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Other Worlds Austin is an annual science fiction film festival occurring at the Galaxy Theater in Austin, Texas. Founded by former Austin Film Festival Director of Programming Bears Fonté, Other Worlds Austin is Austin's first festival dedicated strictly to science fiction. Debuting in December of 2014, the festival will feature 10 screenings, both features and shorts. According to Fonté, the goal of the festival is to find science fiction films that have been overlooked by other film festivals: "There are a ton of sci-fi films out there, maybe they've played another festival, maybe they are a bit more indie. ... I want to create an outlet for those films." The Austin_American-Statesman called the festival "another volley in our fair city's possibly-unconscious-yet-seemingly-perpetual campaign to become the geek culture capital of the world."

History
Other Worlds Austin (or OWA) was announced in June of 2014 and was noted for having a number of females on the programming team, a rarity in genre festivals. Prior to the inaugural festival, OWA presented the US Premiere of Dead Within, a post-apocalyptic thriller written and directed by Ben Wagner as party of a bi-monthly screening series. The first festival will take place December 4-6th.

About the Festival
According to the Other Worlds Austin website: "Other Worlds Austin is dedicated to bringing the best in SciFi to Austin, TX. Our programming team looks past budgets or the Hollywood push to find great stories, and give them their Austin premiere.  Although we would love to be a film's World or US Premiere, there are plenty of films making the festival circuit that right now have very little opportunity to play this town, one that has embraced Science Fiction for years and may just be the center of 'geek' culture."

2014
The 2014 program will be announced in November of 2014. Submissions were open from June 1 to October 1, 2014. The festival will award $500 to the best film as selected by the audience.

Success stories
2008 Semi-Finalist script, Stranded by Rachel Long and Brian Pittman was optioned by Rick Dugdale and Daniel Petrie Jr. of Enderby Entertainment and produced. The film, now titled Dawn Patrol, will make its world premiere at the 2014 AFF.

In 2013, two former Semi-Finalist scripts both made their World Premiere at Austin Film Festival, Cavemen, starring Skylar Astin and Chad Michael Murray and Coffee, Kill Boss starring Eddie Jemison and Robert Forster.

1994 Excess Baggage, written by Max Adams, is optioned by Columbia. Movie stars Alicia Silverstone and Benicio del Torro.
 * Early Success Stories

1995 Goodbye Lover, written by Ron Peer was produced by New Regency. Two-time Oscar nominee Roland Joffe (The Mission, The Killing Fields) directing. Movie stars Patricia Arquette, Don Johnson, and Ellen DeGeneres.

1996 Natural Selection, written by B.J. Burrow and Allen Odom, wound up being produced by the festival founders themselves. Movie stars David Carradine, Michael Bowen, Darren Burrows, Stephen Root, and Bob Balaban, aired on Showtime. Available on DVD renamed The Monster Hunters.

1997 Miracle in Lane Two, written by Donald Yost and Joel Kauffmann, was produced for the Disney Channel.

1998 Happy Hour, written by Richard Levine, was ptioned and producer, starring Anthony LaPaglia, Eric Stoltz, and Robert Vaughn.