Well, this very weekend (November 20-22), Austin Indie Fest will host a selection of independent films at their film festival. However, like several film festivals have done this year, they will be presenting their official selections online through BingeWave, a Video on Demand streaming service, due to the still lingering COVID pandemic. Throughout the weekend, the festival will stream 97 different films in screening blocks (either they be a collection of shorts to one or two features), and to be honest, I am excited for this weekend.
As of now, I'm aiming to stream the festival on my gaming PC using my 4K television as my monitor. After all, what's the best way to experience films in these times than to watch it on a television in the best quality possible.
Now, the festival itself offers a lot of genres. The range of the films go from shorts to features, either they be music videos, High School and College/University Student films, Fan films, Horror, Science Fiction, Comedy, Documentaries, International, TV Pilots and Specials, Animation, the works. Now, there are special category films such as Made in Texas, Made by Veterans (Matt Rifley, one of the founders and directors of Austin Indie Fest is a veteran himself), and Made by Women (which the films for this category are exclusively screened on Sunday). Also, there is my favorite categories within the festival: So Bad It's Good and Cult Classic.
As mentioned before in several of my FILM CORNER columns here on Texas Free Press, both Laslo Films and myself have competed in these categories since 2018, and we even took home the Golden Toilet trophies in the first year we competed (Jeremiah's Woods for Laslo Films under the Cult Classic category, and my Redux version of Reaper Island won So Bad It's Good). And yes, we will be competing in these categories once again this year. My friends over at Laslo Films have Mr. Deviltree in the competition this year, while I present my return to my roots with Reaper Island Part II.
However, I will say if you are a film fan, I highly recommend checking out Austin Indie Fest's virtual festival this weekend on BingeWave. Ticket prices range from $4 to $10 depending on if you want to watch just one particular day of films or the whole weekend. There are also Day After Tickets up to next Friday if you cannot find time to watch the films this weekend. I also recommend anyone to watch as many of these films as they can. Seeing the work done with independent cinema (either it be made by students, professionals, or amateurs) can be pretty breathtaking and eye-opening.
Info on the Austin Indie Fest can be found on their official website, and if you want to go straight to their event on BingeWave, you can click this link to do so.