SXSW HOTEL ROOMS : SARDINES AWARD

The WINNER of the Filmmaker Blog  ”Around Austin” ridiculous festival hotel room set-up is: 

… Read the rest

GOODBYE AUSTIN

Last Day in Austin. Lack of sleep + hangovers + five girls in one room =

So it seemed like a good idea to get out of the Alamo (where they serve BEER AND HAMBURGERS to you while you watch movies!) (!!!!!!!!!!!!) 

A group trip to Barton Springs was organized. Below, Creative Nonfiction‘s Lena Dunham and Carlen Altman, co-star of Ry Russo-Young’s You Won’t Miss Me. Ry and Tom Davis (New World Order) beat me in a swimming race, information that I should probably not make public, but SXSW means no shame. 

Spout.com’s lovely Karina Longworth also felt the need for some al fresco air after five straight days in dark caves. 

Then a final toast at the closing night party. Below, David Lowery (Right Hand Man on Alexander the Last, director of St. Nick) and Alex Karpovsky (Trust Us: This is All Made Up). 

After a week of movies and partying, some looked especially worse for wear. Humpday director Lynn Shelton, for example, looks like she’s really been burning the candle at both ends:

… Read the rest

SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT

Arms locked together, smiles frozen in place awaiting the digital flash — we all have these photos on our cameras and phones when we return from a film festival. These moments sure look like happy ones now that a festival premiere has spackled over all the fractures that production wrought. At SXSW this year, however, one group tried to summon up smiles that were a bit more sincere in intent. Operation Smile is a non-profit organization that provides cleft-lip and palate repair to children and young adults around the world, many in developing countries. Reps from the organization manned a table on the third floor of the Austin Convention Center and snapped pictures of people smiling while holding signs detailing just what makes them smile. The footage then was fed into a video loop that played in one of the lounges. By the end of the festival, a wall was full of happy thoughts, a section of which is shown above. As SXSW was all about mobile apps, Operation Smile had one too, of sorts: if you text “Smile” to 90999 you will be billed $5 on your mobile bill and these funds will go towards the non-profit’s work.

For more info on Operation Smile, visit their website.… Read the rest

#1 RULE ABOUT TEXAS

Everything is big in Texas. Take for example this giant cabbage, growing freely in a parking lot, in Texas.

… Read the rest

WEILER REVEALS HIS SECRET

If you were at SXSW up until yesterday, you may have been accosted in one of several ways by protesters of a group who hated a man named Cain and wanted to “Stop Tarp.” They threw a protest in the streets, threw dollar bills around the convention center, caused twitter uproars and otherwise seeped into the festival’s consciousness. I was rude to one particularly aggressive flier-distributor, and for this I am sorry, because I now know the secret. 

Suddenly a video of the much-protested and nowhere-to-be-found panelist Brian Cain (Creative Director of Campfire) appeared on screen — being splashed with blood! Then Cain arrived, soaked in blood and fuming, flanked by detectives who began to search the audience for the rogue twitterer. 

… Read the rest

SWANBERG… KRIS SWANBERG

Joe Swanberg’s Alexander the Last is not the only Swanberg film here at SXSW. His wife Kris’s movie, It Was Great, But I Was Ready To Come Home, premieres at the festival too. Pictured above at last night’s Florida Fish Fry, from left to right, are Alexander the Last star Amy Seimetz, Swanberg, and Three Blind Mice director Matthew Newton.… Read the rest

THE DUDE BLASPHEMES

When Jeff “The Dude” Dowd told David Lee Miller that Miller’s movie My Suicide was as epic and groundbreaking as 2001: A Space Odyssey,  humble Miller replied that such a statement was blasphemy and insulting to filmmakers everywhere. Still seeking word on whether or not the Dude abides.

Pictured: Eugene Hernandez (Editor-in-Chief, indiewire.com) and Tim LaTorre abiding at the My Suicide party. 

… Read the rest

HOTEL ROOM PHOTO PROJECT

If you’re at SXSW, you should definitely send photos of you and your roommates in your hotel room, along with a list of the room’s residents at sxswhotel (at) gmail (dot) com… and prepare to be a part of the greatest film festival hotel room photo gallery of all time. … Read the rest

WORK AND FAMILY

Shut out of three sold out movies. Went to a panel but had to step out for a phone call the whole time. A complete bust of a day. Time for drinking. First at the Filmmaker’s BBQ at Maggie Mae’s, with… 

Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones of Breaking Upwards, processing juicy gossip from Audrey Gelman, co-star of Lena Dunham’s Creative Non-Fiction (interview forthcoming)…

…Jody Lee Lipes, Brock Enright and Kyle Martin, of Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be The Same…

… Read the rest

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

The goal in any festival director transition: to maintain the quality of a festival and begin to put one’s personal stamp on it while not slowing its momentum or dampening its good will. Mid-way through SXSW, I’d say that for new director Janet Pierson, pictured here at the BMI dinner, that mission has been handily accomplished. Attendance is up; audience reaction to a good number of films is positive; the panels are informational and packed; there’s the requisite fanboy buzz from the opening night I Love You, Man plus today’s sneak of some of the Bruno footage; and there are even bits of controversy here and there, like the heated Q and A that followed Brett Gaylor’s RIP! documentary. Congratulations to Janet on what so far has been a very good SXSW.… Read the rest