SXSW Features
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IFP NARRATIVE LAB RECAP #3: TIM SUTTON
Filmmaker Tim Sutton (pictured) attended the IFP Narrative Lab with his feature Pavilion. Here is his short report about the week. FROM THE VACUUM TO THE ABYSS (Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the IFP narrative lab)So I’ve spent years in “development hell.” Not the development hell you may be picturing — the round, padded, gymnasium-sized room where young filmmakers with dreams go to take their medication, age in fast motion, and walk zombie-style around the place, bumping into stacks of scripts while, behind a one-way mirror, Hollywood executive types in sharp lab coats laugh wickedly. (Oh, […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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“CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP” DIRECTOR RODMAN FLENDER
Ever since Jane Pauley left the Today Show, the trials and tribulations of network television personalities have been the stuff of dinner table fodder. However, few contract negotiation battles captured as much attention as the recent skirmish over who would host The Tonight Show, Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien. What started out as a simple transition turned into an epic battle for late night’s soul, one that Leno won — even if many consider it to be a pyrrhic victory. One of the most anticipated films at SXSW, Rodman Flender’s Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop follows a bruised O’Brien in the […]
