Tag Archives: Austin Film Festival

Esai Morales Starring in the Western Thriller “Cottonmouth”

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Esai Morales has a serious case of cottonmouth…

The 60-year-old Puerto Rican actor will star in the Western thriller Cottonmouth, which entered production last week in Oklahoma after receiving a SAG interim agreement.

Esai MoralesIn addition to Morales, who most recently appeared in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, the cast also includes Martin Sensmeier, Ron Perlman, Eric Nelsen, Jonathan Sadowski, Alyssa Wapanatâhk, James Landry Hébert and Kimberly Guerrero (The Glorias).

Brock Harris (Wild Game) is directing from a script he wrote alongside Jared Bonner.

Set in 1895, the film follows friends Ed and Frank (Sensmeier and Sadowski) who become brutal enemies in Oklahoma frontier territory when a rivalry develops over a woman (Wapanatâhk) who is set to inherit a prominent saloon. After a bounty hunter (Nelsen) makes Ed disappear to a tortuous prison run by a sinister warden (Perlman), he must learn the ways of an outlaw from a prison-mate (Morales) to escape and exact his revenge.

“Making a western in my home state is the ultimate blessing. With these legendary performers, we’re delivering a tall tale on sacred land,” said Harris. “Revenge is a dish best served with a smoking gun.”

Concourse and Rebullium recently teamed up on thriller Model House, which sold to Shout! Studios at TIFF and will see a rollout across multiple platforms, starting with a theatrical launch in early spring 2024.

Harris’ comedy film Dance Dads (2022) took home the audience award at the Austin Film Festival.

Vasquez Named Best Young Filmmaker at Austin Film Festival

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Nicco Vasquez may be the next coming of Robert Rodriguez…

The 18-year-old Latino filmmaker, a San Antonio native, picked up the Best Young Filmmaker award at the Austin Film Festival for his short film Crumbs.

Nicco Vasquez

It was one of 16 finalists in the festival’s Young Filmmakers Program Competition, which received entries from filmmakers ages 13 to 18 around the world.

In the five-minute film, written by Keith Limon, a little girl buries her pet bird after it dies, but an apparently homeless boy digs it up and eats it for dinner.

Crumbs

“It’s a very unexpected ending,” says the Vasquez of the short film, which he made as a student at San Antonio’s Harlandale High School. “A lot of people freak out. I like darkness and grittiness in storytelling and filmmaking.”

Vasquez is currently attending Northwest Vista College and plans to major in digital video and cinema production.

Meanwhile, Latina filmmaker Chelsea Hernandez’s See The Dirt was the winner in the festival’s Documentary Short category. The Austin-native and University of Texas graduate directed the film with Erik Mauck.