SXSW is not only getting bigger year by year; there’s also more overlap between its three prongs, Interactive (tomorrow through Tuesday), Film (tomorrow through March 21) and Music (Tuesday through March 22). Hence the Austin Chronicle‘s decision to drop its traditional rollout of single successive issues devoted to each of three festival-slash-conferences. Instead, the weekly is taking on the entire event, appropriately enough, week by week. The title of this week’s walloping preview: “Welcome to the Convergence.”
There’s too much in the package to point to all at once, but among the highlights: Melanie Haupt on feminist cyborgs and on Jason Schwartzman, who stars in Bob Byington‘s 7 Chinese Brothers (Filmmaker‘s Sarah Salovaara has five questions for Byington) and Patrick Brice’s The Overnight; Raoul Hernandez on Joe Nick Patoski’s documentary Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove; Kate X Messer‘s interview with Alison Bechdel (yes, she of the Bechdel Test), who’ll be discussing storytelling tomorrow afternoon with Joshua Oppenheimer and NPR’s Maria Hinojosa; and Kimberley Jones on “How to Do Convergence Day.”
The Austin Film Society was founded 30 years ago by Richard Linklater and cinematographer Lee Daniel and, to celebrate the anniversary (as well as the 15th annual Texas Film Awards, happening tonight), Eric Kohn has put together an oral history.
Also at Indiewire: “10 Cool and Crazy Must-See Films at SXSW 2015,” Shipra Gupta on “7 Must-See Music Documentaries,” Paula Bernstein on five panels filmmakers shouldn’t miss, Liz Shannon Miller on “18 Can’t Miss SXSW TV Events,” David Canfield‘s chat with Alex Sichel and Elizabeth Giamatti (A Woman Like Me) and Travis Clark‘s with Alison Bagnall (Funny Bunny) and Indiewire‘s “SXSW Bible,” an index to its extensive coverage.
Peter Martin introduces Twitch‘s gallery of “12 Must-See Picks”; both the Playlist and HitFix have written up each of their “20 Most Anticipated Films”; ScreenCrush goes for “10 Must-See Movies”; Erik Childress lays out his schedule at RogerEbert.com; at The Credits, Byran Abrams previews some “Hot Docs” and spotlights some “Women to Watch.”
Trailer: The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson from Polite Storm
“With 145 total films on tap, including 100 world premieres drawn from a record 2,385 feature-length submissions, SXSW Film is offering a massive slate in 2015,” writes Variety‘s Andrew Barker. “It’s almost too bad that wasn’t the plan. ‘We were not intending to increase the number of films,’ says SXSW Film head Janet Pierson. ‘We were literally trying to do the opposite.'”
For the Hollywood Reporter, Seth Abramovitch talks with Amy Schumer about Trainwreck and her director and producer, Judd Apatow. As for SXSW in general, he also lists “8 Reasons Why It’s Worth the Trip.”
In the Guardian, Dave Simpson talks with Julien Temple about The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson; and here in Keyframe, Sam Fragoso talks with Bill and Turner Ross about Western.
Update: Filmmaker‘s Scott Macaulay‘s got 15 recommendations.
Updates, 3/13: Flavorwire‘s Jason Bailey writes up “10 SXSW 2015 Movies We Can’t Wait to See.” And Variety picks the “13 Buzziest Movies.” Similarly, Movies.com‘s Erik Davis: “12 Movies Everyone Will be Talking About.”
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