Around Austin

SXSW HOTEL ROOMS : SARDINES AWARD

2009-03-19T17:39:00.003-04:00

The WINNER of the Filmmaker Blog "Around Austin" ridiculous festival hotel room set-up is: TEAM EMBASSY SWEETS: Director David Lowery, Director Joe Swanberg, Director Kris Swanberg, Writer Jade Healy, composer Mike Vasitch, Actor Chris Trujillo, and several more who wish not to pay for their space on the floor and thus will remain unnamed.

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GOODBYE AUSTIN

2009-03-19T15:40:00.002-04:00

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...

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SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT

2009-03-18T23:14:00.002-04:00

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...

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#1 RULE ABOUT TEXAS

2009-03-17T21:29:00.002-04:00

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

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WEILER REVEALS HIS SECRET

2009-03-17T20:53:00.004-04:00

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. I did not know there was a secret at all before I stepped into the "You're Living Your Own Private Branded Experience" panel, save for the oblique and confusing references that Lance Weiler had made on Day One. When I stepped into Weiler's panel, just fifteen minutes late (it was deep into the...

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SWANBERG... KRIS SWANBERG

2009-03-16T22:07:00.004-04:00

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.

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THE DUDE BLASPHEMES

2009-03-16T15:02:00.002-04:00

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.

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HOTEL ROOM PHOTO PROJECT

2009-03-16T12:24:00.002-04:00

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.

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WORK AND FAMILY

2009-03-16T12:05:00.003-04:00

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... ...Kentucker Audley (Team Picture), Michael Tully (HammertoNail.com) and Todd Sklar, who are either dissecting a film or talking about where to go eat. Because then we wandered around looking for a place to eat. Finally located free pulled pork sandwiches at the...

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MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

2009-03-16T02:15:00.003-04:00

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...

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IRONY

2009-03-15T11:59:00.002-04:00

That was the view immediately following the premiere of Objectified, Gary Hustwit's new documentary about industrial design (specifically and in great detail, iphones.)

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SXSW - SATURDAY

2009-03-15T11:33:00.005-04:00

The pervasive feeling around SXSW, as I feel it? A frenetic gathering of people who like each other very much. Like Range Life Entertainment chief and Box Elder-director Todd Sklar, and You Won't Miss Me-director Ry Russo-Young outside the premiere of Andrew Bujalksi's Beeswax. They are on a panel, "Indie Realities," later this week. Or It Was Great, But I Was Ready To Come Home-director Kris Swanberg and Man About Town/Great World of Sound-director Craig Zobel, at her husband Joe Swanberg's madhouse of an Alexander the Last premiere. By "madhouse" I mean thronged by press and several lines around the block. On stage the Q & A, stars Amy Seimetz and Jess Weixler cried like babies (it has to do with accessing the most nasal part of...

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SWANBERG AND DENTLER

2009-03-14T23:06:00.003-04:00

Pictured above, on the second floor of the convention center, Alexander the Last director Joe Swanberg and Cinetic Media Rights' Matt Dentler. Dentler to me: "You know, I don't work here anymore, but you don't need to wait on this long line for your badge. You can go to the Panelists Registration over there."

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SXSW, ARRIVAL

2009-03-14T21:29:00.004-04:00

I wish so much that I could have blogged yesterday about being Around Austin. But I was not around Austin, despite well-made plans. I was in the Laguardia Airport... forever... and the Atlanta Airport, and the Atlanta Airport Days Inn. Thank you, Delta Airlines. Shout Outs to my Terminal D buddies, Outfest Programmer Cameron Yates, who left me in the carpeted, airless dust when his desk agent booked him on a flight to San Antonio. And to the lovely Christopher Pace, a SXSW Interactive attendee with whom I joined forces during the great hotel voucher fiasco, and with whom I was forced to share a room at the Days Inn. Here is a picture of our matching toothbrushes -- once more, thank you Delta Airlines. Then I got here, hooray. I was...

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ADVICE FROM THE FRONT LINES: AUSTIN SURVIVAL TIPS

2009-03-12T22:11:00.010-04:00

Thinking of those of you who are heading to SXSW for the first time, we asked some festival vets about some of the really important stuff — like where to find the best barbecue and where to nab free Wi-Fi. (The Austin Convention Center Wi-Fi gets overloaded and is notoriously slow.) What follows are the answers we received, but if you’d like to add your own comments to the mix, email us at editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com BEST BARBECUE - “There is no simple answer to that question.” – Mike S. Ryan, producer and contributor to Hammertonail.com - You have to leave town, sorry — it’s in Lockhart.” – Robert Byington, Austin local and director of RSO: Registered Sex Offender and Harmony & Me (Premiering at ND/NF) - Arthur Bryants...

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IN SEARCH OF SLACKER: LINKLATER'S AUSTIN

2009-03-12T17:27:00.003-04:00

It doesn't matter where we're from, we all remember the way the place used to be. You know, before the local dive bar became a TGIF, the Kroger became the Whole Foods, and back when the scene was truly a scene. But, of course, as powerful as nostalgia can be, it is also self-generating. What's around us right now will one day be a newcomer's "way it was." In terms of a filmmaker's celebration of his hometown, Rick Linklater's Slacker has, perhaps, no equal. It not only documented a place, Austin, but it grafted a sensibility onto that place, a sensibility that was both a generational and cultural marker. A year ago, filmmaker Spencer Parsons (I'll Come Running) revisited the Austin of old for FilmInFocus, and on the eve of SXSW it seems...

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SXSW SCREENS HOOPER'S EGGSHELLS

2009-03-12T10:32:00.013-04:00

Celebrating the work of one of Austin's filmmaking treasures, Toby Hooper, SXSW will be screening his little know first film, Eggshells. In this week's Austin Chronicle, Louis Black, co-founder/editor of the paper and SXSW, writes about the film, which hasn't been screened in close to four decades. An excerpt from the story: There were many extraordinary talents that worked on [Texas] Chainsaw [Massacre], including cinematographer Daniel Pearl; Hooper's co-writer, Kim Henkel; art and production designer Robert Burns; and Wayne Bell doing sound. Even though, in so many ways, it is clearly a director's movie in that all the elements are used to build tension and create horror. Hooper's talent has always been clear, but just how much of the...

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