SXSW

Welcome to the first in Slackerwood's series of SXSW 2010 guides. Keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks for the Film Fest venue guide (now in its fourth year), a guide to restaurants near festival venues, tips for local film passholders and potential ticketholders, and a general survival guide.

Updated 2/25: See the "SXSW Panels" section for new info about access for Film and Interactive badgeholders.

Every year, South by Southwest (SXSW) Festivals and Conferences offers an overwhelming amount of amazing content from film to interactive to music. One challenge is that the Film and Interactive conferences take place at the same time, from Friday, March 12 through Tuesday, March 16. The film festival starts at the same time and continues through Saturday, March 20.

This guide will hopefully serve as a walkthrough of how to balance both Film and Interactive, whether you have a badge for either conference, or the Gold or Platinum badges that provide you access to both. 

SXSW may have a lot of splashy marquee films from all around the globe, but some of us here in Austin want to see what our hometown is bringing to the film festival this year. I'd say it's a good year for Austin and Texas at SXSW but I say that every single year.

Here's the annual Slackerwood list of features playing SXSW 2010 that have Austin connections of one kind or another. The list begins with films shot in Austin, then moves onto other local ties. If we left your film off the list and it was shot here or includes local cast or crew, post a comment or drop us a line and we'll be happy to include it.

• Dance with the One -- This feature was produced by the University of Texas Film Institute (UTFI). Director Michael Dolan and many cast/crew members are from Austin. It's set in Texas, but I don't know yet if/how much it's set here in town.
• The Happy Poet -- I don't know much about this film by Paul Gordon, except that more than one filmmaker going to SXSW this year has told me to see it. But many of the film's stills (like the one pictured above) show recognizable local spots, and a movie about a poet who opens his own organic food trailer sounds very Austin-ish to me.

You are going to love the guides we are writing here at Slackerwood for SXSW Film 2010. Of course we are updating the traditional Venue Guide (now in its fifth year), and we're bringing back a few other guides from last year, but there may be some new surprises, too. We are all about helping you figure out where to eat between movies and find decent wireless access and get a late-night cup of coffee and a doughnut.

We are having loads of fun with these (you won't believe what I've been buying on eBay and why) but could use your help. Check out our 2009 guides for SXSW Film Fest Venues and for local passholders and ticketholders, and Jenn's SXSW Survival Guide, and let us know what we're missing. Post a comment right here. Is there some new late-night restaurant you love near the Paramount? Some tactics for getting the most out of film passes? Parking strategies? Yeah, I figured you wouldn't share your secret parking schemes but it couldn't hurt to ask.

And keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks for our guides and other pre-SXSW coverage, which should be even bigger and better than last year.

The SXSW Film Festival has just announced its conference lineup, as well as its short films for 2010. I can't pick out all the Austin connections for you yet -- I'm working on that now, and we should have a list posted soon.

You can read the full list of panels and shorts on the SXSW Film website. Here are some of the highlights:

• "A Conversation with Michel Gondry," moderated by Elvis Mitchell
• "Directing the Dead: Genre Directors Spill Their Guts," moderated by my Cinematical colleague Scott Weinberg, with an amazing lineup of panelists: Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, Ti West and Ruben Fleischer 
• Jeffrey Tambor's Acting Workshop, one of the highlights of previous conferences
• Quadrangle, the short documentary from local filmmaker Amy Grappell about a couple-swapping experiment, which won an award at Sundance this year
• Short films from Bradley Beesley, Bill Plympton, Steve Mims and Guy Maddin; and a music video from local cinematographer/filmmaker PJ Raval

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.

I've volunteered for SXSW Conferences and Festivals since 2000, including eight years as a crew chief for different crews. The most challenging position I've held has been with Special Venues, as our crew was responsible for line management and crowd control at major events including movie premieres (pictured above). We coordinated not only with the tireless SXSW Film staff and volunteers including theater managers and VIP wranglers, but also press and hired security. More than 1,700 volunteers contribute time each year to support SXSW.

They are the faces of SXSW, working in the Austin Convention Center or the film and music venues, and often the first ones to greet out-of-town registrants. Hours are applied towards earning perks, whether it's a film pass or one of the badge levels. If you are interested in volunteering for SXSW this year, then you won't want to miss the upcoming volunteer calls.

If you're wondering why I'm posting a photo from last year of the (500) Days of Summer director at the Paramount in Austin, you haven't heard the latest news: Marc Webb has just been signed to direct the next Spider-Man film. That's right, he's going from a quirky romantic comedy to a big-ass Hollywood comic-book action movie. Will we see him in Austin again anytime soon? Well, Sam Raimi (who directed the previous three Spider-Man movies) was at SXSW last year with Drag Me to Hell, so it's possible.

Now if you really want to be amused, imagine the people in the photo after the jump -- also from SXSW 2009 -- as Peter and Mary Jane. It could happen! And check out my SXSW 2009 Flickr set for more photos from the closing-night (500) Days of Summer event, including a nice picture of Webb with SXSW Film Director Janet Pierson.

SXSW Film has just announced its 2010 opening-night film: Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass. The movie had a sneak preview at Butt-Numb-a-Thon in Austin in December. Jenn Brown described it as "far and away the crowd pleaser of BNAT." It's interesting to note that the SXSW 2009 opening-night film, I Love You, Man, had previewed at BNAT in 2008.

SXSW also released several other titles that will play the film festival from March 12-21 this year, and I've listed them after the jump. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing Aaron Katz's next film, Cold Weather. But first, here's Jenn's mini-review of Kick-Ass from her BNAT article:

"It's a great non-superhero hero movie, with an average teen (Aaron Johnson) suddenly becoming a vigilante, only to find he's not the only one out there. Christopher Mintz-Plasse has a great non-McLovin type role that still has his dorky charm signature as the son of a gangster. Bad Lieutentant: Port of Call New Orleans fans will flip over Nicolas Cage's performance. But the scene stealer was Chloe Moretz as Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl; this pint-sized, sewer mouth martial art moppet. Audience members were demanding more information on her costume. 

"Without doing a full review on Kick-Ass, the only way to sum it up is 'the superhero fangeek's fantasy one night stand of kick-assery'."

New for 2010, the SXSW Film Conference and Festival has established the annual SXSW Film Design Awards, including a new competition for the "Excellence in Title Design" Award that will feature the best in contemporary title sequence design. All title sequences that exist as part of a completed film finished in 2009 or later are eligible, and includes international submissions. The deadline to submit is December 11, 2009.

Finalists will be announced in early February 2010, and will be showcased at a dedicated screening during the SXSW Film Festival. Contestants will be judged by an expert panel and will also be eligible to be chosen by the public for an Audience Award. Due in part to the success of the 2009 SXSW Film/AIGA Austin Film Poster Award and as part of the Design Awards, SXSW will continue to honor exceptional film posters under the "Excellence in Poster Design" label (open to all accepted films). 

Title sequence submissions are $10 per entry, and can be made via the SXSW Film Title Sequence Competition application form. All title sequences must be hosted online -- YouTube, Vimeo, or personal website. Finalists will be notified upon acceptance and will then need to send a broadcast-quality version of the sequence.

I thought we were having a slow news week, but the local film news really added up. Here are some of the highlights:

• The Statesman's Out and About blog released the results of the newspaper's "Best Austin Movie Theater" poll. No surprise: All four Austin-area Alamo theaters were in the top four slots, although we're a bit disappointed that Village and its snazzy 4K digital didn't rate a bit higher. Bigger surprise: Tinseltown Pflugerville tied for fifth place with the Bob Bullock IMAX theater. Jette saw a movie at the Pflugerville theater in June and found the picture and sound quality atrocious -- some of the speakers weren't working at all. Readers, what charms of Tinseltown Pflugerville are we missing?
• Richard Linklater's latest film, Me and Orson Welles (pictured at right), now has an Austin release date of December 4. If you want to see it sooner, the movie will play the Houston Cinema Arts Festival on Nov. 11, as the opening-night film, with Linklater attending.
• The first speakers for the SXSW 2010 Film Conference were announced this week: Argentine musician/composer Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain, Babel) and comic-book artist Gilbert Shelton, a former Austinite who is currently involved in adapting his Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers into a movie.
• Speaking of SXSW, if you didn't catch We Live in Public at the 2009 fest or during this week's limited run, it's playing in Austin for another week, daily at Alamo Ritz. Wish we'd thought of this sooner, but Alamo totally should host a Tweet-Along night for this documentary.