SXSW

Several of this year's SXSW documentaries focus on events in other parts of Texas. Austin playwright and filmmaker David Modigliani has been working for some time on a movie about Crawford, Texas, which many of us hadn't heard of until it became known as the home of the Bush ranch. Modigliani showed a rough cut of his film Crawford last year at an Austin Film Society Doc-in-Progress screening, and now the documentary is having its world premiere this week at SXSW. This is producer/director Modigliani's first feature-length film.

I was curious about Crawford, and then I met David on Wednesday night at an AFS pre-SXSW mixer, so I emailed him a few questions. Our discussion follows.

If you're a filmmaker who is bringing a movie to South by Southwest (or any festival) this year, you really ought to read Film Festival Secrets, the website run by frequent Slackerwood contributor Chris Holland. Over the past week, Chris has posted a three-part series of helpful hints that are especially geared toward SXSW.

• Part One focuses on last-minute preparation, and although I'm not a filmmaker I wish I'd read it earlier, because I completely forgot that I wanted a new set of business cards. (And I saw a really snazzy Moo card for Tulia, Texas this week that made me envious.)
• Part Two offers good advice on improving your film's website, which I personally cannot agree with enough. It drives me crazy when I want to write about your film and I can't find any info or stills online. So then I pick another movie's stills to use instead. Get the hint?
• Part Three tells you what to do before you leave for Austin, so go read it right now, before you get on the plane or in the car. Go! Now! He also links to some good guides to local restaurants, which I found helpful myself because I don't eat in that part of downtown very often.

Chris is also planning a Part Four, so keep an eye on his site this week.

The first thing that struck me when I read about Goliath was the cast, which was full of names familiar to Austin film fans. Writer-director David Zellner has one of the lead roles, and his brother, producer Nathan Zellner, is also in the film. In addition, the list of actors includes Wiley Wiggins (who does so many different things that I don't know how to preface his name), actor/filmmaker Andrew Bujalski, local filmmaker John E. Bryant (whose short Loveolution is premiering at SXSW, and who's also a producer on Baghead), animation expert/filmmaker Bob Sabiston in what may be his first feature-film acting gig, and Austin Film Society programmer Chale Nafus. I don't associate most of these people with acting, but they're all part of the local film community.

The choice of cast made me wonder just who these Zellner guys are, anyway. I've seen some of their short films, the last three of which premiered at Sundance in the last three years. And now in 2008, their feature Goliath also premiered at Sundance, and is making its way to SXSW this week. Not only was I intrigued by the filmmakers, but I thought that I'd be accused of some kind of bias if I interviewed the Duplass brothers and not the Zellner brothers. (Aside: Why don't we have any sister acts in indie filmmaking? Hmm.)

So I emailed a few questions to the Zellners, and here's what they had to say about Goliath.

The above photo is from the premiere of Hannah Takes the Stairs at the Paramount during SXSW last year. What's interesting to me is how many of these people will be at SXSW this year. Let's start from the right of the photo and work our way over:

• Kent Osborne is involved in making the new SXSW house ads (Burger Hut?) for this year's festival, and has a role in Nights and Weekends.
• Greta Gerwig co-directed and co-wrote Nights and Weekends, and is starring in the Duplass brothers' movie Baghead.
• Joe Swanberg co-directed and co-wrote Nights and Weekends with Greta Gerwig.
• Mark Duplass co-directed Baghead (with Jay Duplass, who incidentally has a role in Nights and Weekends).

And those are just the ones I know. Andrew Bujalski was also in the cast of Hannah, although he's not in the photo -- you can see him at SXSW this year in Goliath and Registered Sex Offender.

Who else is in this photo that has something going on during SXSW this year? Let us know in the comments.

I vividly remember the screening of The Puffy Chair I attended during SXSW 2005. The brothers who wrote and directed the film, Jay and Mark Duplass -- why did their names sound so familiar? And their mom, who was in the film, handed out buttons with little puffy chairs on them afterwards, and she looked vaguely familiar too. I thought about going to talk to them after the screening, but they were mobbed.

So I called my mom, because I suspected this might be a case of the old familiar "New Orleans has one degree of separation, not six" syndrome. I was right. In fact, my mom had just seen Cindy Duplass over at the grocery store and had heard all about her sons' new movie. Years before, my mom had bugged me over and over again about how I should try to get in touch with one of my little brother's high-school cross-country team buddies who had moved to Austin, but I didn't see why I would want to hang out with one of his bratty, jock-y friends. And now that track-team kid, Jay Duplass, had teamed up with his little brother Mark to make movies, some of which had played Sundance.

I ended up emailing the guys and then meeting them in person in 2006, when they showed The Puffy Chair at St. Edward's University and did a long Q&A about the business of indie filmmaking. We had several things in common: that weird background of both New Orleans and Austin, film geekiness, and a delight in making slightly mean jokes about my brother.

Jay and Mark Duplass will be back in Austin next week for SXSW to show their latest feature, Baghead. The minute I heard the title, I had to wonder if they were inspired by a certain New Orleans sports-based trend that occurred in my childhood. And I was right ... sort of. We did a quick email interview earlier this week about the film.

Note: A 2010 guide to SXSW Film Fest venues is now available.

You might remember Slackerwood's handy SXSW film-fest venue guide from 2007. We've compiled an even handier guide for 2008. The theaters have changed slightly, primarily due to the downtown Alamo Drafthouse location moving to Alamo Ritz. (The old Drafthouse venue is now a trendy nightclub ... where the Facebook Film Garage is being held during SXSW. Very strange.)

These guidelines to Austin theaters playing SXSW movies are intended to help visitors who want to maximize the number of films they see in a day, or who want to make sure they're able to find decent meals between or even during the movies. The most important thing to remember is that you can't walk between all the SXSW venues and you shouldn't try. To get to Alamo on South Lamar or even the Dobie, consider finding a cab, bus, friendly Austinite with a car, or even renting a bicycle to use during your time at the fest.

If you're interested in taking the bus (which costs a whopping 50 cents per trip, or $1/day), Capital Metro's Route 3 can take you from downtown to Alamo South Lamar, and you can take Route 1/101 or the Red Dillo (which is free) from Congress Ave. to the Dobie. I recommend using the Trip Planner to figure out your schedule, and allow plenty of time especially during rush hour.

Here are the six SXSW 2008 theaters, with info on location, nearby food, and nearby wireless access. If I've missed some tips and tricks (or good nearby places with wireless), please add a comment or email me and I'll be happy to update this guide.

When I wrote about SXSW short films recently, I mentioned a film called X that was directed by Josh Brolin. I wasn't sure at the time whether the filmmaker was actor Josh Brolin, who's been in a couple of films shot in Texas: Grindhouse and No Country for Old Men (pictured above).

As usual, SXSW film fest director Matt Dentler has the scoop for us: The director of X is in fact that Josh Brolin, and the Eden Brolin who stars in the film is his daughter. The short will play three times at SXSW, and both Brolins plan to be in attendance at the first screening on Saturday, March 8. (It's playing before the documentary Tulia, Texas and of course you should stay for both.) I notice it's playing at Dobie, which is not a large theater, so if you're a Josh Brolin groupie you should plan to get there early.

Check out the SXSW listing for X for details on its scheduled screenings as well as a trailer for the film.

SXSW Film Fest is only two weeks away, and more news about various aspects of the festival pops up every day. Here are some of the recent highlights:

• The lineup for SXSW Global Doc Days has been announced. This is a new documentary event for SXSW, available to badgeholders with film-fest access. From March 8-11, Global Doc Days will feature screenings of recent nonfiction films from eight countries. It's like a giant buffet for doc lovers. I can't wait.
• Over at Cinematical (where I'm a contributor), Scott Weinberg interviewed SXSW Film Festival head Matt Dentler, pictured at right. Cinematical also has been posting trailers for various SXSW films. Keep an eye on the site's SXSW category this year; at laest five of us will be covering SXSW movies and events, so there should be plenty of interesting writing.
• Speaking of Matt Dentler, if you aren't visiting his blog for your SXSW updates, you're missing all kinds of cool stuff. He'll point you to the SXSW trailers page and the SXSW parties page, plus links to trailers and other news items.
• Over at SpoutBlog, Karina Longworth is doing what I'm hoping you'll start seeing on Slackerwood next week: short e-mail interviews with various SXSW filmmakers. So far she's talked with Brandon Linden (Bootleg Wisconsin), Frank V. Ross (Present Company), and Mary Bronstein (Yeast). Visit the blog's SXSW 2008 category to see the latest previews from the festival.

I'm working on an update of the guide to SXSW movie-theater venues, plus Slackerwood will have lots of other great SXSW stuff. Keep watching our RSS feed, you won't want to miss any of it.

[Photo credit: weevil on Flickr. Original photo here. Used under terms of Creative Commons license.]

I owe filmmaker and Austin Film Society staffer Bryan Poyser a drink today -- he saved me a lot of time. Normally I would comb through the just-released list of shorts scheduled for SXSW 2008 and try to find all the Austin filmmakers for you. But Bryan did the bulk of the work for me over at his AFS blog: he's published a list of all the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund recipients with shorts playing SXSW. He also notes a new feature-length documentary added to the festival lineup, Writ Writer, from local filmmaker Susanne Mason.

Bryan didn't list any Austin-made shorts that weren't associated with TFPF, so feel free to post comments about any Austin shorts that aren't on that list. (I notice there's a short called X directed by a Josh Brolin ... anyone know if that's this Josh Brolin, who's made a couple of films in Texas in the past few years?)

Again, if you're associated with a SXSW film that has any local ties, we at Slackerwood would like to talk to you. Drop me a line or post a comment. If you have no local ties, contact me anyway ... if time and space permit, we may have room to write about your film too.

The first year I went to SXSW Film Festival, I did it on a film pass, not a badge. The badge is great -- it gets you into the conference and also puts you in the top-priority line for all screenings. Plus you get a nifty canvas bag. But the badge can be a little pricey for some people, especially if you live in Austin and plan to go only to night-and-weekend movies.

I recommend the film pass. It costs $70 this year and gives you second priority for all films. This means you're probably not going to get into any midnight movies with great buzz over at Alamo Ritz. And if you are able to get into a big splashy Paramount premiere, you may be walking a few flights of stairs to your seat. But when I did SXSW on a film pass, I got into every movie I wanted to see -- I just tended not to go to the big premieres. I spent a lot of time at Arbor (no longer a venue) and Dobie. Some of the big movies screen again later in the festival after the conference, and it's a lot easier to see them then. Or you could stick to the smaller, less hyped films, which I like to do anyway. I can see the big-name movie in a few months (or weeks), but who knows if I'll ever get another chance to see that low-budget documentary about cheesemaking?

Waterloo Video is the place to go for SXSW film passes (as in previous years), which are on sale right now. Look at it this way: individual tickets for SXSW movies cost $10, assuming there's even room in the theater for people who want to buy tickets. If you see more than 7 movies (and the festival is 9 days long -- so if you saw one per day), you're coming out ahead. If you see 14 movies, you're paying less per film than you would at a theater. The film passes do sell out so if you're buying one, go sooner rather than later.