Austin Public Library Blog

If you're a fan of film festivals and out-of-the-ordinary movies, you'll love IndieFlix. It offers over 4,500 features, shorts, and documentaries from independent filmmakers hailing from all corners of the globe. Entries from film festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, SxSW, and the Austin Film Festival are highlighted. All you need to watch is an Austin Public Library card and a broadband Internet-connected device.

You can watch a film’s trailer, add a film to your queue for later viewing, view it immediately on a device, or watch it on your TV with a Roku or XBox. You can search for films by title or browse films by channel. You can limit films according to length, country of origin, festival, genre, or age range. These films are not rated by the MPAA, so viewer discretion is advised.

The IndieFlix registration process is pretty easy. If you’ve already signed up for Zinio, you can use the same email and password to login to the IndieFlix landing page. You will be directed to the IndieFlix page where you need to register with them directly (You can use the same email address and password that you used on the landing page). But that’s it! Then you're ready to browse the movies and start watching. No checkouts, returns, or deletions from your device. Multiple users can watch the same film on different devices at the same time.

Steps to sign up:

1. You will need to create a login at the landing page (aka RB Digital Gateway) first.

2. You will receive a confirmation email for this login. Please verify your account by clinking the link in the email. You can return to the landing page and login again. A pop-up Notice will appear. You will need to check the box and click "Continue" to get to the IndieFlix page.

3. On the IndieFlix page, you need to create another login. You can use the same email and password that you did on the landing page.

4. On the IndieFlix page, you can search for films, or browse by genre, mood, length, and rating. Click on the movie to watch the trailer or full feature. You can also click on the + sign to add to your queue for later viewing.

There are links to a Help page and an FAQ at the bottom of the IndieFlix site that can help you with most issues. Also, Customer Support is available via email: indieflix@recordedbooks.com

Grab some popcorn, and stream some films that you won't see anywhere else.

Z: a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is a story about a woman whose talents were unsung even though she was artistic and very much in the public eye. You might have seen Zelda yourself in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. The author has said that Zelda, brought up as a southern belle, did not know the depth of her interest in the arts--writing, dance and fine art--until she became involved in each of them. Zelda Sayre was17 years old when she met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a dance in Alabama. They were from different worlds: he a Yankee and not that rich, despite graduating from Princeton; she quite the opposite. After marrying, they left for New York and began a life of excess in every department: romance, glamour and tragedy. Scott wrote for the "slicks" to keep them relatively solvent, but was always working on the next novel--the one that would make him famous. When Zelda wrote really good short stories, Scott had them published under his name, not hers, because his name would guarantee publication as well as money. Zelda overestimated the possibility of being a wife and mother and also a professional dancer, difficult in the1920s. She was called a "dabbler" by Scott, mostly out of fear that she might outshine him. The book is Zelda’s story, but Fitzgeralds’s insecurities also play a big part in the narrative. Find this heartfelt biographical novel on the APL's Best Fiction of 2013, a growing list.