Filmmaker Spotlight

Mikaelyn Austin

Mikaelyn Austin moved to Philadelphia from San Diego, California in 2000 to attend the University of Pennsylvania and play division one basketball. Over the course of her four years at Penn, she discovered a love for filmmaking and the historic city that lay just east of her campus. Shortly after graduating in 2004, Austin began producing a feature-length documentary on her alma mater's storied basketball arena- The Palestra. Pulling together a modest budget from a handful of Penn alumni, she spent the next two years interviewing some of the most revered characters in college hoops and digging up hundreds of hours of archival footage and photos, much of which had never been released to the public. The documentary was completed in February of 2007 and following a successful film festival run (the film was voted a Festival Favorite at the Philadelphia International Film Festival), The Palestra: Cathedral of Basketball was licensed by ESPN for national broadcast distribution, celebrating it's original airing on July 5th, 2007. Information on regional broadcast distribution and DVD release can be found at - http://www.PalestraDocumentary.com. Tailing the success of her first production, Austin founded Philly Philms (http://www.Philly-Philms.com), an independent film/video production company based in Philadelphia. With Austin at the helm, Philly Philms has teamed up with a number of fellow burgeoning independent production companies in the city, such as Phrustrated Phan Films (producers of The Curse of William Penn – http://www.PhrustratedPhan.com) and Reconstruction Pictures, led by local award winning writer/director Ben Hickernell, to continue developing and producing the type of entertaining and high-quality filmmaking on which the company was founded. http://www.PalestraDocumentary.com