If you have a film at SXSW and would like to send short reports on the festival, your film, and your experience there for Filmmaker blog posting consideration, you can email me at editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com. We have a number of feature interviews going up throughout the festival, and we’ll be posting from the ground, but Filmmaker always welcomes first-person pieces from those involved with the films themselves. And, if you are attending, stop by my panel on Sunday at 1:00pm. (Why does the SXSW calendar function keep auto-syncing it do my calendar at 2:00pm?) It’s entitled “Self-Distribution: Not All By Yourself,” and here is how it is described:

Mention the words “self-distribution” to an independent filmmaker, and weeks filled with envelope stuffing, print shuttling, and Quickbook keystroking come to mind. But, these days, a DIY approach to distribution doesn’t actually mean that you have to do it all yourself. Join veterans of the distribution wars as they help you understand the network of deals and alliances that filmmakers can strike themselves in order to get their films in front of audiences.

I am moderating and my fellow panelists are Chris Hyams, CEO and Founder of B-Side; Richard Abramowitz of Abramorama; filmmaker Jon Reiss, whose articles on DIY distribution have been appearing in Filmmaker; and Caitlin Boyle of Paradigm Consulting. I’ll be covering what the paragraph about said but also the inverse: in a DIY or so-called “hybrid” distribution scenario, one in which various consultants and partners have been brought on board, what are the things that it are essential for the director to be energetically involved with?

If you are a reader of the magazine, come up and say hello afterwards, and for those who won’t be there, I’ll try to post some notes on the blog.