GDC Austin, AMODA Present Indie Game, Pinball Docs At Alamo Drafthouse

Author: by Staff

The organizers of GDC Austin 2009 have announced a partnership with the Austin Museum of Digital Art to show two notable video game-related documentaries at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema during next week's Game Developers Conference in Austin -- one of them a U.S. cinema premiere. To coincide with the first day of the Independent Games Summit at GDC Austin, the famous Alamo Drafthouse independent theater in downtown Austin will be showing 'Into The Night with Chris Crawford & Jason Rohrer' on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 10.15pm. This documentary, originally shot for a European TV series featuring meetings between notable creators, and being shown in cinemas in the U.S. for the first time, "follows an extended conversation between the indie game designer Jason Rohrer and legendary game designer Chris Crawford. Filmed over the course of a day during GDC 2009, Crawford and Rohrer play and discuss various indie titles at the conference, show their games to one another, and talk about the past and future of game design." Selected indie game-related short films will also be shown before the main feature presentation. Also playing during GDC Austin at a special AMODA and Alamo Drafthouse one-off showing at is the pinball-related doc, 'TILT: the Battle to Save Pinball', on Thursday, September 17th at 10.20pm. This Greg Maletic-directed documentary "tells the story behind one of entertainment's most mysterious failures" - the Pinball 2000 series of Williams pinball machines which twinned video game and pinball technology. Plenty of behind-the-scenes interviews and footage illustrate the battle over Pinball 2000 at Williams, as "soon after its successful and highly-profitable launch, Williams pulled the plug, leaving behind unanswered questions and abandoning one of the world's great design organizations." The documentary tries to answer some of these questions by speaking to many of the principals involved. Selected short films will also play before this special GDC Austin screening. More information on the screenings, which are open to the public and GDC Austin attendees alike at a standard admission fee, are available on the Alamo Drafthouse cinema homepage. (AMODA, an Austin-based organization that "engages the public and artists in the creation, understanding, and appreciation of digital art", is the facilitator of both showings.)