With all of the world affairs going on right now, part of me just wants an escape….to a major international festival where everyone is looking for that next big thing. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. South By Southwest is upon us once again this year, and I am travelling all the way from Western Canada for another 11 days of movies, activations, a music show or two and some barbecue.
Where this is also the Interactive and Music portions, I still focus heavily on the film aspect….I mean this is a film site after all, but non feature events are starting to creep in like the short films, activations and things to try to distract me from seeing a movie on the big screen. The Criterion Closet is going to move from New York over to Congress Street infront of a movie theatre, with that pesky physical media trying to dissuade me from my Apple TV collection. I somehow need to be everywhere at once for cinema.
SxSW has changed of course, but I am still a movie buff who is just looking for that next great movie to support. That has not changed in me. Now in my 18th year (yes, I have been coming here since 2007 and count), I have been here since the movie THE LOOKOUT opened the festival at the downtown Paramount Theatre and have since moved all over the downtown core for screenings and events, mostly then also leading me to the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar to dine with movies.
Last year we had the likes of GHOSTLIGHT and BOB TREVINO LIKES IT dominating the indie scene. This year’s lineup has quite a few features with streaming premieres, not much of it I agree with after Sean Baker made it known during his Oscars speech that the theatrical experience is incredibly important for every movie. Last year I attended the world premiere of ROADHOUSE and then a week later it was on Amazon Prime. This year, a focus on this movie lover’s end is to find movies that need to be seen on the big screen, with an audience, and especially in a cinema that is worth the effort to get out there and see something besides something that will be on Netflix in a few weeks.
Throughout the week you will be seeing some reactions from myself along with writers Antonio Quintero and Anna Hanks, two of my local writer friends that I have met here and immediately connected with on our shared love of cinema. I am the most excited for the smaller titles, midnighters and everything in-between. You can also follow me on Instagram!
Keep an eye on this site and hit our category marker above for capsule reaction/reviews as they come in! For more information on the festival and what is playing, point your browser to www.sxsw.com!