News

Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.

– Neon, the recently launched distribution company founded by Tom Quinn and Tim League, will release Oscar winning director Errol Morris’ “The B-Side,” a heartfelt portrait of photographer, Elsa Dorfman. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2016 followed by a prestigious festival run, screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival and the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (Idfa).

The film is slated to open theatrically on June 2.

– Gravitas Ventures has secured worldwide rights to “Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo,” the compelling untold story about an extraordinary team.

The story is told told “with unprecedented access to archival footage and stories from the men who lived it, including the creator of Mission Control,...

On Story – Screenwriters and Filmakers on Their Iconic Films

Edited by Barbara Morgan and Maya Perez

247 pages, $20, University of Texas Press

The Austin Film Festival is a great place to watch films and hear from filmmakers as co-founder and Executive Director Barbara Morgan assembles a winning lineup of producers, directors, screenwriters, and performers to come talk about their craft.

Thankfully, Morgan and Maya Perez, producer of the Emmy-winning PBS series Austin Film Festival’s On-Story, have collected an assortment in a too-short collection, On Story – Screenwriters and Filmakers on Their Iconic Films. After a James Franco introduction, we get the best from the last 20 years’ worth of conversations in transcript form.

Among the highlights is the Conversation with Shane Black, David Milch, and Sydney Pollack, where the diverse filmmakers talk character, plot, structure, theme and favorite moments from across their careers.

Similarly, genre devotees will appreciate the focus on comic...

The Austin Film Festival, which kicks off on October 22, will be hosting quite possibly one of the coolest retrospectives that any space nerd could hope for. They will welcome director Ron Howard, his brother Clint, astronaut Jim Lovell and other very special guests to the Paramount Theater for a retrospective screening of Apollo 13 on Saturday, October 24th. The star-studded event will also include Apollo 13 screenwriters William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert (who directed one of my favorite space docs of all time, For All Mankind), as well as Nasa mission control specialists Jerry Bostick, John Aaron and Sy Liebergot (who was played by Clint Howard in the film) -- all of whom worked in mission control during the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. Most impressive of all is Jim Lovell (portrayed by Tom Hanks in the film), who was the mission commander and co-author of the book "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13," upon...