a terrible car accident, a man tries to make sense of his life and seeks revenge for what he has lost.

Macabre
North American Premiere
Writer: Lucas Paraizo and Rita Gloria Curvo
Director: Marcos Prado
Macabre is a feature film based on the true story of the ‘Werewolves of Freiburg’, two young brothers who were accused of brutal murders in the 90’s, in Brazil. The thriller follows Sergeant Téo in his quest for the suspects hiding in the Atlantic Forest. While the population, the press and the local police condemn the brothers, Téo realizes that one of them may be innocent.

NOISE
Writer/Director: Jeremy Laval
A man deafened by an accident begins to hear the thoughts of other people and uses the ability to investigate the disappearance of a girl.

Sleeping in Plastic
World Premiere
Writer/Director: Van Ditthavong
A small Texas town awakes when a high school wrestler gets swept into the dangerous world of an intoxicating drifter and her ruthless lover. Lives intertwine and spiral violently out of control once he becomes her escort driver and risks everything to save her.

Swing Low
Writer/Director: Teddy Grennan
A nature photographer stumbles into a waking nightmare in the Watchatoomy Valley, and is forced to fight her way out through a haze of meth-induced bloodshed.

The Wretched
Writer/Director: Brett Pierce, Drew Pierce
A teenager contending with a summer job and his parent’s looming divorce must also reckon with a bloodthirsty witch wearing the skin of the woman next door.
TV Programming

Into the Dark: Pilgrim Presented by Marcus Dunstan
Creators: Noah Feinberg and Marcus Dunstan & Patrick Melton
Cast: Reign Edwards, Peter Giles, Courtney Henggeler, Kerr Smith, Taj Speights, Antonio Raul Corbo
Inspired by true events: In an attempt to remind her family of their privilege and help them bond, Ms. Anna Barker invites Pilgrim reenactors to stay with them over Thanksgiving. When the “actors” refuse to break character, the Barker family learns that there is such a thing as too much gratitude.

Seinfeld Retrospective Presented by Alec Berg & David Mandel
Creators: Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David
Cast: Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards, Jason Alexander
The Label Maker
Tim Whatley gives Jerry a label maker as a thank you for his Super Bowl tickets. George is uncomfortable with his girlfriend’s male roommate. Kramer and Newman play a game of Risk.
The Bizarro Jerry
George uses Susan’s death to pick up women. Elaine’s new friend is Jerry’s exact opposite. Jerry’s new girlfriend has manly hands. Kramer pretends to work for an upscale firm.
Comedy Vanguard

Man Camp
Writer: Daniel Cummings, Scott Kruse, Josh Long
Director: Nate Bakke
Years after losing their father as kids, 3 man-children defend the family legacy by putting their mom’s new fiancee through an epic gauntlet of manhood at their dad’s old cabin.

Red Rover
Writer: Duane Murray, Shane Belcourt
Director: Shane Belcourt
After feeling he has nothing left to live for on Earth, a lonely geologist tries to qualify for a one-way mission to Mars with the help of an equally aimless offbeat musician.

Sawah
Writer: Adolf El Assal, Dennis Foon, Sirvan Marogy
Director: Adolf El Assal
Samir’s dream of competing in a prestigious DJing championship is jeopardized when he is mistaken as a refugee and detained in Luxembourg, forcing him into a colorful adventure to recover his identity.

The Planters
Writer/Director: Alexandra Kotcheff, Hannah Leder
Martha lives a solitary existence planting buried treasure and attempting to sell air conditioners until she takes in Sadie and her multiple personalities.

The VICE Guide to Bigfoot
World Premiere
Writer: Zach Lamplugh, Brian Emond
Director: Zach Lamplugh
The debut feature from director Zach Lamplugh (Adult Swim); This paranormal comedy follows a hopelessly millennial reporter on the most important assignment of his career: Bigfoot. But after following a prominent cryptozoologist into the Appalachian foothills, he’s forced to answer the question “is a good story worth dying for?”

Treasure Trouble
Writer/Director: Dan Erickson
After finding a gun on the beach, a young treasure hunter is caught up in a night of cascading misadventures as she teams up with her ex and his fiance to return the gun to the Russian mob in exchange for her kidnapped dog.
Texas Independents

Apartment 413
Writer: Ronald Maede
Director: Matt Patterson
Reality blurs with paranoia and delusion as deadbeat Marco receives signs that his pregnant girlfriend could be hiding something from him.

A Room Full of Nothing
Writer: Duncan Coe
Director: Elena Weinberg, Duncan Coe
A couple is forced to navigate the complexity of modern relationships when they discover they are the last two people left on Earth.

I've Got Issues
Writer/Director: Steve Collins
Human lives grappling with all the flavors of exstential despair intersect in a deadpan collage of comic suffering.
When We Last Spoke
Writer: Joanne Hock, Rick Eldridge
Director: Joanne Hock
In 1967, two sisters are abandoned and raised by grandparents in the town of Fireside. Humor, heartbreak, and triumph are served with whipped cream and lots of local nuts in this heartwarming tale of family, friendship, and forgiveness.
Family Series

Akeelah and the Bee (2006) presented by Doug Atchison
Writer/Director: Doug Atchison
Cast: Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Curtis Armstrong, J.R. Villarreal
Uplifting tale of an inner-city girl (Keke Palmer) striving to become a spelling champ.

Race to Witch Mountain (2009) presented by Alexander Ludwig
Writer: Matt Lopez, Mark Bomback, Alexander Key (novel by)
Director: Andy Fickman
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Alexander Ludwig, AnnaSophia Robb, Carla Gugino, Ciarán Hinds
A taxi driver picks up two teen runaways who possess paranormal powers.