SXSW Features
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SXSW Announces the 145 Features Playing in its 2015 Lineup
SXSW announced today the 145 features being show in its upcoming SXSW Film Conference, March 13-21 in Austin, TX. From a record number of 2,385 feature submissions will be shown new work by directors Hannah Fidell, Benjamin Dickinson, Patrick Wang, Ron Nyswaner, Alex Sichel, Ondi Timoner and Alex Garland, among many others. The festival’s Episodics strand continues, with five new web series being shown in this second year. Of the large number of submissions, Festival Director Janet Pierson said, ““When faced with a record 2,400 feature submissions, we had every intention to cut back on the total number in our […]
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Zachary Wigon, John Gallagher, Jr. and Kate Lyn Sheil on Intimacy, the Internet and The Heart Machine
Premiering at SXSW in its Narrative Feature Competition, The Heart Machine, the first feature from film journalist Zachary Wigon, is an astute romantic drama tackling the interpersonal confusion of our internet age. (Full disclosure: Zach Wigon has written for Filmmaker, and I contributed to the film’s Kickstarter campaign.) With technology altering and intermediating the ways we discover each other, meet, communicate and even break up, our romantic rulebooks are being surreptitiously rewritten, and right under our noses. Yes, a kiss is still a kiss, but is a text just a text? Or, in the case of Wigon’s film, a Skype […]
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The Women of SXSW: Fort Tilden Writer/Director/Editor Sarah-Violet Bliss
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of interviews highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this interview, she talks with Sarah-Violet Bliss, who co-wrote and co-directed the SXSW Grand Jury Prize-winning narrative feature Fort Tilden with Charles Rogers. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Bliss: I was excited to tell a story in response to the popular topic of discussion these days frequently labeled “millennial malaise.” I have many thoughts on this matter in hand that are enormously fun […]
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Producer Jason Blum @SXSW: “If I Had to Make Kicking and Screaming Today, I’d Make It for $50,000…”
“If I had to make [Noah Baumbach’s 1995 pic] Kicking and Screaming today, I’d make it for $50,000, not $1 million,” said producer Jason Blum (The Purge, Insidious, Whiplash) at his SXSW keynote address on Sunday. In a conversation with the Los Angeles Times’ John Horn, Blum blended his own producer origin story with practical advice for filmmakers seeking to emulate his rise to top of Hollywood’s low-budget horror hierarchy. “Don’t wait for the industry to go forward,” he told the crowd, explaining that his own career was accelerated when he learned from a past error: passing on The Blair […]
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The Women of SXSW: Que Caramba Es La Vida Director Doris Dörrie
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director of Que Caramba Es La Vida, Dorris Dörrie. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Dörrie: I have spent some time in Mexico and found that the only association that we (in Europe) have is drug war and chaos. I wanted to tell a different story of Mexico, and I became very interested in mariachi music, especially […]
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The Women of SXSW: Crystal Writer/Director Chell Stephen
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the writer/director of the narrative short, Crystal, Chell Stephen. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Stephen: An image of the character Crystal came into my head a few years ago, and I could see her so clearly. After directing music videos in New York for a few years as a part of filmmaking collective Think/Feel, I knew […]
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Fort Tilden, The Great Invisible Take Top Prizes at SXSW
Beating back chilly, sub-normal temperatures, the season finale of True Detective and the myriad distractions of its surrounding program — referencing the new SXSports category, one independent film stalwart snarled to me, “Don’t try to tell me that sports are now creative” — SXSW Film put a capper on its 2014 edition by awarding Sarah-Violet Bliss & Charles Rogers’ Brooklyn beach comedy Fort Tilden and Margaret Brown’s Deepwater Horizon doc, The Great Invisible, its top prizes. Other awards included a “special jury award for courage in storytelling to the lead actor and screenwriter of Collin Schiffli’s Animals, David Dastmalchian. (The […]
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The Women of SXSW: We’ll Never Have Paris Producer Katie Mustard
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with Katie Mustard, a producer of Jocelyn Towne and Simon Helberg’s Narrative Spotlight feature, We’ll Never Have Paris. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Mustard: The story and the people is the short answer. For me, these are two best things you can look for when deciding on a project. We’ll Never Have Paris is a hilarious, clumsy […]
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The Women of SXSW: The Great Invisible Director Margaret Brown
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director of the Documentary Competition title, The Great Invisible, Margaret Brown. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Brown: After the [Deepwater Horizon] spill, my dad started sending me pictures of our bay house in Alabama surrounded by boom, which BP was using to prevent the oil from getting in our marshes. Seeing my childhood invaded in this way was […]
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The Women of SXSW: Butterfly Girl Director Cary Bell
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email em>Butterfly Girl, which screens today, March 10. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Bell: Jess, our editor/producer, and I have been working on projects together off and on since college. I think when you click with someone creatively, in the way that we do, it’s such a blessing. We also have similar working styles, ethics, and visions, so when we were both […]
