The Austin Film Festival film programming team. From left to right: Jesse Trussell, Kelly Williams, John Merriman.
The Austin American-Statesman sits down with Kelly Williams, the film programming director for the upcoming Austin Film Festival. Apart from just being a nice profile of a friend (I used to work at AFF), the piece reveals the sorts of things programmers look for and the ways festivals might differ from one another.
"It's a long process. Thousands of entries come in, and it takes a good portion of the year to just get it down to a small group. I sort of look at it like a pyramid. You start at the bottom and figure out how to get to the top. Since the festival focuses on screenwriters, the main question we ask is how well is the story told. That's the No. 1 thing. The same goes for documentaries. We look for ones that are very narrative-driven."
Read A coffee with ... Kelly Williams of the Austin Film Festival.
