The Texas Round-Up

We re-keyed every grant on the state’s paid-projects list, 1,259 of them. Where $372.2 million went, and what it says about the new program.

The third month-ahead festival ledger. Every submission deadline in December 2026, every festival running in it, and the eight December deadlines that are not on the festival’s own website.

Robert Benton shot all of Places in the Heart in Waxahachie, where he grew up, in the fall of 1983. A hotel became the bank, and a cotton gin came back to life.

How Robert Rodriguez turned a $7,000 debut into Troublemaker Studios, Texas crews, DIY film lessons and new Austin productions in 2026.

Texas first: AFF winners, Lone Star at 20, a documentary at No. 1, new deals, filmmaker lessons, and this weekend’s festivals and deadlines.

Twelve festival deadlines still open in November, with the fee beside each, plus Houston's five-year film plan, the Texas residency test and the Alamodome day on Selena.

Selena was shot in San Antonio and Corpus Christi in 1996. The Alamodome played the Astrodome, Poteet played Monterrey, and a college played the Grammys.

Former UT film students made it near Round Rock in the summer of 1973 for about $140,000, on 16mm stock rated ISO 25 and a very small lighting package.

Blank Check is set in Indiana and was shot in central Texas: an Austin castle, a San Antonio bank hall and theme park, and a Dallas fountain.

The second month-ahead festival ledger. Every submission deadline falling in November 2026, every festival running in it, and a Berlinale correction with six days left on it.

The Royal's exterior is in Archer City. Its interior is a different theater 30 miles away in Olney. Eight Oscar nominations, no stages, two lights.

Rodriguez took eight credits on one studio picture and made it at his own stages in a decommissioned Austin airport. The locations and the cost model.

The University of North Texas supplied the fictional Texas State. Fouts Field supplied the football. 17,000 locals showed up because the radio asked.

Shot in Texas: the 50 ranks every feature with more than half its principal photography in Texas by worldwide gross, counting down from 50 to 1 through August 2027.

Fifty-one acres and seventy structures near Dripping Springs, a January to June 2003 shoot, and what the record actually says about why the picture did not find its audience.

Planet Terror and Death Proof were shot back to back at Troublemaker Studios in 2006. The locations, the dates, and the one sequence that had to leave Texas.

Altman put nine of the film's ten weeks in Dallas: the Arboretum's Women's Garden, the NorthPark fountain, and a screenwriter from a Panhandle cotton town who had spent fifteen years as a script supervisor.

Plainview played Rustwater, Kansas for eleven shooting days in 1992, after two months of preparation, and the water tower kept the fictional name until 2016.

The first month-ahead festival ledger. Every submission deadline falling in October 2026, every festival running in it, and six corrections to the report it is built on.

Man of the House shot on the University of Texas campus in late 2003, using the actual UT name, stadium, band and cheerleaders. The locations, the access it took, and what a live game day costs a schedule.