Photo by immlass
Year in, year out, the true lone star of SXSW is the city of Austin itself, and its flagship weekly, the Chronicle, has just opened its biggest-ever microsite dedicated to the three-pronged festival (Interactive, Film, Music). SXSW Film opens tomorrow and runs through March 17, perfectly timed for sightings of the first bluebonnets springing up alongside I-35. I'll be posting notes and impressions from the first week of the festival, but for now, here's a quick skim of the previews.
In the Chronicle, Marc Savlov talks with Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon about their Opening Night headliner, The Cabin in the Woods, previews Patrick Forbes's Wikileaks: Secrets and Lies and Brian Knappenberger's We Are Legion: The Rise of the Hacktivists and talks with Gareth Evans about The Raid: Redemption.
Leah Churner meets Danielle McCarthy, producer of Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, "a new documentary about the seminal power-pop band's thwarted career and ongoing resurgence," Melanie Haupt chats with Gayby writer and director Jonathan Lisecki, Josh Rosenblatt interviews Somebody Up There Likes Me writer and director Bob Byington (see, too, Christopher Kelly's profile in the New York Times) and The Taiwan Oyster writer and director Mark Jarrett, and James Renovitch talks with Indie Game: The Movie directors James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot.
There there are two documentary roundups. The first features brief interviews with Caveh Zahedi (The Sheik and I), Andrew Garrison (Trash Dance) and Ben Shapiro (Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters), while the second covers Ashley Sabin and David Redmon's Girl Model, Bill and Turner Ross's Tchoupitoulas, Andrew Beck Grace's Eating Alabama and Jeffrey Kimball's The Central Park Effect.
Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay posts a list of "20 Films (and Other Things) I'm Looking Forward to at SXSW)," Eric Kohn picks out a "Top 10 Movies to Watch" from indieWIRE's guide to all the films, Oliver Lyttelton presents an annotated index to the SXSW films that the Playlist has already reviewed, and contributors to Twitch go primarily for genre fare. More lists: Brian Salisbury (Movies.com) and Adam B Vary (Entertainment Weekly).
Update, 3/9: IndieWIRE indexes its 28 interviews with filmmakers premiering new work at the festival.
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