Austin Film Society Opens Third Screen, the John H. McCall Theater

The Austin Film Society will open a third screen at its AFS Cinema on October 24, debuting the 169-seat John H. McCall Theater with the Texas premiere of James Gray's crime thriller "Paper Tiger."

The opening kicks off a weekend-long program. Neon's "Paper Tiger" screens October 27 with a discussion between writer/director Gray and AFS founder and artistic director Richard Linklater. The film opens in the rest of the country on November 13.

Three 4K restorations round out the first weekend: Martin Scorsese's "The Color of Money" (1986), Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" (2006), and the 1995 fashion documentary "Unzipped."

Linklater framed the addition as continuity rather than a departure. "The McCall Theater will allow us to expand our programming and better serve the filmmakers, festivals, and audiences who have made the theater their home," he said. "It's another step in the same journey we began four decades ago: creating a place where great films are discovered, filmmakers are supported, and a community gathers around the shared experience of cinema."

What does the new screen change?

The McCall seats 169 people and features 4K digital laser projection and 7.1 surround sound. Until now, AFS Cinema operated with two screens and an event space. A third auditorium roughly doubles the venue's capacity to run simultaneous programming — useful for festivals, premieres and repertory titles competing for calendar slots.

AFS has not said what the expansion cost, nor how many additional screening days per year the third screen adds. What it has specified is the money's origin.

The donation came from Amy McCall, wife of the late John McCall, who died in 2021. The McCalls gave AFS an earlier gift in 2016, which funded the renovation and reopening of the shuttered Marchesa Theater as AFS Cinema. AFS credits John McCall as a decades-long supporter of the Texas film industry; it inducted him into its Texas Film Hall of Fame in 2018.

Four decades of building

Linklater founded AFS in 1985, in his twenties. The organization did not get a permanent screening home until 2017, when it opened AFS Cinema as a repertory and first-run arthouse. Beyond the cinema, AFS operates Austin Studios, a 20-acre production facility, and Austin Public, a space where media professionals train and collaborate.

That track record is the context for the naming. The McCall Theater extends a funding relationship that began with the 2016 gift and has now shaped the physical plant twice.

The proof will come after the opening weekend. Restorations and a Gray-Linklater conversation make a strong debut; whether the third screen converts that into sustained programming for festivals and local filmmakers is what the next season will show.