John Townes Van Zandt was an American singer-songwriter. He wrote numerous songs, such as "Pancho and Lefty", "For the Sake of the Song", "If I Needed You", "Snake Mountain Blues", "Our Mother the Mountain", "Waitin' Round to Die", and "To Live Is to Fly". His musical style has often been described as melancholic and features rich, poetic lyrics. During his early years, Van Zandt was respected for his guitar playing and fingerpicking ability.
Daniel Dale Johnston was an American singer, musician and artist regarded as a significant figure in outsider, lo-fi, and alternative music scenes. Most of his work consisted of cassettes recorded alone in his home, and his music was frequently cited for its "pure" and "childlike" qualities.
Leonard Michael Maltin is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, published annually from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film critic on Entertainment Tonight from 1982 to 2010. He currently teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and hosts the weekly podcast Maltin on Movies. He served two terms as President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and votes for films to be selected for the National Film Registry.
Slacker is a 1990 American comedy drama film written, produced, and directed by Richard Linklater, who also stars in it. Filmed around Austin, Texas on a budget of $23,000, the film follows an ensemble cast of eccentric and misfit locals throughout a single day. Each character is on screen for only a few minutes before the film picks up someone else in the scene and follows them.
Dazed and Confused is a 1993 American coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by Richard Linklater. The film follows a variety of teenagers on the last day of school in Austin, Texas in 1976. The film has no single protagonist or central conflict, rather following interconnected plot threads among different social groups and characters, such as rising ninth graders undergoing hazing rituals, a football star's refusal to sign a clean living pledge for his coach, and various characters hanging out at a pool hall. The film features a large ensemble cast of actors who would later become stars, including Jason London, Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Cole Hauser, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, Matthew McConaughey, Nicky Katt, Joey Lauren Adams, and Rory Cochrane.
Richard Stuart Linklater is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993); the Before trilogy of romance films, Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013); the music-themed comedy School of Rock (2003); the adult animated films Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022); the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014); and the comedy film Everybody Wants Some!! (2016).
The Austin Chronicle is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demographic. The newspaper reported a weekly readership of 545,500. It is part of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and it emulates the typical publications of the 1960s counterculture movement.
Donald William "Bob" Johnston was an American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Simon & Garfunkel.
The Austin Film Society (AFS) is a non-profit film society based in Austin, Texas. Founded in 1985 to exhibit independent, experimental, foreign and various other non-mainstream art films, the film society has grown from just film exhibition to fostering independent filmmaking in Texas and has served as a cornerstone in building the film industry in Austin. The film society also owns and maintains Austin Studios, hosts the annual Texas Film Awards gala, and oversees the Austin Film Society grant program. The film society was founded by film director Richard Linklater, who currently serves on the board as artistic director. Other notable members on the board and advisory board include Tim McCanlies, Robert Rodriguez, Charles Burnett, Guillermo del Toro, Jonathan Demme, Mike Judge, John Sayles, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Stekler and Quentin Tarantino.
Paul J. Stekler is a political documentary filmmaker, a professor, and former chair and head of the production program in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin College of Communication. Known for his documentary films about American politics, he was also the on-camera advisor to the cast of The Real World Austin during their attempt to create a documentary about the South by Southwest Music Festival (2005–2006). Among other major filmmaking awards, he has earned two Peabody, three Columbia/duPont, three national Emmy awards, and a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Bob Sabiston is an American film art director, computer programmer, and creator of the Rotoshop software program for computer animation. Sabiston began developing software as an undergraduate and then graduate researcher in the MIT Media Lab from 1986 to 1991. While at MIT, and also after moving to Austin, Texas, in 1993, Sabiston used his 2D/3D software to create several short films, including God's Little Monkey (1994), "Beat Dedication" (1988), and "Grinning Evil Death" (1990). "Grinning Evil Death" was widely seen on the first episode of MTV's "Liquid Television" show. "God's Little Monkey" won the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica award for 1994.
Charles Wayne Sexton is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Sexton is best known for his years as a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band, though also has become well known as a music producer. Sexton co-founded Arc Angels and created the Charlie Sexton Sextet. He was still a teenager when he gained fame for his 1985 hit, "Beat's So Lonely", from his debut album, Pictures for Pleasure.
The Texas Film Hall of Fame honors Texans who have made a significant contribution to film or filmmaking, as well as non-Texans who have made significant strides in the advancement of the Texan film industry. Classic Texas films are also honored, with a member of the cast or crew accepting on behalf of their colleagues. New inductees are announced at the annual Texas Film Awards, organised by the Austin Film Society.
Lee Cavender Daniel is an American cinematographer. He was born in Dallas, Texas. His best known films are Boyhood and Dazed and Confused, both directed by Richard Linklater. Daniel has worked on many of Linklater's films and worked with Linklater as a co-founder of the Austin Film Society. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He helped his brother Bill Daniel on the underground hobo culture film Who is Bozo Texino?.
Bernie is a 2011 American biographical black comedy crime film directed by Richard Linklater, and written by Linklater and Skip Hollandsworth. The film stars Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey. It is based on Hollandsworth's January 1998 article, "Midnight in the Garden of East Texas", published in Texas Monthly magazine. It explores the 1996 murder of 81-year-old millionaire Marjorie Nugent (MacLaine) in Carthage, Texas, by her 39-year-old companion, Bernhardt "Bernie" Tiede (Black).
"Something Ventured" is a 2011 documentary film investigating the emergence of American venture capitalism in the mid-20th century. Something Ventured follows the stories of the venture capitalists who worked with entrepreneurs to start and build companies like Apple, Intel, Genentech, Cisco, Atari, Tandem, and others, and looks at the influence of Georges Doriot. It is a full-length independent film which includes interviews with prominent American venture capitalists and entrepreneurs of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, as well as archival photography and footage. The film has aired across the US on local PBS stations as well as on public television in Norway.
The Texas Promise is a 2014 documentary film about public education in Texas. The film follows the 83rd Texas Legislature, as state lawmakers battle over school funding after making $5.4 billion in cuts to public education in the previous legislative session. The film also covers the school finance court case, in which nearly two-thirds of Texas public school districts sued the state alleging that state funding of public education continues to be inadequate and inequitable. The film also covers other major education issues that came up during the 2013 session, like high-stakes testing, school choice, and charter reform. The Texas Promise was produced and directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth.
In October 1981, director Jonathan Demme presented the Made in Texas - New Films From Austin series at the Collective for Living Cinema in New York City. He, along with Austin Film Society co-founder, South by South West co-founder, and Austin Chronicle co-founder Louis Black, assembled six 16mm and 8mm short films made in and around Austin, Texas, in 1980 to present as a representation of the kinds of films being made and produced in Austin at that time. The six films were Invasion of the Aluminum People by David Boone, Speed of Light, by Brian Hansen, Fair Sisters by Louis Black, Missy Boswell, and Ed Lowry, Leonardo, Jr by Lorrie Oshatz, The Death of Jim Morrison by Tom Huckabee, and Mask of Sarnath by Neil Ruttenberg.
Nicolo Rafael Barbaro, better known as Nick Barbaro, is an American journalist and businessman who is the co-founder of The Austin Chronicle and co-creator of the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. Barbaro's contributions have helped define the Austin, Texas music community.
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood is a 2022 American animated coming of age comedy-drama film set during the events preceding the Apollo 11 Moon landing, loosely based on the childhood of writer, director, and producer Richard Linklater. It presents a fictional tale of a fourth-grader who becomes the first person to land on the Moon and stars Glen Powell, Jack Black, Zachary Levi and Josh Wiggins.
