FILM

Aurora Picture Show presents Video Salon: Short Form Documentaries with Amy Grappell, Sunday, February 13, 1PM. Location: Aurora Video Library, 1524 Sul Ross.

In correlation with our anti-love program of short films, Love Is A Many Splintered Thing, Aurora welcomes Texas filmmaker Amy Grapell of QUADRANGLE to talk about short-form documentaries at a free video salon prior to the screening of her film as part of the program screening later that night at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema West Oaks.

After a year –long film festival tour with her award-winning film QUADRANGLE, Austin-based filmmaker Amy Grappell joins us to share her experience. “Quadrangle” started out as a video installation in “New American Talent – 09”, an annual exhibition at Arthouse, a museum of contemporary art in Austin. It went on to open at MOMA as a part of New Directors and win jury prizes at Sundance, SXSW, Dallas and the AFI Int. Film Festival. The film continues to crossover between the Film, TV and art world, as it will air on HBO Feb 16th and will open at “The Renaissance Society” in Chicago on March 13 2011. Grappell is currently developing a fictional episodic TV series based on the autobiographical QUADRANGLE story.

Amy Grappell was born in Brooklyn New York. She holds a BFA in film from New York University and is a graduate of the MFA acting program at The North Carolina School of the Arts. Her most recent film “Quadrangle” premiered at Sundance (2010) winning a jury prize, and went on to win Best Documentary Short at SXSW, Dallas FF, and AFI. The film also screened at Rotterdam, Hot Docs, True/False, and had its New York premiere at New Directors/ New Films (MOMA / Film Society of Lincoln Center). Grappell’s feature documentary “Light From The East” premiered at SXSW, aired on PBS (KLRU) and was released theatrically at the Pioneer Theater in New York City (2007).

Grappell also produced, co-wrote, and acted in the indie narrative feature “Shady Grove”, which premiered at SXSW before doing the international film festival circuit. Grappell works on select projects as a casting director. She did the original casting for the MTV series “Austin Stories” and the location casting for films such as “Boys Don’t Cry”, and “The Newton Boys”. She has received grants from: TFPF, Texas Commission for the Arts, Texas Council for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts.