AFS Cinema (Austin Film Society)

Richard Linklater founded the Austin Film Society in 1985, and it began as a film club that drew students, artists and devoted moviegoers. Writing for the society's 20th anniversary, Linklater described its founders as a loose coalition of film lovers who counted it a success if they could pay the rentals and shipping and do it again. The group stayed itinerant for decades, moving its screenings from one short-term home to another, while it grew into a production and funding organization: it began awarding grants to Texas filmmakers in 1996, and it operates the Austin Studios production complex, established in 2000. In 2013 AFS began showing films at the Marchesa Hall & Theatre, dividing its calendar between the Marchesa and the screening room at Austin Studios. It raised $120,000 to give the Marchesa's 278-seat theater a new projector and sound system, and in May 2016 it took over the whole building. A 2016 gift from John and Amy McCall helped pay to renovate the shuttered Marchesa. AFS closed the single-screen space in November 2016, added a second screen in a vacant event hall, renovated the kitchen and lobby, and opened the AFS Cinema on May 26, 2017, as its first two-screen art house. The opening program, assembled by Holly Herrick and Lars Nilsen, began with a Texas Film Christening: 35mm prints of Rio Bravo, Tender Mercies, August Evening and The Sugarland Express, plus the director's cut of The Last Picture Show, introduced by Linklater on May 27. Long-running AFS series such as Essential Cinema and Doc Nights returned, and AFS added full runs of new international and independent releases. One screen is given to new releases and the other to repertory programs, restorations and retrospectives. In October 2017 AFS and Amazon Studios held the Texas premiere of Linklater's Last Flag Flying there, and in 2018 the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival devoted a section to films made with AFS support. AFS calls the cinema Austin's only nonprofit art house. It sells more than 84,000 tickets a year, has more than 2,500 member supporters and works with more than 50 partner organizations annually. After a campaign that raised $305,000 from more than 430 donors, AFS is opening a 169-seat third theater, named for John H. McCall, on October 24, 2026, with 4K laser projection and a grand-opening slate that includes James Gray's Paper Tiger, followed by a conversation between Gray and Linklater.