Other Worlds Austin Presents DAVE MADE A MAZE, a Texas Premiere

As part of its Orbiter Year-Round Series, Other Worlds Austin SciFi Film Festival is thrilled to present the Texas premiere of the SciFi horror/comedy DAVE MADE A MAZE on Wednesday, July 19 (7:30pm) at Flix Brewhouse. Producer John Charles Meyer will be in attendance and will do a Q&A after the screening.

Co-Writer/Director, Bill Watterson’s feature debut re-imagines classic 80s adventure films with a modern comedic edge and a higher body count. The handmade fantasy world comes to life with puppetry, stop-motion animation, and in-camera optical illusions. More than 30,000 square feet of donated/scrap cardboard was used in the creation of more than 20 unique sets.

SYNOPSIS:
Dave, an artist who has yet to complete anything significant in his career, builds a fort in his living room out of pure frustration, only to wind up trapped by the fantastical pitfalls, booby traps, and critters of his own creation.

“DAVE MADE A MAZE is the kind of film that only comes around once in a decade (and more than likely once in a filmmaker’s life),” says Bears Fonté, OWA Founder and Artistic Director. “Handcuffed by budgetary restraints but blessed with total control and willing (and often free) collaborators, Watterson incorporates every crazy thought he can into the film, producing a collage of filmmaking styles that echo’s Dave’s own mind all in service of a beautiful unified goal.”

“We wanted to play in the sandbox,” explains co-writer/director, Bill Waterson, “of old-school practical effects – puppetry, stop motion animation, cut paper animation, and optical illusions – to reignite that tactile sense of wonder from the movies of my childhood. When you watch a Harryhausen film, or a Henson creation, the creatures are hypnotic and magical because they’re real; they have real texture, depth, weight, and life. We built a team of artists whose hands would be apparent throughout the process; we wanted to see the pencil lines, the excess glue, the imperfection of a creative mind at work. That had to be baked into the production design for the world to seem real and relevant.”

“Bill Watterson’s film is a triumph of design and creativity,” says Fonté. “It taps into failure anxiety that so many people in their mid-thirties feel, the desire to want to achieve something remarkable.”

“DAVE MADE A MAZE is an unforgettable theatrical experience that I can’t wait to share with our audience,” says Dan Repp, OWA Senior Programmer and Event Director. “It is one of the most creative films I have ever seen. My inner child was brought out by its sense of adventure and my mind was challenged by its depth of subtext.”

DAVE MADE A MAZE has won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at Slamdance (2017); the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature at Florida Film Festival (2017); the Best Feature Film at Omaha Film Festival (2017), and more