FESTIVAL AND CONFERENCE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
Austin Film Festival’s Young Filmmakers Scholarship Program grants access to over 450 scholarships for students and teachers in middle and high school. Participants are given the opportunity to attend the 28th Annual Austin Film Festival & Conference, October 21-October 28, 2021, to learn more about the art and business of filmmaking and screenwriting. Specifically designed student panels are held Friday, October 22, and Saturday, October 23, and teacher panels are held Sunday, October 24.
Schools are eligible for up to 15 student scholarships and 2 teacher/chaperone scholarships. Scholarships are limited to one (1) Conference Badge per participant. This badge grants access to the following:
- All four days of conference panels
- All eight days of film screenings with priority entry
- Meet and Greets
- Exhibit Hall
*No one under 21 is admitted to any AFF party.
If you have any questions regarding the Festival and Conference Scholarship Program, please contact Young Filmmakers Program Director, Kelsey Walker, at yfpdirector@austinfilmfestival.com or call 512-478-4795.
PREVIOUS CONFERENCE PROGRAMMING
In addition to all of the fun, we also have curated student programming specifically for these young creatives! Check out what we did in 2021!
Young Filmmakers Panel
From Brainstorm to the Big Screen
You did it, you have a great idea! But…, now what? Writing can be intimidating to a lot of creatives, especially to those that are new to the craft. Thinking of an idea is one thing, but actually getting the pen to the paper can be tough. In this panel, we will explore how to transform your ideas into a fully-fledged story and everything in-between! Students will discover how to take their idea from story to execution.
Panelists: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (writer A Quiet Place, writer/director 65, Haunt)
Filmmakers Scott Beck & Bryan Woods first met as sixth-graders in their hometown of Bettendorf, Iowa. After discovering a shared interest in cinema, the duo began collaborating on stop-motion movies with their Star Wars action figures. This collaboration continued into high school, where they directed numerous shorts and their first feature films.
Beck & Woods burst onto the Hollywood scene with Paramount Pictures’ A Quiet Place, based on their original screenplay. The critically acclaimed box-office smash was released on April 6, 2018 and stars Emily Blunt alongside John Krasinski, who also directed. Certified Fresh with a score of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film earned over $340M at the worldwide box-office and was #1 at the domestic box-office for 2 weeks. Beck & Woods serve as Executive Producers on the film in addition to co-writing the screenplay with Krasinski.
Young Filmmakers Roundtable
The YFP Shorts Filmmaker Roundtable Session offers students the opportunity to meet and learn from selected shorts filmmakers in a casual setting among a small group of peers. Students are encouraged to ask specific questions about the creative and business aspects of filmmaking.
Panelists: Quinlan Orear, Michele Jourdan, Michael Jann, Tomson Tee, Katie Sicking, João Thomaz Londres, Alex Bendo, Nirav Bhakta, Trevor Williams, Mischa Webley
Young Filmmakers Pitch
The student pitch sessions give high school students the opportunity to pitch their best ideas to industry professionals and receive feedback in an encouraging setting, while learning more about the art of the pitch.
Pitch Judges:
James V. Hart – creator/executive producer The Hot Zone; writer Hook, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Contact, Tuck Everlasting, Muppet Treasure Island, August Rush, Epic, Crossbones; Creator, HartChart
JAMES V. HART (J.V.) was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and grew up in Ft. Worth Texas on Drive-In Movies and Saturday Matinees.
His writing/producing credits include; Hook, directed by Steven Spielberg based on an idea by Hart’s then 6 year old son, Jake, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Muppet Treasure Island, directed by Brian Henson, and Contact, directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Cindy McCreery – writer The Honey Girls, Something in the Water, Haven, Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove; Disney Feature Fellow, Associate Professor/Screenwriting Area Head, UT Austin
Cindy McCreery is an Associate Professor of Screenwriting in the Department of Radio-TV-Film at The University of Texas at Austin where she teaches television and feature film writing in the undergraduate, graduate and Michener Center for Writing programs. Previously she taught screenwriting at UC Santa Barbara and The UCLA Professional Program in Screenwriting. She is a graduate of the Walt Disney/ABC Feature Writing Fellowship program and has sold feature projects to New Line Cinema, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, National Geographic Films, Warner Brothers, MGM, Lionsgate and Branded Entertainment. She has also written for television and has sold projects to SyFy Channel, Disney Channel, NBC Universal, TNT, Televisa USA and AMC. Her comedy feature, The Honey Girls will be released by Sony & Foundation Media in the fall of 2021.
“The festival did inspire me to continue on with my passions for writing and filmmaking. It definitely did boost my morale a bit about how I could really turn a simple idea into something very good and enjoyable to the public eye.” – Daylynn Overton, Senior, Austin High School 2020 Festival Scholarship Recipient
“I learned that it’s important to find a screenwriting process that works for you, and you need to be endlessly patient. It can help to collaborate with others and pick topics of personal significance to you.” – Alex Watson, Junior, Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy 2020 Festival Scholarship Recipient