Over the past several years, the Texas Legislature has slashed budget incentives for film productions, some of the most high-profile Texas-set movies and TV shows (Hell or Highwater, Waco, Hap & Leonard) have been shot in the neighboring states, and the dream of Austin as a laid-back, iconoclastic alternative to Hollywood seems to be in peril.

And yet, the Austin Film Society’s eighteenth Texas Film Awards on Thursday was packed with Hollywood luminaries who have a soft spot for Texas. (Full disclosure: Texas Monthly was a sponsor of the Texas Film Awards, and Executive Editor Kathy Blackwell was the chair.) Academy Award-nominated actor Timothée Chalamet referenced the famous Texas-map scene in Richard Linklater’s Bernie. Chalamet’s Call Me By Your Name co-star Armie Hammer—who founded Dallas- and San Antonio-based BIRD Bakery with his wife, Elizabeth Chambers—accepted the Variety One to Acclaim award, honoring breakout talents. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson—who shot much of his 2007 oil epic, There Will Be Blood, near Marfa—was presented with an inaugural Jonathan Demme Award, which honors the late director who championed young, little-known Texas filmmakers in the early 1980s and exhibited their work around the country. In an on-stage conversation with Anderson, Linklater credited Demme’s “Made in Texas” film program with convincing him that Austin was a place where a young filmmaker could go to make bold, personal work.

At least for one night, concerns about the state of the state’s film industry took a backseat to art.

The eighteen-year-old Texas Film Awards took place in the new AFS Cinema for the first time.
Gary Miller/AFS
Directors Richard Linklater and Paul Thomas Anderson discuss the legacy of Jonathan Demme and his influence on their work.
Gary Miller/AFS
Academy Award–nominated actor Timothée Chalamet, a New York native who gained a more nuanced understanding of Texas from Richard Linklater’s Bernie, introduces his Call Me By Your Name co-star Armie Hammer, one of the evening’s honorees.
Gary Miller/AFS
Girls Trip star Regina Hall poses with Austin director Andrew Bujalski. Hall stars in Bujalski’s upcoming “breastaurant” comedy Support the Girls.
Gary Miller/AFS
Fans snap photos of actor Timothée Chalamet.
Gary Miller/AFS
Actor and Texas bakery impresario Armie Hammer, whom the New York Times critic Wesley Morris has called “hilariously handsome,” accepts the Variety One to Acclaim award.
Gary Miller/AFS
Austin Chronicle founder Louis Black introduces the inaugural Jonathan Demme Award.
Gary Miller/AFS
Richard Linklater, Austin Film Society CEO Rebecca Campbell, and Paul Thomas Anderson pose for a photo.
Gary Miller/AFS
Dallas writer-director Augustine Frizell, whose debut feature, Never Goin’ Back, premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, speaks about her experience as an Austin Film Society grant recipient.
Gary Miller/AFS