The 2014 awards season marks another great year for the Austin film community on the festival circuit.
The 86th Academy Award nominations, announced this morning, featured plenty of Texas talent. And the Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off in Park City, Utah today, also features a few Austin auteurs in this year's lineup.
Of course, UT alum Matthew McConaughey scored his first nod in the Oscar race for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club, which earned McConaughey a Golden Globe on Sunday. Buyers Club is also nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
But Austin documentarians will also square off in the race for Best Documentary Feature, with UT grad Zachary Heinzerling's Cutie and the Boxer and Austin-based Drafthouse Films' documentary The Act of Killing, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, will be competing side-by-side.
Director Richard Linklater is featured in both the Academy Awards nomination pool and in the Sundance Film Festival. Linklater’s Before Midnight is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and his latest film Boyhood was a late addition to the Sundance lineup. But Linklater won’t be the lone Austinite in Park City.
Kat Candler's feature Hellion, David and Nathan Zellner’s Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter and Austin transplant Todd Rohal’s Rat Pack Rat, produced by Clay Liford and former Drafthouse booker Zach Carlson, are also at the fest. Michael Tully will return to Sundance with his long-time project Ping Pong Summer. And, last but not least, first-time director Jeffrey Radice’s No No: A Documentary about the eccentric, one-time Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitcher Dock Ellis will premiere, as well.
The 10-day festival starts today and runs through Jan. 26. The Oscars will be broadcast Mar. 2 on ABC, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres.
