Brian Helgeland to Receive Distinguished Screenwriter Honor at 22nd Annual Austin Film Festival

Austin Film Festival (AFF), the premier film festival recognizing writers' and filmmakers' contributions to film, television, and new media, announced today new programming for the 2015 Screenwriters Conference, held the first four days of the Festival this October 29-November 5.

Brian Helgeland will receive AFF's Distinguished Screenwriter honor at the Awards Luncheon, joining Outstanding Television Writer, Norman Lear. Among the films Helgeland has written and directed are Legend, 42, A Knight's Tale, and Payback. Helgeland's writing credits include L.A. Confidential, Man on Fire, The Taking of Pelham 123, Conspiracy Theory, Green Zone, Blood Work and Mystic River.

Continuing the Festival's long history of staged script readings, AFF will present an unproduced teleplay by Norman Lear, entitled Guess Who Died?, a series about the life-loving and fastest growing segment of our population who ask this question daily.

Writing team Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (writers Paper Towns, (500) Days of Summer) will bring their unproduced screenplay Rosaline to the Festival for a live reading directed by Alex Timbers (co-creator Mozart in the Jungle), based on the novel When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle and the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

New panelist additions include Michael Arndt (writer Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3), Charles Burnett (writer/director Killer of Sheep), John Ridley (writer 12 Years a Slave; creator American Crime), Gary Ross (writer/director Seabiscuit, Pleasantville), and Kirsten Smith (writer 10 Things I Hate About You). The full list of confirmed panelists can be found at www.austinfilmfestival.com.

The complete list of programming at the 22nd annual AFF will be announced in late September.

ABOUT AFF:

AFF is funded and supported in part by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts, City of Austin Economic Growth & Redevelopment Services Office/Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin's future. Attendees/events are based on permitting schedules and subject to change and/or cancellation without notice. Badges and passes are available for purchase at www.austinfilmfestival.com or 1-800-310-FEST.