Local Indies

Continued from earlier today, here are the rest of the SXSW 2013 films with Austin or Texas ties: documentaries and films that have already been hits at other festivals.

Documentary Spotlight:

• An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story -- If you watch the local news, you are likely quite familiar with the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton in Williamson County. This documentary looks further into his story and the years of work by his attorneys to get him released.
  Jette butts in: Filmmaker Al Reinert (screenwriter for For All Mankind, Apollo 13) lives in Houston. The film is produced by local filmmakers Clark and Jesse Lyda (who also own Monument Cafe) and Marcy Garriott -- all three worked previously on The Least of These (SXSW 2009). Jason Wehling (The Retrieval) is credited as a consulting producer. One of the composers is Chuck Pinnell, brother of the late Texas filmmaker Eagle Pennell. (screening times)
• Before You Know It -- PJ Raval's (our Slacker 2011 interview) film depicts a year in the life of gay retirees in three different senior care facilities. Raval received Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund grants in 2009 and 2010 for this one (as Untitled Gay Retiree Documentary). Filmmaker/former Austinite Kyle Henry (Fourplay) edited; he's among several UT RTF grads in the crew. (screening times)

The feature-film selections for the 2013 SXSW Film Festival were announced last week and boy, are there a lot of movies with Austin connections on the program -- so many that we had to split this article in two! We'll start with the narrative feature films, and the second half will highlight the documentaries and "festival favorites." These lists don't include the short films or the midnight movies, which will be announced later today.

Headliners:

• When Angels Sing -- Austin director Tim McCanlies' new film is based on a novel by Turk Pipkin (who also appears in the movie), wherein the main character has a troubled relationship with Christmas. Sometimes-Austinite Connie Britton stars as the wife, and the cast also includes Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Heather Kafka (who appears in four SXSW feature films this year), and the Red Headed Stranger himself! Elizabeth Avellan of Troublemaker Studios is one of the producers on this film, which was shot partially at Northwest Park in Allandale. (screening times, official site)

Narrative Spotlight:

• The Bounceback -- Bryan Poyser's comedy, which follows the travails of two former couples mixing things up around Austin (including Alamo Drafthouse Ritz), makes its world premiere at the fest. Rebecca Campbell visited the set last year.
  Jette butts in: The cast includes Heather Kafka, filmmakers Yen Tan (Pit Stop), David Zellner and Clay Liford; Poyser's former AFS coworkers Chale Nafus and Sarah Ann Mockbee, and Ashley Spillers (also in SXSW 2013 films Zero Charisma, Loves Her Gun and Pit Stop). The director of photography is PJ Raval, who directed another SXSW film, Before You Know It. Editor Don Swaynos also edited Pit Stop. It's like Three Degrees of Separation, geez, we should just draw a graph. (screening times)

Director Yen Tan made his first appearance at the Sundance Film Festival this year with the drama Pit Stop, cowritten by Dallas filmmaker David Lowery. Inspired by stops along the Texas highways while traveling for a film project, Tan has woven parallel tales of two gay men dissatisfied with their current romantic relationships in a rural town. Tan received grants from both the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund and the Vilcek Foundation for the making of Pit Stop, which will also screen at SXSW Film Festival this March.

Construction worker Gabe (Bill Heck) can't quite accept the end of his affair with a married man and relies on the support of his ex-wife Shannon (Amy Seimetz), who is also trying to move on with her love life. Meanwhile, across town Ernesto (Marcus DeAnda) avoids his younger ex-lover Luis (Alfredo Maduro) -- who currently still lives with him -- by escaping to the bedside of a ex-boyfriend whose health is failing. There he spends his time reading aloud gossip magazines and reminiscing about their life together.

Whatever number of Austin films I might have guessed would be in the SXSW Film Festival feature lineup released this afternoon, I would have been short. Texas is everywhere in this year's festival, and the midnight movies and short films won't even be announced for another week.

In addition, we at Slackerwood have some news about the SXSW Film 2013 screening locations, as we prepare our annual stellar SXSW Film Venue Guide. Apart from Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar (sob), the theaters will be the same as last year, with a couple of additions. The brand-new Topfer Theatre at Zach Scott will be a film venue, about which I know nothing, so if you've been there please share your impressions in the comments. And all four screens of Violet Crown Cinema will be used for screenings -- no details yet on how, but we'll keep you posted.

You can find the full announcement on the SXSW Film website (John Sayles! Joss Whedon! Dave Grohl!), and we'll run an extended list soon with details about all the Austin connections. In the meantime, you might want to know that the Headliners category includes When Angels Sing, the latest film from Austin filmmaker Tim McCanlies, adapted from a story by Turk Pipkin, and shot around Austin. The cast includes Texans Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson and Dana Wheeler-Nicholson.

On the last night of the Sundance Film Festival, a special awards ceremony to honor the winners of special prizes and audience awards is held in Park City, just as filmmakers and judges alike are ready to crawl back under the rocks from whence they came for another year. It's the last opportunity to put on the Ritz, do some hardball networking and consummate that fling you've been gunning for all week.

These awards, unlike the ceremonies we watch on TV, are less about competition than camaraderie. As emcee Joseph Gordon-Levitt put it, "This is art. Not basketball." Even so, it never hurts to brand your emerging feature with more than just the Sundance official selection logo when negotiating with would-be buyers.

In the night's very first announcement, the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize went to the Austin-shot movie Computer Chess, from local filmmaker Andrew Bujalski. Producer Houston King, pictured above at right, accepted the award. The prize, which honors the union of science and film, means that $20,000 in funds will be made available to the team for their next endeavor. The jury selected the film based on its "off-beat and formalistically adventurous exploration of questions of artificial intelligence and human connections."

Now that Sundance is over, you might be wondering how the Austin and Texas films fared. Here's the latest update, plus some links to local coverage (and at the end, fun videos!). I hope we'll see a few of these in Austin in March (or in Dallas in April).

• Before Midnight was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for North America and UK distribution. This is the third movie in Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater's series with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Elizabeth revisited the original Before Sunrise recently for Lone Star Cinema.
• Andrew Bujalski's black-and-white film about man vs. computer in the 80s, Computer Chess, won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at Sundance. This award is given to a film that has a science or technology-related theme, or that has main characters who are scientists or engineers. In addition, AMC/Sundance Channel bought the international broadcast rights.
• Another big winner was DFW-area filmmaker David Lowery's latest feature, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck. The movie's producers, James M. Johnston and Toby Halbrooks, took home the Indian Paintbrush Producers Award. Director of photography Bradford Young received the Sundance Cinematography Award for his work on this movie and Mother of George. And IFC was also a winner, landing U.S. distribution of the movie.
• New-to-Austin filmmaker David Gordon Green premiered Prince Avalanche at Sundance, and landed a North American distribution deal with Magnolia. The movie stars Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, and was shot in Central Texas. The film's composer is Austinite David Wingo, who also scored Mud.

I may not be in Park City, but I am enjoying many aspects of the Sundance Film Festival from the comforts of home (you can too!). Today's vicarious living involves the Texas Party, hosted by the Austin Film Society and Texas Monthly at the height of Sundance festgoing. The party celebrated the number of Lone Star films at this year's Park City fest.

AFS Marketing and Events Coordinator Austin Culp and other photographers to be named later [update: Ryan Long and Chris Cortez] took a number of photos at the event, and I'm amused because if I showed you the photos and didn't tell you where they were taken, you would have assumed it was a filmmaker party here in Austin. Former and current Austinites and Texans were everywhere ... well, admittedly they did seem to be everywhere at Sundance in general this year.

I'm not sure why actor/filmmaker Jonny Mars and producer Kelly Williams appear to be sparring in the above photo. I'll let them tell me sometime. They were at the party shortly before departing for the premiere of Black Metal, which Debbie has detailed in her Sunday dispatch.

I've included more of my favorites below. If that's not enough for you, check out the Texas Party photo set from the event.

A phrase often heard at the Sundance Film Festival is "how to fest," and lesson number one that I've learned is that being on time isn't good enough, be early. A few times I've had ample time before an event, and filled in the gap with the frivolity of eating a meal. What I've then found is that I miss a couple of small events that fill up -- nothing major, but not the ideal scenario. Thankfully Sundance has so much to experience that flexibility is key, as you never know who you may meet on the shuttle bus or in line at a screening.

A highlight of my Sunday: Day Four was the Texas Party, presented by the Austin Film Society and Texas Monthly, and crowded with Austin and Texas filmmakers such as the Arts + Labor crew (seen above) including cast and crew from Pit Stop, Hearts of Napalm and Black Metal. Pit Stop and Black Metal screened at Sundance, while short films Hearts of Napalm and Spark were shown at the concurrent Slamdance Film Festival here in Park City.

I spent a short time at the party so I could ride with the Arts+Labor crew out to the Redstone Cinema for the premiere of Black Metal as part of the Shorts Program 4. This particular program featured several high-caliber but darkly toned short films, including On Suffocation by writer/director Jenifer Malmqvist, whose films Peace Talk and Birthday have previously screened at Sundance. On Suffocation centers around the execution of two homosexual males in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, relying solely on visuals with no dialogue.

I hit the ground running on Saturday, my third day of Sundance, which isn't as easy at it sounds with early morning temperatures below zero and lungs still acclimating to 6900-foot elevation. Lots of water and rest plus a well-researched press and industry screening schedule allowed me to catch several films before my top priority -- the Mud red carpet with stars Matthew McConaughey and Tye Sheridan, as well as writer/director Jeff Nichols (pictured above).

First up in the morning was the documentary I'd missed the previous night, Pussy Riot -- A Punk Prayer. Directors Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin present a well-balanced and intimate view of the three young women who were arrested for performing at Saint Basil's Cathedral. Friday's premiere at Sundance was sold out, and it was announced the next day that HBO Documentary Films acquired U.S. television rights.

Next on my schedule was Andrew Bujalski's locally filmed Computer Chess, a black-and-white mockumentary set around a man-versus-computer chess tournament in the 80s. Several familiar faces as well as real computer programmers are featured in this slow-paced dry oddity, including Wiley Wiggins, who effortlessly portrays experimental psychologist Martin Beuscher. I also caught a glimpse of fellow Slackerwood contributor Rod Paddock as an extra.

I'm passionate about short films -- as evidenced by my role as a programmer for Austin Film Society's ShortCase series -- and hope to see quite a few at Sundance this coming week. A record number of 8,102 short films were submitted for the 2013 Sundance Short Film program, with only 65 short films making the cut. 

You don't have to trek to Park City to enjoy some of these shorts -- a dozen of the best are now available online in The Screening Room, a YouTube channel curated by Sundance short film programmers. Austin represents with local writer/director Kat Candler's Black Metal, starring Jonny Mars (Saturday Morning Massacre, Hellion) and Heather Kafka (Lovers of Hate). This short yet powerful and evocative piece leaves viewers wanting more of the story of Ian, a death metal rocker who must deal with the consequences of a fan's actions.  

Watch Black Metal here after the jump.