SXSW Film Festival 2011
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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 -
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 […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 16, 2011 -
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.
by Scott Macaulay 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 -
“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 […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 15, 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 -
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. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 15, 2011
