Local Indies

The documentary The Least of These had its world premiere at SXSW in March. This film is about the Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, where undocumented immigrant families are detained -- sometimes for months -- before the government decides whether they can enter the country or must be deported. In 2006, when the center opened, many critics thought it looked like a jail and the families have complained that they were treated like prison inmates. Lawyers and activists stepped in to try to make changes, if not close the center outright.

This is a compelling film that I'd really recommend watching. You can read Jenn Brown's drive-by review too. Fortunately, you don't have to wait for the next film festival or wonder when The Least of These will get a distribution deal. SnagFilms, a website where you can view full-length documentaries for free, premiered the film online right after its first screening at SXSW. This means that all you have to do to watch The Least of These is to go to the bottom of this article (after the jump) and click.

Update: Check out this cool episode of Between the Scenes that includes some behind-the-scenes footage from the Gretchen shoot as well as cast and crew interviews. (Thanks to John Merriman for the heads-up.)

One of my favorite movies from SXSW 2006 was Gretchen, the story of a high-school girl who isn't exactly one of the beautiful people. Austin filmmaker Steve Collins expanded his short Gretchen and the Night Danger and kept two of its stars, Courtney Davis (in the title role) and John Merriman. The feature also includes Betsy Ann Baker as Gretchen's mom, and Stephen Root. The cinematographer is Austin filmmaker P.J. Raval, who has also photographed the Oscar-nominated doc Trouble the Water as well as other Austin films.

Gretchen has sadly never had a theatrical release and has not yet had a DVD release. So I urge you to watch Gretchen when it airs on the Sundance Channel on Tuesday (3/31) at 5:15 pm CST and again at 11:30 pm CST. As a bonus, John Merriman says he'll be live-tweeting his commentary of the movie during the earlier screening on Tuesday. He's one of the funniest Twitter users I know, so you may want to follow him tomorrow.

My review for Cinematical closed with this line: "Overall, Gretchen is a beautiful, delicate look at the nasty pains of teenage relationships. And Gretchen could totally kick Napoleon's ass."

I attended AFI Dallas in its first year and had a great time. I'd love to go back this year, but it starts Thursday night and I'm still recuperating from SXSW.

This year's opening-night film is Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom, which played during Fantastic Fest as a sneak preview last year. Johnson was at the Austin screening, as you can see from the above photo. Johnson and Reiko Kikuchi are scheduled to attend the AFI Dallas event. Kikuchi nearly steals the movie, which is a comedy about con men, in the tradition of The Lady Eve.

The Brothers Bloom isn't the only film from Fantastic Fest 2008 to play at AFI Dallas this year. Zombie Girl, the documentary about Austin teenager Emily Hagins directing a horror film, is screening in competition. And a favorite short from the fest, The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon, is in the shorts competition.

I saw The Overbrook Brothers on Monday night (it was Monday, wasn't it? the days are starting to fuzz together). This is the first feature film from Austin filmmaker John Bryant. If you saw his short Momma's Boy, this film is actually an expansion.

The photo is from the Q&A afterwards. That's producer Chris Ohlson, John Bryant, and actors Nathan Harlan and Mark Reeb. The high point of the Q&A -- or low point, if you like your humor refined -- was a discussion about an intimate prosthetic that Reeb had to wear in one scene. Other cast members who weren't at the screening but might look familiar to you are Cyndi Williams (Room) and Steve Zissis (Baghead, Momma's Boy).

The Overbrook Brothers was funny and over the top, and it's playing once more during SXSW. You can catch it Saturday night at 10 pm at the Paramount.

Love him or hate him, you have to admit Kinky Friedman is a genuine Texas Colorful Character, and it's fascinating to see what he's going to do next. (But not running for governor again. Please.) I started to tell you all my own little story about meeting Friedman when I worked as an Austin City Limits intern in 1994, but it went on too long. And I don't want to take the spotlight away from my e-mail interview with David Hartstein, director of the documentary Along Came Kinky ... Texas Jewboy for Governor. The film is having its world premiere at SXSW this year.

Along Came Kinky ... Texas Jewboy for Governor plays just once during SXSW: Thursday, March 19 at 7:30 pm at the Paramount. I bet it's going to be fun to watch with a big audience, especially if a lot of Texans are there. Here's what local filmmaker Hartstein had to say about the film.

I emailed Tommy Pallotta a couple of weeks ago and asked him about doing an interview via email for his documentary American Prince, which is premiering at SXSW 2009. The former Austin resident is living in Amsterdam these days, so email seemed like the easiest way to communicate. Pallotta sent me what's essentially a very cool short article about the film. He told me to feel free to put it in interview format, but I love the story that this article tells and I don't want to break it up with questions and extra formatting.

American Prince is about Martin Scorsese's hard-to-find documentary American Boy and the man Scorsese profiled 30 years ago, Steven Prince. The two films will screen together during SXSW at Alamo South Lamar: on Saturday, March 14 at 7:30 pm, and again on Tuesday, March 17 at 11 am.

Check out some clips from the documentary and a very cool poster from the film over at Cinematical. And although this has nothing to do with American Prince per se, I recommend reading the Filmmaker Magazine interview with Pallotta about why he no longer uses Facebook or other social media.

One of the most intriguing trailers I've seen for SXSW this year has been for St. Nick, the feature from writer-director David Lowery that will premiere at the festival. I've attached the trailer after the jump so you can see for yourself.

David has a great blog called Drifting: A Director's Log where he often writes about the projects he's working on. His short films have screened at Slamdance, SXSW, and Austin Film Festival.

I recently conducted the following email interview with Lowery about St. Nick. If you're a vegetarian, you especially want to read to the end of this interview (why? you'll find out). St. Nick is playing during SXSW three times, each time at Alamo Ritz: Sunday, March 15 at noon, Tuesday, March 17 at 2:30 pm, and Friday, March 20 at 12:30 pm.

[Editor's note: The Unforeseen, a documentary about development in Austin that focuses on Barton Springs, has been playing at Alamo Drafthouse (first at South Lamar, currently at Ritz) for a few weeks now and is apparently still popular enough to stick around. If you haven't seen it, now's the time -- the lovely cinematography makes the documentary worthwhile to see in theaters. To whet your interest in the film, here are some excerpts from director Laura Dunn and producer Robert Redford, who were in Austin in March to promote the film.]

Laura Dunn, director: "A little over 5 years ago now, a group of us who really love Austin came together and started working on this film. We saw it as being the story of the long-running battle over Barton Springs and specifically lensing it as a microcosm for what's going on everywhere in communities across the globe. As we grow, how do we protect our most precious natural resources, like Barton Springs?

"I worked on this film for over 5 years and interviewed hundreds of people ... everyone from real estate developers to environmentalists to lobbyists to politicians to swimmers to long-time Austinites to artists, scientists, you name it. It was pretty exhausting.

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.

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.