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indieWIRE reports this morning:

Janet Pierson has been named the new producer of the SXSW Film Festival and Conference, the organization has just announced. Matt Dentler, who has served as producer of the fest since 2004, has accepted a position in New York City to head the marketing and programming operations of Cinetic Media's new digital rights management unit, the festival said in an announcement.

Read the full indieWIRE report here.

Where I am this week: Moving Image Institute in Film Criticism and Feature Writing, in New York. No bluebonnets, but lots of bagels. I'll be back next week (really Tuesday night, not Wednesday, but I couldn't resist the stupid film joke). In the meantime, visit some of these fabulous sites for your Austin film news.

On the opening night of SXSW this year, I traded an evening of filmgoing for something I hadn't done before: attending the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards over at Austin Studios. The event is a big fundraiser for Austin Film Society, with tickets and tables going for way more money than I could afford, so I figured that covering the event as press would probably be the only way I'd ever attend.

The evening began with a red carpet setup at the entrance to the event. I was advised to get there early because a lot of celebrities are honored at the awards ceremony, so tons of media would be there, especially video cameras. Video cameras take up a lot of room on a red carpet and still photographers can have trouble squeezing into a good spot where they won't be bonked on the head with a camera or potentially stumble over a tripod. I staked out a spot near the end of the actual carpet, where the long line of video cameras ended. I was right next to the IFC video crew, which was good because any time they started pointing their camera at someone, I figured I should too.

Shameless self-promotion, you gotta love it. But if you want to get a better impression of SXSW than what you're reading here ... okay, it's still shameless self-promotion. Here's a list of the movie reviews and other features I wrote for Cinematical during SXSW this year:

That's right, it may be April but Slackerwood isn't done with SXSW yet. Who knows, maybe we'll still be posting photos in August. To keep that from happening, I'm posting photos without cropping them nicely or sprucing them up in Photoshop, so my apologies for the red-eye and other flaws.

On the last night of SXSW, one of the films I caught at the Paramount was Goliath, which was shot in Austin. I'd been looking forward to seeing this film, to the point where it took a schedule rework in order to catch it (note to self: next year, get to Alamo Ritz films supersupremely early to avoid sellouts). On the other hand, this meant I was able to see it at the Paramount, which is a better venue for local filmmakers because they're always so happy that their film is actually showing at this iconic Austin theater.

Mike Hedge is a photographer and friend to Susan Buice and Arin Crumley, they who made Four-Eyed Monsters. Mike put together this incredible music video of every shot he took between leaving for SxSW and driving home. Obviously there was a bit of forethought that went into this because as the pictures whiz by for only three frames each, there are a few mini-movie sequences that play out.

SXSW 2008 from mikehedge on Vimeo.

You can also see Mike's set of SxSW pix on Flickr.

Thanks to Chris Hyams of B-Side Entertainment (my employer, and where much of the office bits of the video were shot) for passing this along.

UT prof and filmmaker Spencer Parsons bangs out a bit of retrospective prose for Film in Focus on whether Austin is as cool as it used to be.

Move to Austin, and you're likely to hear from people that you just missed it. Upon arrival, I took the laments for what had just been snuffed out more seriously than I do now, not because I've discovered the complaint to be untrue or found peace with the ultimate franchising of America, but ironically because I now so often find myself telling newcomers the same thing. Austin was way better before this legendary club closed, or that dollar cinema with Bollywood Fridays lost its lease to CVS, and of course it was better before all the fucking condos. Not that there isn't much to be missed, but on the whole, the city's been good at holding onto its identity, and whenever I travel to other American cities, I find that, for instance, our Starbucks saturation appears to remain at a national low.

Read "The Once and Future Austin" at Film in Focus.

I know, AFI Dallas has already started, but I'm running behind right now -- hell, we still have SXSW stuff yet to post on Slackerwood. That post-SXSW bug really slowed us down. I went to AFI Dallas last year, the film fest's first year, but it was impossible for me to get to Dallas this time, and I'm definitely feeling sorry I'm not there.

Anyway, in case you're up there now or about to go, here are some of the films shot in Austin, or made by Austin filmmakers, playing AFI Dallas:

Six Man, Texas -- Some friends of mine were involved in editing this movie and creating the website, so I'm naturally biased. I saw this film in a rough cut and at the Austin cast/crew screening a couple of months ago, and I'd recommend it. I don't normally like watching football, but this documentary about six-man high-school football teams in Texas focuses more on the change and decline of small Texas towns.

Baghead -- I saw this at SXSW and it's pretty funny. Read my email interview with the Duplass brothers for more background on this movie.

Crawford -- I reviewed this movie for Cinematical during SXSW. Check it out if you can -- I heard the first AFI Dallas screening sold out before the fest even began. You also can read my email interview with director David Modigliani.

Billy Bob Thornton, photo by Kris Krug

As "curated" by the Flickr community. See the whole slideshow.

How do you get students to show up and act enthused about class on the Monday after South by Southwest and Spring Break? If you're John Pierson, you bring in actor Steve Buscemi, who was so popular that the class moved to the Austin City Limits studio. Buscemi spoke for nearly two hours to Pierson's RTF master class at UT last night. He and Pierson held a conversation about the films he'd acted in and directed, and then he patiently answered many student questions.

I enjoyed hearing Buscemi talk about Interview, which he directed and acted in -- it's a remake of the Theo van Gogh film. He also spent time talking about one of his first films, Parting Glances, and how he went from being a firefighter to being able to pay the bills as an actor. Pierson pointed out a funny Texas connection: Early in his career, Buscemi appeared on an episode of Miami Vice, where his character was beaten up by, of all people, Willie Nelson.