South by Southwest has carved out a selected area of interest for itself on the competition circuit, slightly rowdier and extra spirited than the likes of Sundance or Cannes.
That off-kilter ethos is encapsulated in the opening-night lineup on the competition’s centerpiece venue, Austin’s Paramount Theatre. World-premiering Friday, Paul Feig’s “Another Simple Favor,” a sequel to the 2018 hit “A Simple Favor,” leads the way in which with returning stars Blake Energetic and Anna Kendrick. Then comes Seth Rogen’s Apple TV+ sequence “The Studio,” a figuring out satire of up to date Hollywood with many movie star cameos. And at last Michael Shanks’ buzzy Sundance premiere “Together,” a stunning body-horror film starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco, will play at midnight.
Precisely the best way to describe what distinguishes SXSW from different festivals is one other matter.
“I think the word is fun. The festival is about fun,” mentioned filmmaker Jay Duplass, who has been to the occasion many occasions and can be there this yr to premiere the low-key, character-driven dramedy “The Baltimorons.” “The intention is like, ‘Guys, everything’s so hard. Let’s try to have some fun,’” mentioned Duplass. “Austin’s changed a ton over the years but it is kind of still the spirit of Austin.”
A part of the bigger South by Southwest occasion, which additionally consists of music, expertise and a convention that pulls boldface names from an array of disciplines, the movie and TV competition has gained a repute for splashy, celebrity-driven premieres akin to “The Fall Guy” with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt final yr or this yr’s “The Accountant 2” with Ben Affleck, “Holland” starring Nicole Kidman and “The Death of a Unicorn” with Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega. However the competition has lengthy been a hotbed for the invention of rising expertise.
Sean Baker, who simply gained 4 Oscars for “Anora,” premiered his first function movie, “Four Letter Words,” at SXSW in 2001. “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” whose administrators Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert had beforehand gained music video prizes on the fest, premiered their movie at SXSW in 2022 earlier than happening to win seven Academy Awards. Different filmmakers who’ve had early works premiere right here embrace Barry Jenkins, Greta Gerwig, Josh and Benny Safdie, Ti West, Destin Daniel Cretton and Lena Dunham
“For us this is the point of everything we do,” mentioned Claudette Godfrey, the competition’s vp of movie and TV. “Finding people we think have an interesting voice or vision and [being] able to support them and be a stepping stone on their road. This is why I’m watching hundreds and hundreds of movies. This is why we are working so hard.”
SXSW was among the many earliest festivals to highlight episodic work; different notable TV premieres this yr embrace showrunners Ramy Youssef and Pam Brady’s “#1 Happy Family USA,” showrunners Paul Hunter and Aeysha Carr’s “Government Cheese” and showrunner Jennifer Cacicio’s “Happy Face.”
On the documentary facet, Giselle Bailey and Phil Bertelsen’s “Seen & Heard,” govt produced by Issa Rae, appears to be like on the lives of Black creators in tv. Xander Robin’s “The Python Hunt” examines a Florida contest to seize pythons within the Everglades. Margaret Brown’s “The Yogurt Shop Murders” covers the unsolved 1991 homicide of 4 teenage women in Austin. Dan Farah’s “The Age of Disclosure” explores what the U.S. authorities is aware of concerning the existence of nonhuman clever life.
Amanda Peet and Matthew Shear in “Fantasy Life.”
(Fantasy Life Productions LLC)
Feig beforehand premiered his movies “Bridesmaids” and “Spy” on the competition, whereas Rogen is a dependable SXSW common as an actor and producer, having been there with “Long Shot,” “Observe and Report,” “Knocked Up” and others. Affleck beforehand premiered “Air” on the competition.
“I think they all want the same thing,” mentioned Godfrey of what attracts filmmakers again to the competition, “which is to get to see their film on a big screen with a great audience. Their positive experiences here in the past is what makes them want to come back. I just think that in this time that is rarer than ever before. There’s just something intangible. It feels like a little bit of magic in there that’s hard to describe.”
Amongst titles poised to interrupt out of this yr’s competition are “Fantasy Life,” the debut for actor Matthew Shear as writer-director. He stars within the movie as a depressive younger man who falls right into a job as babysitter to 3 younger women and develops a crush on their mom (Amanda Peet). Actress Amy Landecker additionally makes her function debut as writer-director in “For Worse,” through which she stars as a just lately divorced girl invited to a marriage with the a lot youthful members of her new appearing class.
“Baltimorons” is Jay Duplass’ first solo-directed film with out his brother and longtime artistic accomplice, Mark Duplass. It is usually the primary film Jay Duplass has directed in some 14 years, a interval that has discovered him working in tv as each an actor and a director. (Mark Duplass is an govt producer on the movie.)
Co-written by Jay Duplass and Michael Strassner — the pair met on Instagram — the movie stars Strassner as a newly sober comic in Baltimore who breaks a tooth on Christmas Eve and units off on a sequence of spontaneous adventures with the one dentist who would see him (Liz Larsen).
Michael Strassner and Liz Larsen in Jay Duplass’ “The Baltimorons.”
(SXSW)
Additionally premiering on the competition is the connection drama “Magic Hour,” starring Daveed Diggs and Katie Aselton, who additionally directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Duplass, her husband. (Jay Duplass is an govt producer on the movie.)
Jay Duplass, who moved to Austin within the early Nineties and lived there for 12 years, recalled what it meant to see native filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez and Richard Linklater round city.
“Austin is like my spiritual home,” he mentioned. “That’s really where I came of age being a filmmaker and learned how to do it and still use those methods. Even though we do really big stuff sometimes, I still use a very personal, handmade way of making art, especially with this movie. That’s the arts-and-crafts way of making things in Austin that I learned about.”
Chad Hartigan, director of “The Threesome,” has not been to SXSW in 9 years however had beforehand attended many occasions even earlier than his 2016 movie “Morris From America” performed the competition. He met Cherie Saulter, producer of his 2013 movie “This Is Martin Bonner,” on the competition. It was additionally at SXSW that Hartigan met future Oscar winner Adele Romanski, who produced “Morris.”
“I don’t want to say it was networking, but it was really just going and meeting like-minded individuals that became your friends first,” mentioned Hartigan. “And then when it came time to make movies, you had more talented friends to partner up with.
“There’s less of a feeding frenzy for press and buyers and things like that,” he added. “It’s more just focused on having a great screening, having a great time, and it usually always ends up that way. The audiences are really fun and, I mean, sometimes the lines to get food can be a little much, but otherwise no complaints.”
Ruby Cruz, left, Zoey Deutch and Jonah Hauer-King in Chad Hartigan’s “The Threesome.”
(Star Thrower Leisure)
“The Threesome” stars Jonah Hauer-King as a younger man pining for his spiky co-worker (Zoey Deutch) when one evening they fall right into a threesome with a girl they simply met (Ruby Cruz), setting in movement a series of unexpected issues.
Making her function debut as writer-director, Annapurna Sriram additionally stars in ‘F—toys,” a ribald, campy journey as a young woman attempts to lift a curse placed on her. Sriram first wrote the script some eight years ago, predating projects such as “Euphoria,” “Zola,” “Pleasure” and “Anora” that have similar gonzo vibes and open-minded attitudes toward sex work. Citing influences such as John Waters, Harmony Korine and Gregg Araki, Sriram always felt that SXSW could make a good home for the film, unconventional title and all.
“South-by was definitely our target festival,” said Sriram. “I think we kind of knew we were maybe a little bit too cuckoo-crazy for Sundance, but we were like, Austin is the right kind of weird for this type of cult art-house smutty cinema.”
Annapurna Sriram in “F—toys.”
(Trashtown Pictures)
And while the political realities of the present moment are hard to put completely out of mind in Austin, where the Texas Capitol Building is visible just blocks from the Paramount, Godfrey has no doubt that a little escapism is in order when times are bleak.
“It’s enjoyable to do that, to be an artist and to simply be in group,” she mentioned. “You gotta live while you’re alive, man. Things are dark and terrible and I think that people are getting enough of that. To a certain extent, people have always felt like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go on this trip to SXSW and take a little break’ from whatever it is they’re being weighed down with. And I think also if we’re going to make anything better, then we’re going to have to get together and figure it out.”
