Austin Film Festival to Honor Roger Corman for Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award at 25th Annual Festival

Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference (AFF), the premier film festival that champions the writers' contribution to film, television, and new media, is thrilled to announce Roger Corman as the recipient of the "Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking" Award at the 25th annual Austin Film Festival, this October 25-November 1.

For the past sixty years, Roger Corman has been a trailblazer in the world of independent film. He has produced and directed over five hundred films that have tackled a variety of genres. Notable credits include The Wild Angels, The Pit and the Pendulum, Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000, and Rock 'n' Roll High School.

In the 1970s Corman founded New World Pictures which quickly became the largest independent motion picture distribution company in the United States. In addition to distributing his own productions, New World Pictures was one of the first American distributors to bring foreign cinema to the US; distributing the films of Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, Frederico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Werner Herzog.

Noted for his keen ability to spot young talent, Corman's most lasting legacy is the legion of producers, directors, writers, and actors he has discovered and fostered, including Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Fonda, Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, Talia Shire, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd, and James Cameron.

Corman will accept his award on Saturday, October 27th during the annual Awards Luncheon. Past recipients of this award have included Danny Boyle, Jonathan Demme, Walter Hill, Ron Howard, Sydney Pollack, John Singleton, and Oliver Stone. More awardees for this year's Festival will be announced at a later date.

The 2018 Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference will once again present over 150 panels on the art and craft of storytelling featuring a slate comprised entirely of working film, television, and new media industry professionals. Corman joins a growing list of panelists who already include Megan Amram, John August, Mick Garris, Nicole Perlman, Ed Solomon, and Graham Yost. The 25th annual Austin Film Festival and Conference takes place October 25th through November 1st, 2018.

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