“If you don’t care about money and just want to do something cool, you can do it.”
When Richard Linklater Thinking back on Austin Film Society (AfS), now celebrates the 40th anniversary, everything comes to it. A powerful example of creating something cool that you love and then the money can come later, AFS has made over $ 2.7 million in contributions to filmmakers and has 20 acres of studio space with its Austin studios – where productions have created 37,000 jobs and over $ 2.6 billion financial effects for Austin.
On the evening of March 6, AFS celebrates the 40th anniversary at the annual event it is worthy of Texas Film Awards, which also give 25 years of induction Texans from the movie and the TV world to Texas Film Hall of Fame.
When it comes to the weak and style, AfS has come a long way. But according to its founder, Linklater, who spoke to IndieWire via Zoom in advance for the festivities, is the essential DNA for these early days still there – and should be a lesson for Cinephiles everywhere on how to create a society.
It was all Linklater was looking for 1985 when he was about to turn 25, had a decent piece of money in his pocket from working on an offshore oil rig and looking for a community of colleagues for movie lovers when he moved to Austin. If there is no society already there you can create one. And Linklater did it. It is a roadmap you can also follow.
“I was privileged in it, because I had worked offshore I had money. I am the person who did not have to have a small job, ”Linklats said. “So I could spend all my time not only watching movies, reading, writing, what I did, but also edit (his first feature, Super 8-shot ‘It is impossible to learn to plow by reading books).”
“I wanted to see all these movies, so I thought I would send out another lighthouse, who is movie freaks, who wants to be my friend?”
He and his new flatmate, the latest University of Texas in Austin Film degree and regular Linklater DP Lee Daniel, met after they were kicked out of their respective houses. When they clicked immediately, they began to come up with a program that is sensational enough to turn up to Scott Dinger, then the owner of Austin’s Dobie Theater. As long as they could get enough an audience to take up decent concession sales to make it worth for Dinger, they could screen their range, such as the provocative title “Sex and blaspeamy in the avant-garde.”
The titles that were included were Salvador Dalís “Un Chien Andalou”, Kenneth Angers “Scorpio Rising”, Barbara Hammers “Multiple Orgasm”, George Griffin’s “The Club” and Curt McDowell’s “Nudes (a sketch book).”
“We only succeeded from the hope,” Linklats said. “It is also ironic, because it is right when film associations were in some way to die around the country due to video, and the pressure quality lost, and it was just a slow passing away. But we start one here in Austin, and we saw at our first two show everything just … It was successful from the absolute beginning. “
Linklater admits that “success” that is defined here meant simply being able to “pay for the movie and pay for shipping and print Flyers on Kinkos, if we do not get them for free because someone we know works there.” This was not at first to support yourself financially or hire any-Austin Film Society was all-volunteer for the first ten years, and Linklater worked as a servant and Bellhop to support the rent for a dedicated AFS screening space above Captain of the Western Bus on its intergalancy Ut-Austin campus.
Linklater had also put together “a board” with prominent film-loving locals in Austin, such as film programmers and Professor Chale Nafus and Austin Chronicle and SXSW founder Louis Black. Having a board meant that AfS was official enough as a non -profit to receive grants from art organizations. But getting free ads in Austin Chronicle that promotes AFS screening also helped.
The Austin Film Society was able to fly in a filmmaker for the first time in 1988. The director was James Benning, considering a $ 300 Honorarium, which would introduce his experimental film “Landscape Suicide”: “He only got from the aircraft with a paper bag, which is his cause, and a print in one hand and only lasted for a few days.” .
Linklater never showed his own films at AFS until he discovered another thing to have the organization “kick up another hack” financially: the benefit premiere. “When” Slacker “came out (1991) I was like,” Oh, let’s show it on Paramount (Austin’s classic 1,200-place movie palace) and have all the proceeds to go to the Austin Film Society. And it’s like, wow, we just did one in one night. “
Recognizing that his way of thinking was “poverty situation” well into the 90s and that he and those in his orbit had lived “as a bad student throughout the 20th century”, Linklater fought to raise the AFS ticket prices for the benefit review of Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” in 1994.
“It took me a while to realize that Austin changed,” Linklats said. “I grew up in the Depression Time 80s. $ 2 was our fee. I was still stuck in that era. No one I knew, or no one in Austin, had any money. You may have worked at the (Ut-Austins) Burger Center. There was really no economy outside the university of the state. ”
“When” Pulp Fiction “came out I said,” God, will people pay 10 dollars per ticket? “And we sold out. This is the pre -digital ticket. It was sold out as” Boom! “I said:” Oh, we should have charged much more. “The rest of the 90s was a time for extraordinary growth that culminated any CEO Rebecca Campbell 1998, the opening of Austin Studios 2000, the inauguration of Texas Film Awards And Texas Film Hall of Fame, and AfS begins to award its filmmakers grants himself. In 2017, the Austin Film Society opened its own AfS Cinema, the city’s only non -profit arthouse Theater.
Linklater now strongly believes that this is a roadmap that cinefiles in other cities can follow. “If you don’t care about money and you can get a pretty good arrangement with a theater, you can make it happen,” he said. “I always say, you and some friends (can make it happen). Everyone has their own competence set. Oh, they are good at making the flyer. Oh, they like to set up flyers. Oh, they are good at booking the movies. It’s not that difficult. It is administrative. You must send a check, you must send (the printout), you must receive (the printout), all this. A person can actually do a lot (of this on their own). I know that. But it is more fun to do it with a group. It’s like being in a punk band except that we showed movies or put up flyers late at night all over the city. I think we should be a renaissance. ”
If you had asked Linklater three or five years ago if he was a hike about Cinephilia, he may have said no. But after pandemic, he feels a shift that exhibitors need to recognize.
“I’ve been to many places in recent years – only festivals and campus situations – and I feel a real hunger now. And I see our audience in the film community and other places I have been: Young. Young. Cinema does not age. There are young people, I talk under 25, the student age and a little beyond who fills out theaters to watch movies of all kinds. Current movies, old movies. I’m so excited about it because just when you think of children today, they look at their phones; They would rather watch two hours on Youtube, that’s not really true.
“People have a need for society. Film people, you will find that community in your cinema. It’s your church. It’s your gathering place. It’s your bird feeder. If you are a hungry bird, this is where you go. “
Was it something just unique to Austin? Linklater doesn’t believe either.
“I really want to create a system that makes it easier for people to get started (create their own movie screenings),” he said. “Maybe we will have starts for these film associations, help them with the bookings, anything. It’s an early idea, but it’s real. We are working on it right now. ”
If the Austin Film Society model could be exported to the rest of the country, Cinephilia’s future should really be light. It is a roadmap for what is possible. You just have to be willing to build the road.
