Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2007 > October > 12 > Entry
Film festival, day one
Things feel mellower, smaller, this year at the Austin Film Festival. Maybe attendees for both the films and the Screenwriters Conference haven’t settled in, because a dominating groove has yet to be cut. Lots of people at the opening night party, but the usually swarming Driskill Bar was a ghost town Thursday night.
Turn out was respectable at the fest’s opening night movie at the Paramount, “Chicago 10,” a blistering historical docudrama about the riots surrounding the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. Surviving Yippie Paul Krassner, who’s in the film, did a post-movie Q-and-A, but we left for a last-minute party at Cedar Street Courtyard in the (dreadful) Warehouse District.
Screenwriter Robin Swicord with Paul Krassner at the opening night screening of “Chicago 10.” (Picture from the Austin Film Festival.)
Director Thomas Mignone threw the bash for his first feature “On the Doll,” a harrowing drama about child abuse, screening at 7:30 tonight at the Dobie. Mignone has made videos for Tool and electronica act The Crystal Method, who was there to lay down the buzz-saw soundtrack to the outdoor wingding. The party was hardly packed, but people, especially extremely stylish women, danced and shimmied to the occasionally melodic racket. Someone had found their groove.
Got a sneak peek today of the fest’s closing night film, Sidney Lumet’s bleak and brilliant “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.” Easily one of the year’s best. Go HERE to find out how you can see it next Thursday.
‘Before the Devil … ‘
