The 2018 Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference (AFF), the premier film festival recognizing the writers’ contributions to film, television, and new media, announced that crime-thriller TEXAS COTTON will have its theatrical world premiere at the festival with star George Hardy and director Tyler Russell in attendance on Sunday, October 28. Directed by Austin-based filmmaker Tyler Russell, this Texas-made and Texas-set drama will then be released theatrically in select cities and available online on Friday, November 16.
Following in the storytelling tradition of such uniquely Texan crime thrillers as Hell or High Water and Blood Simple, TEXAS COTTON invites moviegoers to “dig up the truth” with this riveting tale of small-town crime and justice in “The Lone Star State.” It features an eclectic cast of cult movie and TV fan favorites, including George Hardy (Best Worst Movie, Troll 2), Lew Temple (The Devil’s Rejects, “The Walking Dead”), Gene Jones (The Hateful Eight, No Country for Old Men), Jason Douglas (“The Walking Dead,” “Breaking Bad”), Tiffany Shepis (Tales of Halloween, Tromeo and Juliet), Judd Lormand (“SEAL Team,” Jack Reacher: Never Look Back), and Juliette Danielle (Tommy Wiseau’s The Room).
In TEXAS COTTON, the once thriving town of La Coste, Texas is suffering a seemingly endless crop plague. Farms are failing. The land is abandoned. Families are leaving in droves.Travis Delmore (Hardy), an aging lawman who’s seen his small community go from boom to bust in less than a decade, watches helplessly now as the remaining townsfolk curse their luck and resign themselves to a bleak future.
Everything changes, however, when Delmore arrests Joe (Temple), a mysterious stranger who is caught “spraying things” and who claims he’s been hired to revive the town’s farmland. As Joe’s story unravels, however, the Mayor (Douglas) soon suspects this outsider is responsible for causing the entire plague. The locals demand swift justice, but the clues don’t add up for Delmore who stirs up a hornet’s nest of trouble and ultimately turns the whole town against him. The stunning climax leaves more than one man dead and the people of La Coste changed forever.
TEXAS COTTON is the second feature film from director Tyler Russell, who previously helmed the 2016 heist-comedy Here Comes Rusty, starring Joey Lauren Adams, Fred Willard, Mark Borchardt and “Colonel” Bruce Hampton. Russell co-wrote and co-produced TEXAS COTTON with Jameel Khaja, who previously wrote the 2001 Austin Film Festival Feature Film Award winner and 2002 Berlin Film Festival Special Jury Prize winner A Passage to Ottawa.
