Believe it or not, there’s a brand new film festival just beyond the horizon for Austin, Texas. And a genre film festival at that! The SciFi focused Other Worlds Austin will have its first annual festival December 4th-6th at the Galaxy Highland theater, and the Cinapse team plans to be there to provide coverage! In order to get a sense of what might be in store at OWA, I was able to chat with former Director Of Programming for Austin Film Festival and current Director of Programming for Other Worlds Austin, Bears Fonté, about his own story and what OWA brings to the table. Check out our chat below, and keep an eye out for further Other Worlds Austin coverage here at Cinapse.
Ed Travis: It seems like science fiction as a viable genre occurs to Hollywood in waves, and perhaps we’re in the midst of a sci-fi boom at the moment, with the obvious revitalizations of the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, but also with films like Interstellar or Guardians Of The Galaxy being wildly popular. Why do you think 2014 is a hot time for science fiction?
Bears Fonté: It’s funny, every decade or so Hollywood realizes that Science Fiction sells tickets. The classic convergence is the late seventies when you have Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien and the first Star Trek film, up until, like, Tron in 1982. I also consider 1997 to be one of the greatest years in SciFi: Contact (based on the Carl Sagan book), Cube (low-budget SciFi horror), Event Horizon (which makes Alien feel tame), The Fifth Element (an entry in the space opera genre), Gattaca (one of the artier SciFi films ever made), Men In Black (a big studio action film), The Postman (a now legendary flop — much better than given credit for), and Starship Troopers (a return to B-movie aesthetics based on a novel by Robert A. Heinlein). So we are in a bit of resurgence right now, with those movies you mentioned and then also Edge of Tomorrow (or Live Die Repeat if that’s what they’ve decided to rename it), Elysium and also the Hunger Games series which is very much a post-apocalyptic SciFi tale. I think you can do a lot more now with CG than ever before, so it’s cheaper to do something impressive. But it’s also a marketing thing, it’s the studios trusting the product. John Carter was a huge bomb and I think a big part of that was not promoting right. John Carter Of Mars brings in the right audience, John Carter sounds like a Denzel Washington movie about insurance or something. The Star Wars and Star Trek media trains are unstoppable, and Guardians Of The Galaxy was really promoted as a superhero movie, which is sort of questionable as science fiction. The best science fiction films have much more thinky stories. For instance: Did you see Automata? That is a very smart film and almost all of it is done with live action puppet robots.
ET: Austin is famous for its festivals. We have so many festivals, in fact, that the market is very crowded. What was it about Other Worlds Austin that you felt could stand out from the crowd and make it successful in a town like Austin?
BF: Very true. I think we are the number one festival town in the country if you count all the music fests as well. I didn’t decide to put together OWA lightly. I knew exactly what was out there. In 2013 I received 3500 submissions at Austin Film Festival as the Director of Programming. A lot of those were SciFi — and we could never have played everything that was great. I also love Fantastic Fest and every year they play a bit of SciFi, but actually very little if you compare it to the horror and dark noir type films that they usually program. And last year I had a SciFi short of my own that played 40 film festivals — most of them Horror/SciFi genre fests. At every fest I went to, I saw something new and great that hadn’t played Austin yet. So I knew the films were out there. As for audience, I’m very much an “if you build it, they will come” sort of person. I think Austin is the Geek capital of the world. And we were trying to do something very small, so I knew we would be okay. Fast forward a few months later, and we sold out our theater and had to add a second one in order to keep sales going. It’s very exciting.
ET: You spent time as a programmer at Austin Film Festival before you started OWA. I know a ton of people who would love to be able to describe themselves as professional film programmers. How did your prior career lead you to that place and do you have any advice for folks who want to do what you are doing?
BF: I think I came into it in a less direct route than most people. I don’t have a film degree, I have a theatre degree. But I’ve always been a writer. And I started reading for the Austin Film Festival Screenplay competition back in 2003 under the very cool BJ Burrow. I did that for several years, then moved to LA and read scripts professionally for producers and coverage services. At the same time, I put together my first feature, iCrime, which I wrote and directed. We ended up doing the post-production in Austin, so I moved back and started reading for AFF again (in the meantime I had been a semi-finalist in the screenplay competition myself and a finalist in their pitch competition). I went to the current screenplay director Matt Dy, who I love, and just gave myself over as basically a full time volunteer, and became his assistant. There was some job shuffling going on a few months later and a job opened up in the film department and that was that. As for advice, these jobs rarely get posted, so find your target and volunteer. No festival ever doesn’t need volunteers. And when a job opens up, they’d rather hire someone they know than someone they don’t.
ET: It is clear from the OWA website that your favorite sci-fi film is Demolition Man. Ballsy choice! How much does your personal taste play into what you program at festivals and what can potential OWA attendees infer about the festival’s programming slate based on your personal sci-fi preferences?
BF: One of the main reasons I started OWA was to give some of my favorite people programming experience. We have six programmers and the festival is very much a group effort of these people, who not only screened all the films but also do the less glorious things like email you about your wristband or hang up posters. A lot of the team is made up of screeners I got to know and love at AFF or former interns of mine, really smart people who I felt could really bring something special to a festival if they were given more responsibility, something that would not have been possible where I was. As for my own personal taste, I love all SciFi, but I do have a special place in my heart for camp. I loved the 1980 Dino De Laurentiis Flash Gordon with Queen on the soundtrack and Ornella Muti, my first bad girl crush. I loved Battle Beyond the Stars, the Roger Corman SciFi Magnificent Seven. I think SciFi can be fun, and still be SciFi, so there are a few of those I pushed for that may have been sort of lower on the other programmers list. For example, I love this short Earthlickers we are playing. It’s bordering on skinemax in style, but it’s just silly fun, and we are playing it before this hilarious space comedy Space Milkshake that features a dimension takeover by an evil rubber duck voiced by George Takei, so yeah, there’s a bit of that. But there are also really heady pieces like The Phoenix Project which is about four scientists sequestered in a house trying to reanimate the dead. But it’s less about the process and more about the moral ethics of scientific funding and falsifying your data, etc. I love it all.
ET: When the very first Other Worlds Austin festival has wrapped up, what are you hoping will stand out to attendees as the highlights of the festival? (And to which tropical isle will you retreat in order to recover?)
BF: I hope they see something fresh, and something that would not have played Austin on the big screen otherwise. I hope they will see the vast possibilities that the genre has to offer, and that SciFi doesn’t need to have exploding spaceships and Tom Cruise to be fascinating. Actually, after OWA I head right to the International Film Festival Summit, a sort of festival of festivals, that is here in Austin. Festival directors from all over the world come together to discuss issues that affect all festivals. I’m speaking on a panel called “Formats, Festivals & Financial Considerations, from Submissions to Screenings,” and heading up a drill-down session on Starting a Festival. After that… then yes, I’m actually going to Myrtle Beach, although I think the temperature will be around 55 degrees, but it’s off season and I had to pay for that second theater somehow!
I really enjoyed hearing about Bears’ own path to becoming a film programmer as well as some of the philosophy behind his programming choices. Other Worlds Austin looks to be a relaxing and manageably sized festival that is still kicking off its very first year at a size that is surprising even its founders. You can still buy wristbands to the festival if you are interested in checking it out, and if so… maybe I’ll see you there!
And I’m Out.