SXSW Film 2010: Check Out the Features

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ACC marquee at SXSW

The SXSW 2010 Film Festival feature-film lineup was announced Wednesday night, and it's full of goodies. I am still sorting through them all with lots of "oooh!" noises. Some of these are films I wished I could have caught at Sundance (but I'm allergic to snow), some are films I've been hearing about for awhile, some are very cool-sounding surprises.

You can find the whole feature lineup over at the SXSW Film website -- the shorts haven't been announced yet -- but here are a few of the highlights:

  • Headliners include the Duplass brothers' film Cyrus (I told you so); MacGruber, starring Val Kilmer, Jason Bateman and the underrated actress of 2009, Kristen Wiig; Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Micmacs -- which played BNAT in 2009 along with Kick-Ass, the fest's opening-night film; Mr. Nice, which stars Rhys Ifans (and Christian McKay in a small role ... don't swoon, Debbie); and Sundance favorite The Runaways.
  • Spotlight premieres include Audrey the Trainwreck (edited by St. Nick director David Lowery), Aaron Katz's Cold Weather, and Tim Blake Nelson's Leaves of Grass.
  • The Festival Favorites section includes Steven Soderbergh's film And Everything is Going Fine about Spalding Gray, Dogtooth, The Freebie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Red Chapel, Michel Gondry's The Thorn in the Heart, Sundance winner Winter's Bone ... and Bryan Poyser's locally shot (in part) Lovers of Hate (guessed right again!).
  • The narrative feature competition includes at least two Texas films: Dance with the One, and local filmmaker Clay Liford's film Earthling.
  • The Midnighters section includes Ivan Reitman's 1973 film Cannibal Girls (I don't know why that's amusing me as much as it is), Enter the Void, and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.
  • SX Fantastic is the new name for the SXSW/Fantastic Fest cosponsored series, which in the tradition of Fantastic Fest includes a "super-secret" world premiere screening.
  • The Emerging Visions series includes American: The Bill Hicks Story; The Happy Poet, which stars local actor Chris Doubek and just had a works-in-progress screening at Austin Film Society; local animated film Mars, with voice talent including Mark Duplass and Kinky Friedman; and locally shot horror film Red White & Blue (which I pegged for SX Fantastic, but close enough).
  • Special events including a screening of the 1925 silent The Lost World with a live score by the Golden Hornet Project (yes, that means Graham Reynolds), the 1927 Tod Browning film The Unknown with a live score from The Invincible Czars, and the Carl Theodor Dreyer silent The Passion of Joan of Arc with a live score from In The Nursery.

And I have not mentioned a ton, I swear, a ton of other films that look interesting and tempting, including the documentary feature competition, the SX Global films and the 24 Beats Per Second music/film series. Do I get this excited every year? I suppose so, but it always feels like this is a new record for excitement.

I'm combing through the lineup now to find the films related to Austin, and will post a list shortly. Help us out: If your film has any kind of Austin connection -- even "I went to school at UT" or "the editor used to live in Austin" -- drop us a line. We'd be interested in getting a screener of your film, maybe doing an interview, and certainly including you in our list of Austin-related films to follow during and after the fest. Slackerwood has more contributors than ever for SXSW 2010 and we can't wait.

Great lineup!

Looking forward to seeing so many of these films, and yes - Christian McKay still has me swooning from his charisma.