Slackery News Tidbits, February 6

Here's the latest Austin film news, with a great short film at the end.

• Production company Parts and Labor, founded by former Austinites Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen, has signed an output and development deal with German-UK sales and production group K5. The agreement covers all current productions in development, such as Red Light Winter, set to star Kirsten Dunst, and The Womb. Parts and Labor produced the movie Beginners, for which Christopher Plummer has received a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination. (Before being known as Parts and Labor, Van Hoy and Knudsen also produced local films Gretchen and I'll Come Running.)
• The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program, a Texas Film Commission production incentive, distributed $25 million in state funds to 177 film, television, commercial, and video game projects last year, such as Friday Night Lights and Predators, according to an Austin American-Statesman article. To qualify for incentives, production companies must submit documentation of spending and meet eligibility standards. The Texas Legislature approved $30 million to use toward the incentive program this year and next, down from $60 million in the previous session.
• The local hip-hop musical feature Camp Kickitoo won the Best Comedy award at the recent San Diego Black Film Festival. Shot in Central Texas and starring an Austin-area cast and crew, the movie centers around Alvin, a young man who takes a job as a summer camp counselor when he can't find a job. No word yet on when the movie will screen in Austin; you might keep an eye on the film's official website.
• University of Texas RTF professor and film aficionado Charles Ramirez Berg spoke with Orange Magazine about the 84th Annual Academy Awards. Berg predicted that The Artist, an ode to silent cinema, will win Best Picture, although he is uncertain as to who will win Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories.
• Former Austinite and 2011 Texas Hall of Fame Rising Star John Hawkes reminisces about being a teenager in 1970s Austin with London-based newspaper The Guardian (which refers to our city as "a notorious oasis of counterculture oddness"). The 52-year-old actor, originally from Minnesota, was quoted as saying, "It was fun leaving Austin, where I'd been viewed as fairly normal. As soon as I got to LA, for some reason, it was like: psycho!" Hawkes moved to LA after touring with bands such as the punk band Meat Joy with Austin-based singer-songwriter Gretchen Phillips.
• Comedy mixer The Show!'s program this month will include Austin writer/director Kat Candler's short film Love Bug, 7:30 pm Saturday at Spider House Cafe. An audience Q&A will follow. Love Bug is about a nine-year-old boy's attempt to ask his crush to the annual Spring Fling Dance. Love Bug won an Austin Film Festival 2009 audience award and was a 2011 Faces of Austin selection; the City of Austin has made it available to watch online, and it's embedded below in case you can't make Saturday's screening.