While visiting Austin in 1981, Jonathan Demme viewed a number of local film productions. That October, he was inspired to screen Made in Texas: 6 Six New Films from Austin at the Collective for Living Cinema in New York City. A couple of years later at a screening in Houston, Richard Linklater saw Speed of Light and Invasion of the Aluminum People, two of the films in the program, and decided to move to Austin.

Flashing forward, Demme and friend Louis Black have overseen the films’ restorations and launched the shorts on the film-festival circuit, beginning at Austin's SXSW in March 2015. The 1980 and 1981 productions that comprise Made in Texas were variously influenced by the punk and New Wave music scene. The program: Death of a Rock Star (directed by Tom Huckabee, 12 min.), Invasion of the Aluminum People (directed by David Boone, 30 min.), Speed of Light (directed by Brian Hansen, 30 min.), Fair Sisters (directed by Louis Black, Missy Boswell, and Edward Lowry, 7 min.), Mask of Sarnath (directed by Neil Ruttenberg, 20 min.), and Leonardo, Jr. (directed by Lorrie Oshatz, 7 min.).