Authors — Brandon Harris
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SXSW WINNER: ROBBIE PICKERING’S “NATURAL SELECTION”
Robbie Pickering took home the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at SXSW last night for his grim Southwestern drama Natural Selection. The Jersey Village, Texas native and NYU grad’s debut feature, which tells the story of a sterile Christian housewife sent by her dying husband to find and bring back his illegitimate son from the Florida hinterlands before he dies, also won prizes for the performances of its stars, Rachael Harris and Matt O’Leary, plus its score, writing and editing. Filmmaker caught up with him during the festival to discuss his multiple prize-winning debut. Filmmaker: What inspired […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 16, 2011 -
MATT D’ELIA’S “AMERICAN ANIMAL”
Screening Times: Monday March 14th, 6:30pm (State Theatre), Tuesday March 15th, 11:00am (Alamo Lamar A), Friday March 18th, 6:30pm (State Theatre) In the dark comedy American Animal, a delusional, terminally ill young man (director, writer, editor and star Matt D’Elia) spends a long, booze and drugs-fueled night with his soon to be relocating roommate (Brendan Fletcher) as they prepare to take vastly different paths in life and death. Filmmaker: How did you first conceive of the character of Jimmy? Did you always intend to play him yourself? D’Elia: Like American Animal‘s lead character, Jimmy, I was also very ill in […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 16, 2011 -
ANNIE J. HOWELL AND LISA ROBINSON’S “SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS”
Screening Times: Monday March 14th, 1:15pm (State Theatre), Tuesday march 15th, 11:30am (Alamo Lamar C), Friday March 18th, 9:00pm (State Theatre) In Small, Beautifully Moving Parts, after tech-geek obsessive Sarah (Anna Margaret Hollyman) gets pregnant, she sets off for the West Coast for a baby shower that goes all wrong. Thrown into a tailspin, she rents a van and hits the road in search for the source of her innate anxiety, her eccentric and estranged mother, who lives off the grid in the American West. Filmmaker: How did you first conceive of your project? Howell: In 2006, we began making […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 16, 2011 -
P. DAVID EBERSOLE’S “HIT SO HARD”
Screening Times: Tuesday March 15th, 9:15pm (Alamo Ritz 1), Friday march 18th, 7:00pm (Vimeo Theater) A veteran director and producer of cable television (Wicked Wicked Games, Desire), P. David Ebersole’s rock doc Hit So Hard is a typical booze-and-drug-filled profile of his friend and collaborator Patty Schemel, the original drummer for the seminal grunge band Hole, who fell on hard times after the always controversial rock band’s heyday. Filmmaker: How did you first conceive of Hit So Hard? Ebersole: My friend Patty Schemel brought me a gold box, filled with 40-plus hours of never-before-seen video footage from when she was […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 15, 2011 -
ANNE BUFORD’S “ELEVATE”
Screening Times: Sunday March 13th, 4:30pm (Vimeo Theater), Tuesday march 15th, 10:00pm (Alamo Lamar C), Thursday March 17th, 6:00pm (Rollins Theatre) Half a decade in the making, Anne Buford’s Elevate chronicles how a group of gifted West African basketball players respond as they are feverishly recruited by American schools on the promise of their skills on the hardwood, and how coping with the adjustment to American life may be the toughest thing of all. Filmmaker: How did you first hear of the West African basketball players whose stories Elevate chronicles? Buford: In the Fall of 2004, RC Buford, who besides […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 15, 2011 -
ANLO SEPULVEDA’S “OTIS UNDER SKY”
Screening Times: Sunday March 13th, 9:30pm (Rollins Theatre), Tuesday March 15th, 9:30pm (Westgate), Friday March 18th, 11:30am (Paramount Theatre) The story of a Eastern religious obsessive vlogger and idiot savant whose social ineptitude only rivals his desire to create Web Art, Austin based director Anlo Sepulveda’s Otis Under Sky follows the title character as he falls in love with a kleptomaniac, womanizing lesbian and conceives of an Internet-based Art project to connect people spiritually via the Web. Filmmaker: How did you first conceive of Otis Under Sky? Sepulveda: The inspiration for Otis was a soft-spoken, somewhat awkward bull rider named […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 15, 2011 -
CHERIE SAULTER’S “NO MATTER WHAT”
Screening Times: Sunday March 13th, 4:15pm (Alamo Ritz 1), Monday march 14th, 4:30pm (Rollins Theatre), Wednesday March 16th, 9:00pm (Alamo Lamar B) When 15-year-old Joey’s mother goes missing in the rural, economically depressed corner of northern Florida that he and his best friend Nick call home, they go searching for her through increasingly dangerous territory in No Matter What, a harrowing drama from first-time director Cherie Saulter. Filmmaker: You grew up in Northern Florida and your film is set there. What did you draw upon from your personal experience growing up there for this film? Saulter: None of the things […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 14, 2011 -
DON ARGOTT AND DEMIAN FENTON’S “LAST DAYS HERE”
Screening Times: Monday March 14th, 4:30pm (Vimeo Theater), Tuesday march 15th, 2:00pm (Alamo Lamar C), Friday March 18th, 4:30pm (Vimeo Theater) After their acclaimed investigation of the fate of Alfred C. Barnes‘ multi-billion dollar art collection in The Art of the Steal, Philadelphia-based doc duo Don Argott and Demian Fenton return with Last Days Here, a profile of Bobby Liebling, lead singer of the cult metal band Pentagram, who has lived a hermetic life in his parents basement for decades. Filmmaker: When did you first hear of Bobby Liebling and when did you know you had to make a movie […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 14, 2011 -
SOPHIA TAKAL’S “GREEN”
Screening Times: Saturday March 12th, 5:30pm (Alamo Lamar C), Tuesday March 15th, 12:00pm (Alamo Ritz 1), Friday March 18th, 7:00pm (Alamo Lamar C) A couple of young, New York sophisticates travel upstate in order to research a book on sustainable farming, but when a working-class local woman becomes the object of their affection, jealousy and sexual gamesmanship threaten to ruin there relationship. Green, a new film from the team behind the recently opened Gabi on a Roof in July, marks the directorial debut of that film’s producer, editor and star, Sophia Takal. Filmmaker: You and many of your collaborators worked […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 12, 2011 -
Andrew Haigh’s Weekend
Screening Times: Friday March 11th, 7:00pm (Alamo Lamar C), Saturday march 12th,, 4:00pm (Westgate), Sunday March 13th (Alamo Ritz 1), Thursday march 17th, 8:00pm (Alamo Lamar C) A wistful Friday to Sunday romance unfolds in British newcomer Andrew Haigh’s Weekend, a drama involving a pair of men who meet at a gay dance club and spend a poignant weekend together, one which will change them both forever. Filmmaker: How did you first conceive of Weekend? Haigh: I really just wanted to tell a story about two guys and the start of a possible relationship in all its insecure, messy, drunken […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 11, 2011
