ATX Television Festival Sets ‘Ziwe’ & ‘Small Axe’ Panels In First Wave Of Programming; Michael J. Fox To Receive Annual Honor

ATX Television Festival revealed the first handful of titles set to take center stage for its virtual season 10 event. Showtime’s Ziwe, Steve McQueen’s Small Axe and Fox’s HouseBroken will be among the featured titles for the annual television event, which will run from June 11 to 20.

The 2021 edition will be the second virtual event in the fest’s history amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Like its in-person iteration, this year’s ATX Television Festival will feature industry-focused panels with a number of showrunners, executives, teasing what’s the to come in the television scene.

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Additionally this year’s festival will honor five-time Emmy winner Michael J. Fox with the Award in Television Excellence. The annual honor seeks to recognize individuals whose career reflects the best of television, through work that is thought-provoking, genuine, expansive, and ultimately, entertaining. Fox will join this year’s ATX Television fest for an intimate conversation spanning his perfromances on a number of titles including Family Ties and Spin City. Previous ATX honorees include Henry Winkler, James L. Brooks, Norman Lear, Marcy Carsey and Phylicia Rashad.

Prospective attendees can book their festival badges, day passes, single tickets and find more information here.

The festival will partner with Showtime to feature a marquee conversation spotlighting Ziwe Fumudoh’s upcoming late-night variety show, Ziwe. The conversation will provide a one-of-a-kind look into Fumudoh’s rise from social media breakout, her ability to harness the chaotic but essential art of making white people uncomfortable.

Amazon Prime Video will present an in-depth look at Steve McQueen’s anthology series Small Axe. McQueen will be joined by Channing Godfrey Peoples for a one-on-one conversation and exploration of the five films that comprise the series.

ATX will feature a screening and Q&A for Fox’s HouseBroken, which follows a group of neighborhood pets and stray animals as they work through their issues inside and outside their therapy group. The panel will include co-creator Clea DuVall, executive producer Sharon Horgan, actors Nat Faxon and Sam Richardson, and co-creators and executive producers Gabrielle Allan and Jennifer Crittenden. Additional panelists will be announced at a later date.

ATX Television Festival Season 10 will also include a reunion for MTV’s Faking It, which ran from 2013 to 2016. The reunion, marking five years since the series finale, will celebrate the show’s LGBTQIA+ representation. Joining the reunion panel will be creator Carter Covington, and cast members Rita Volk, Katie Stevens, Michael Willett, Yvette Monreal, and Sophia Ali.

On the independent side, the festival will premiere the third installment in the original short-form comedy series Speech & Debate, from Kamen Edwards and Cassandra Jean Amell. Joining the panel will be joined be actors Stephen Amell, Aisha Tyler , and John Barrowman to discuss the newest episode, Speech & Debate: Legacy, as well as the process of creating independent content with friends & collaborators during a pandemic.

The Oz Retrospective, which was originally slated for the 2020 edition, will join this year’s line-up. It will feature a look back at the groundbreaking series which debuted in 1997 as HBO’s first original one-hour drama. The event will dive into the series’ narrative structure and feature a conversation with series creatorTom Fontana, Terry Kinney, and cast members Lee Tergesen, Dean Winters, Harold Perrineau, and Kirk Acevedo.

The festival also announced its first round of panels, which will range from deep dives in horror and animation, to roundtable discussions with showrunners. This year’s panels will include:

• “Beyond the Scares: Emotional Catharsis & Healing in Horror”

• “Growing Up Is Hard: A New Generation of YA Protagonists”

• “Mad as Hell: TV’s Dangerous Women”

• “The Queer Gaze”

• “Pandemic Proof: Adult Animation”

• “Showrunner State of the Union

• “Buying & Selling with 20/20 Hindsight”

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