Austin Youth Film Festival: Artist Mentors

Artist Mentors of the Austin Youth Film Festival serve a couple purposes. Often times, they are guest judges that score the films with a rubric and provide detailed feedback to the student filmmakers that we forward to the students and their teachers after the festival. They attend the festival to show the students their support and partake in panel discussions and filmmaker roundtable talks. One “Artist Mentor of the Year” is celebrated at the festival each year and gives a keynote address on any aspect they feel is important to share with aspiring young filmmakers. A few of our mentors have gone even further above and beyond the call of duty offering tours of their studios, internships on set, roles as extras in their films, Q&A’s with private screenings, visit the AYFF No Talking PSA shoot for hands-on mentoring, and sometimes even just keep in contact after the festival. The students get so much more out of these interactions than mere prizes and awards, they begin long-term professional relationships with people they look up to. Our active list of artist mentors include (in alphabetical):

Austin Ameilo (actor, The Walking Dead, Fear of the Walking Dead and Everybody Wants Some)

Stephanie Ard (Producer for Rooster Teeth, FloSports)

Sharon Artega (When I Grow Up, Trapitos Sucios)

Elizabeth Avellan (co-founded Los Hooligans Productions, producer on El Mariachi, From Dusk Till Dawn, Desperado, The Faculty, and Spy Kids)

Nathan Bayless (animator on TOWER, UNDONE)

Paul Beck (animator for Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and TOWER)

Andrew Bujalski (director of Support of Girls, Results, Computer Chess)

Burnie Burns (CEO of RoosterTeeth)

Kat Candler (Black Metal, Hellion)

Owen Egerton (Blood Fest, Mercy Black)

E.J. Enriquez (cinematographer of Computer Chess, Red White & Blue, Tiramisu for Two)

Kristin Fieldhouse (Palm Swings, My Little Eye)

Sarah Gonzalez (A Knitted Wonderland, Where Soldiers Come From)

Katie Graham (director of Zero Charisma, Scare Package, Director of Photography of Best Worst Movie, The American Scream)

Emily Haggins (Director of My Sucky Teenage Romance, Pathogen, Hold To Your Best Self)

Jason Harter (RWBY, Day 5, Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny)

Allen Ho (Parachute Kids, Aa Unreal Dream)

Carolyn Hudson (Computer Chess, The Big Spoon)

Faiza Kracheni (experimental filmmaker)

R.J. LaForce (Alamo Drafthouse Programmer)

Richard Linklater (director of Dazed and Confused, Slacker, Boyhood)

Keith Maitland (TOWER, Independent Lens)

Geoff Marslett (Mars, Loves Her Gun)

John Merriman (actor in Mustang Island, You Hurt My Feelings, Gretchen)

Minnow Mountain (animation team behind Emmy winners: UNDONE, TOWER)

Jeff Nichols (Academy Award Nominee for Loving, MUD, Take Shelter, Midnight Special)

John Pierson (Exec. Producer on Chasing Amy, writer of Spike, Mike, Slackers, & Dykes)

Bryan Poyser (The Cassidy Kids, Lovers Of Hate, Love and Air Sex)

PJ Raval (Trouble The Water, Before You Know It)

Robert Rodriguez (head of Troublemaker Studios and El Rey Network)

Robin Schwartz (editor of Results, actor in Computer Chess)

Tishuan Scott (The Retrieval, Results)

Ya’Ke Smith (Wolf, Katrina’s Son, and his short Hope’s War won the Director’s Guild of America Student Film Award)

Monique Straw (Katrina’s Son, Wolf)

Cathleen Sutherland (producer of Boyhood)

Jeanne Stern (animator of Cooks Pine Mountain and her film Yizkor won the 2010 Student Academy Award Gold Prize)

Dan Stuyck (colorist on Krisha, title designed for Before Midnight, Joe)

Tim Tsai (Exec. Director of the Austin Asian American Film Festival, director of Post Racial and Of Love and Race)

Marshall Rimmer (former filmmaker at Rooster Teeth, now commercial video professional) Yen Tan (director of 1985, Pit Stop)

Hanan Townshend (soundtrack for Tree of Life, To the Wonder, Song to Song)

John Valley (Duncan, Tattoos, Diary of a Superhero)

Jason Wehling (producer of The Honor Farm, Slash, and The Retrieval)

Keisha Zollar (Astronomy Club, Vultures)

and more… Needless to say, the Texas film community has been incredibly supportive of our young filmmakers!