Production news, incentive guides, filmmaker profiles, and festival coverage.
In 1913, a glove salesman from Warsaw, a director from Massachusetts, and a Hungarian immigrant got on a train headed west to make a movie — and stepped off in Hollywood instead of Flagstaff. Hollywood didn't happen because of a grand plan; it happened because of the weather.
SXSW wrapped, and for Texas filmmakers, this year's slate was a meaningful snapshot of where the state's indie scene actually stands. Not the Taylor Sheridan economy — the grassroots stuff.
The TFC Job Hotline lists paid and unpaid positions across Texas's film, TV, and industry ecosystem — a snapshot of what it offered in March 2026.
Landman Season 2 is set in the West Texas Permian Basin, but it was filmed almost entirely in North Texas — from Fort Worth's downtown towers to a church parking lot in Springtown. Here's the complete location breakdown, street by street.
For almost a decade, Macon Blair was the working actor in his childhood friend Jeremy Saulnier's films. Then he wrote his own film, won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and has built a lasting independent film career from Austin ever since.
Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley are the most important Texas filmmaking partnership you may not have fully registered yet. Sing Sing changed that. Train Dreams is finishing the job.
Annie Silverstein makes films about people the industry doesn't usually bother with. Bull went to Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2019 — a masterwork of social realism shot in and around Houston on zero pretense.
At SXSW 2026, Mark and Jay Duplass had two films in the program — two brothers who have been at this for 30 years and still count Austin as the origin point of everything.
The Dallas International Film Festival turns 20 this year — and the 2026 edition, running April 23–30, comes with new additions that make it the most ambitious DIFF yet.
Charley Crockett showed up to his SXSW documentary screening in Austin the same way he shows up everywhere — like a man who has nothing to prove and everything to say. Before the film rolled, he told the crowd: "Authenticity is, in my opinion, perseverance. It's hard won over time."
While SXSW was absorbing most of the Texas film oxygen, Kenneth Branagh and Boyd Holbrook spent part of summer 2025 shooting an Iraq War drama at a freshly renovated studio in South Dallas.
The Austin Film Society's grant program is the most important source of direct cash funding for independent Texas filmmakers. Since 1996 it has given out more than $3 million to more than 570 Texas filmmakers, launching the early careers of David Lowery, Kat Candler, Greg Kwedar, and Cristina Ibarra.
Timing festival submissions is half the job — miss a deadline by a day and you're waiting another year. A calendar of Texas festival submissions: what's open, what's closed, and when the next windows open.
San Antonio has quietly become the best deal in Texas for filmmakers. Since November 2025, the city offers a combined state and local package of up to 45% back on production spending — the highest in the state.
While Fort Worth gets the headlines for SGS Studios and San Antonio announces its 45% incentive package, a Houston-based film investment fund has been quietly building a slate of commercial action films — with two projects in active development heading into 2026.
The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program (TMIIIP) is a cash grant — not a tax credit — paid directly to your production company as a percentage of qualifying Texas expenditures. Here's how to actually apply, step by step.
Houston wants to be a film city, and the Houston Feature Film Incentive Program (HFFIP) is its opening bid. Before you pack the grip truck, you should know what you're actually getting.
David and Nathan Zellner have been making weird movies together out of Austin since they were kids with a VHS camera and no budget. Two decades later, they're shooting with Cate Blanchett, Chris Pine, and Dave Bautista.
There are Texas filmmakers who talk about Texas a lot. David Lowery is not one of them — based in Dallas, he has quietly built one of the most varied and respected directorial careers of his generation, moving between A24 arthouse and Disney without losing his voice in either direction.
Channing Godfrey Peoples grew up on the south side of Fort Worth and spent twenty years figuring out how to tell the story of the Miss Juneteenth pageant. Her debut won the SXSW Louis Black "Lone Star" Award and launched her onto the national stage.
Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick brought their actual family to SXSW and screened a movie about their actual family making a horror movie. It premiered Friday the 13th.
The Austin Film Festival runs one of the most respected script competitions in the country. For the 2026 cycle, the early bird deadline was March 27, with feature entries at $60 and Drama and Comedy winners receiving $5,000 cash plus travel to attend AFF in Austin.
Texas has never had this many productions running simultaneously. Here's what was actively shooting or just wrapped across the state as of March 2026.
On March 5, inside a converted airplane hangar at Robert Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin, the Austin Film Society held its 2026 Texas Film Awards. Here's what happened — and why it matters if you make films in this state.
The 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival wrapped in Austin after a seven-day run that showcased why the city remains ground zero for independent film discovery. The winners, the Texas-specific awards, and what they mean for Texas filmmakers.
Texas is building studios faster than any state outside of Georgia. Here's where the bricks-and-mortar side of the Texas film boom actually stands, facility by facility.
The 98th Academy Awards were held on March 15, 2026, and One Battle After Another dominated with six wins, including Best Picture. This year's Oscars had real Texas in them — starting with key sequences shot in downtown El Paso.