Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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RAGE AND SCREAMING IN SOUTH TEXAS: LADIES TAKE OVER AT SXSW
There are at least ten narrative films at SXSW this year directed by women — twice as many as last year. At first glance, they share almost nothing in common. There’s a campy ‘50s-inspired vampire romp My Sucky Teenage Romance, by the 18-year-old Emily Hagins, and Small Beautifully Moving Parts by a pair of married adult women co-directors (each married, not to each other), Annie J. Howell and Lisa Robinson, about a pregnant woman so fascinated by electronic gadgets that she can’t begin to face the organic reality of having her baby. Some films feature male protagonists (No Matter […]
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HEATHER COURTNEY ON HER “WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM” SXSW PREMIERE
Documentary filmmaker Heather Courtney premiered her Where Soldiers Come From, about a group of Michigan teens who enlist in the National Guard and wind up fighting in Afghanistan, at SXSW. The film tracks their journey there and back, and it won the Best Editing award at the festival. Below, she recounts a confrontational moment that occurred between an audience member and her subjects at the premiere. A few days before the world premiere of Where Soldiers Come From at the SXSW Film Festival, we showed the final cut of the documentary to the guys and their families who are in […]
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New Harmony Korine/ Die Antwoord Film!
Umshimi Wam (“Bring Me My Machine Gun”) premiered at SXSW last night, and now we have it for you here. It’s the Badlands of suburban South African wheelchair rap-rave. Check it out.
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“NATURAL SELECTION” & “DRAGONSLAYER” TOP SXSW 2011 WINNERS
Jury and Audience Award winners were announced this evening at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival. Robbie Pickering‘s look at a Texas woman’s journey to self-discovery, Natural Selection, won the Grand Jury prize in the Narrative Feature competition (it also won the Audience Award) while Tristan Patterson‘s film on skateboarders in the California suburbs, Dragonslayer, won the prize on the doc side. New for 2011, films in competition were also eligible for jury awards for Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Score/Music, and Best Screenplay and Breakthrough Performance for narrative films (all going to Natural Selection except for Best […]
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FEMALE FRIGHT DIRECTORS AND LIVE TWEETING HORROR AT SXSW
I like live tweeting panels if the panels hold up to the process, and yesterday’s “Directing the Dead 2,” here at SXSW, did. (The funny thing about live tweeting is that people entering mid-stream can become confused — as happened yesterday, I realized, as I tweeted Vikram Gandhi’s comments on religion at the Q&A for his Kumare. I’d write, “Ghandi” before his comments, and several people tweeted me Jesus quotes or passages from the Bible back.) The panelists were James Wan (Insidious), Simon Rumley (Little Deaths), Ben Wheatley (Kill List), Jacob Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun), Nicolas Goldbart (Phase Seven), […]
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SXSW SNAPS, PART TWO
The Innkeepers‘ star Sara Paxton, glam at the Driskill Hotel premiere afterparty. In Ti West’s excellent horror picture, wearing a red hoodie and blue jeans she plays a tomboyish hotel clerk and amateur ghost hunter. A fantastic idea — as part of its Film Design Awards, SXSW hosts a poster design competition, displaying all the entries in lobby gallery. Myth of the American Sleepover producer Adele Romanski and Visit Films sales agent Ryan Kampe at the Kodak Filmmaker’s Brunch. Forget barbecue. Grilled cheese is the food of Austin. The sandwich here is from The Big Cheese, inside the convention hall. […]
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SXSW BLOG: “BOB AND THE MONSTER” DIRECTOR KEIRDA BAHRUTH, PART TWO
Keirda Bahruth, director of Bob and the Monster, has been blogging her SXSW experience. Read part one here. Part two is below. 8:29pm March 14th — 72 hours later. What an amazing ride this has been. Yesterday was our premiere and to say I had pre-screening nerves would be an understatement. Would anyone show up? If they did, would they enjoy the film? If they enjoyed the film, would they stay for the Q & A? If they stayed for the Q & A… you get the picture. Jeff Malmberg, the director of last year’s audience-award winner, Marwencol introduced our […]
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TRIBECA ANNOUNCES SPOTLIGHT, CINEMANIA, TRIBECA/ESPN & SPECIAL SCREENINGS
The Tribeca Film Festival announced today the films selected for the Spotlight, Cinemania, Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival and Special Screenings sections for their 10th edition, which takes place April 20 – May 1. Some of the highlights include Sundance favorites Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, The Guard starring Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson, and Higher Ground which is starred and directed by Vera Farmiga. There’s also Revenge of the Electric Car, the follow-up to Chris Paine‘s doc Who Killed the Electric Car?, and Tribeca regular Alex Gibney returns with Catching Hell. Chosen as the […]
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CHICKENS, VINYL AND LOST & FOUND IN AUSTIN: JEANIE FINLAY AT SXSW
My name is Jeanie Finlay and I’m an artist and filmmaker from the U.K. I’m in Austin for my very first SXSW and the world premiere of the feature documentary Sound it Out which I produced and directed. Sound it Out is a documentary portrait of the very last record shop in Stockton-on-Tees in Teesside, my home town. It’s a small shop in a small town. It’s a film about men and music and passion and the North East of England. It’s the most personal film I’ve ever made for the lowest budget and I’m frankly still a bit gobsmacked that my […]
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SXSW SNAPS, DAY ONE
The first day at SXSW, the 4th floor. “What’s this line for?” I asked the woman standing next to me. “No idea,” she said. But it wasn’t a line for anything. The crowd was just there. And as I pushed my way through, it slowly started to dissipate. It was like one of those highway slowdowns, where the memory of congestion lingers after whatever caused it. If you’re going to sponsor a festival, at least do something useful, like this rolling Samsung display of panel times, schedule changes and social media activity. When you check into SXSW, you’re given three […]
