Sundance Prepares for an Avalanche of Austinites

Everyone knows that Richard Linklater is the keystone of Austin’s independent filmmaking community; he is also an integral piece of the puzzle when it comes to Austin’s long-standing relationship with the Sundance Film Festival. Other Austin filmmakers may have traveled with films to Sundance before him (though I am not sure who they are), but Linklater deserves the credit for initially spraying Austin’s mark on the snowy slopes of Sundance with his regional premiere of Slacker in 1991. That was only the beginning, as Linklater holds the distinction of being the Austin director who has screened the most feature films at Sundance (Slacker [1991], Before Sunrise [1995], SubUrbia [1996], Waking Life [2001] and Tape [2001]). Now we can add one more of his films to that impressive list, because Linklater will be at Sundance 2013 for the world premiere of his newest film, Before Midnight.

Sundance has done a lot for Austin’s growing reputation as the “Third Coast” of filmmaking in the United States, launching the careers of several Austin filmmakers including Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi), Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket [13 min short]), Catherine Hardwicke (thirteen), the Duplass brothers (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), Bryan Poyser (Lovers of Hate), Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter), and the Zellner Brothers (Goliath, Kid-Thing).

I am not even going to attempt to list every film at Sundance 2013 that has strong Austin connections, but here are the five that instantly come to my mind:

A Teacher (dir. Hannah Fidell)

Black Metal (dir. Kat Candler)

Computer Chess (dir. Andrew Bujalski)

Mud (dir. Jeff Nichols)

Pit Stop (dir. Yen Tan)