September 21, 2017

#TBT: 25 Years of SXSW Film Festival – Andrew Haigh, Alex Winter, Dan Lindsay & TJ Martin, and Lynn Shelton

To commemorate the 25th edition of the SXSW Film Festival, we will spotlight careers launched, artists discovered, powerful performances, and more from our alumni with this week’s featured artists are Andrew Haigh, Alex Winter, Dan Lindsay & TJ Martin, and Lynn Shelton.

Andrew Haigh

Andrew Haigh‘s second feature Weekend premiered at SXSW in 2011 in the Emerging Visions category, where it won the Audience Award. Weekend tells the story of an intimate connection between two gay men. Haigh went on to co-create the HBO show Looking and wrote and directed the film of the same name. In 2015, Haigh directed and wrote the film 45 Years, which earned actress Charlotte Rampling an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. His newest film Lean on Pete, is based on the novel of the same name by Willy Vlautin, and premiered at the Venice International Film Festival.

“SXSW changed my life by having the courage to love Weekend before any one else did.
SXSW is the rarest of festivals. A lover of the outsider, and a champion of the new. The festival itself is a paean to artists; to those compelled to create and yet refuse to wait for permission. SXSW was both an inspiration and a catalyst in my/our careers.”

Alex Winter

Alex Winter is a talented actor, director, and screenwriter. One of Winter’s most notable roles is playing Bill S. Preston, Esquire from the Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure franchise. Winter has presented two world premieres at SXSW. The first, Downloaded (2012) is the story of Napster and the evolution of digital media. The second, Deep Web (2015) covers the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road website. He’s currently working on another documentary about Frank Zappa.

“I love SXSW because it’s one of the most well-programmed, smoothly organized, and enjoyable film festivals in the world. I’ve had the honor of premiering two films at SX, as well as spoken on panels. I have returned just to hang out and watch movies despite having no business there at all, which is something I never do at any other festivals. The quality of the films, the passion and engagement of the audience and the sheer fun of being there is hard to match anywhere else.”

Dan Lindsay & TJ Martin

Lindsay and Martin’s documentary Undefeated had its world premiere at the film festival in 2011 and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film follows the struggles of a high school football team in Memphis. Not only did the pair serve as directors, but also sound recorders, editors, and cinematographers. Their most recent collaboration, LA 92, about the LA riots, aired on National Geographic Channel earlier this year.

“SXSW changed our lives by offering to program our film Undefeated. They took a chance on two no-name directors and gave us a platform that ultimately lead to our film being sold and eventually it winning an Oscar. That definitely changed our lives and it all started at SXSW.”

Lynn Shelton

Shelton has had two films screen at SXSW, My Effortless Brilliance (2008) and Hump Day (2009). The latter starred fellow SXSW alum, Mark Duplass, whom she worked with again in Your Sister’s Sister. Shelton had directed episodes for numerous hit TV shows including Master of None, Fresh Off the Boat, and The Good Place to name a few. Shelton’s latest film Outside In, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the drama stars SXSW alum Jay Duplass and Edie Falco.

“I adore SXSW; I felt nothing but celebrated, valued, and embraced as a filmmaker by the festival. When I think of SXSW, I am filled with warm fuzzies.”

Join Us For SXSW 2018

Grab your Film Badge today for primary access to all SXSW Film events including world premieres, roundtables, workshops, and parties. Register to attend by Friday, October 20 and save before prices go up in November. Make your hotel reservations through SXSW Housing & Travel for the best available rates. We hope to see you in March!

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SXSW News for the latest SXSW coverage, announcements, application tips, and updates.

World Premiere of Weekend – Photo by Dustin Finklestein
World Premiere of Deep Web – Photo by Amy Price
World Premiere of Undefeated – Photo by Stephen Pun
World Premiere of Humpday – Photo by Jesse Knish

The post #TBT: 25 Years of SXSW Film Festival – Andrew Haigh, Alex Winter, Dan Lindsay & TJ Martin, and Lynn Shelton appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

September 18, 2017

Filmmaker In Focus: Barbecue, Easy Living, and Unrest

September brings a new wave of SXSW Film Festival alumni releases available for viewing. Many eye-opening experiences await, including a culinary journey around the world, a romantic comedy with a dark edge, and an investigation of the misunderstood phenomenon of chronic fatigue syndrome. Learn more about each film and read our short Q&A with the directors below.

Barbecue

Matthew Salleh is an Australian born, US and Australian based filmmaker who, with his partner Rose Tucker, have travelled to the corners of the globe to create his debut feature documentary Barbecue. His work focuses on capturing intimate portraits of unique and vibrant cultures as a pathway to understanding and appreciating the world we live in.

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

MS: My partner Rose Tucker and I travelled to twelve countries as a two person crew to capture portraits of how people cook meat over fire, and see how their interpretation of barbecue brings people together and is an indication of the cultural values they hold dear.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

MS: Having been fortunate to travel with previous projects, a constantly recurring theme was the pride people took in their version of barbecue. Everyone thought theirs was the best, and it ignited (pun intended) some pretty extreme passion. For me, ridiculously passionate people are the root of all good documentary storytelling.

Q: What do you want the audience to take away from this film?

MS: I hope people find a reaffirmed hope for humankind. It may sound silly, but when I started this film I was hoping that the global portrait we were creating would confirm my belief in the potential of humanity. And it was the everyday subjects of our film that gave me great inspiration – something that I hope the audience feels as well.

Easy Living

Adam Keleman‘s short, Going Black, premiered at SXSW in 2010. His work has shown work at a number of different film festivals around the country. As a film journalist and critic, he has written for Soma Magazine, AOL Moviefone, Slant, and Little Joe. Easy Living is Keleman’s first feature.

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

AK: Easy Living is about a self-destructive makeup saleswoman trying to make amends with the past while also paving a path for a future on her own terms. The film interweaves improvised makeup selling moments with non-actors into the scripted narrative.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

AK: I was re-watching the Maysles’s brothers film Salesman in 2010, and I thought about what a female version of that film might look like, and that was the first seed of the story. Easy Living is the third part in a triptych of films centered around female characters, exploring similar themes and locales of small town Americana.

Q: What do you want the audience to take away from this film?

AK:I hope they connect with the lead character despite all of her flaws, and appreciate the unconventional qualities of the film.

Unrest

Jennifer Brea is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She has an AB from Princeton University and was a PhD student at Harvard until sudden illness left her bedridden. In the aftermath, she rediscovered her first love, film. Unrest is her film debut.

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

JB: I was a PhD student at Harvard, engaged to the love of my life, when I came down with a fever of 104 degrees. I got sicker and sicker, to the point that I couldn’t even sit in a wheelchair, couldn’t write my own name — but doctors told me my symptoms were “all in my head.”

I began filming myself as a way to make sense of what I was going through, and eventually went online and found a hidden world of millions confined to their homes and bedrooms by ME, an illness commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. Unrest follows my personal story as my husband Omar and I grapple with how to live with the new reality of my illness, and also follows the stories of four other ME patients as technology enables us to connect, bedridden, from across the world.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

JB: I began shooting on my iPhone at a point when I was so sick that I couldn’t read or write. I had been a writer my whole life, but when that outlet was no longer available to me, filming myself became a way to make sense of what I was going through and to reclaim a piece of myself. It was also a way for me to convey the severity of what I was experiencing to doctors, who often minimized or reduced my symptoms when I tried to describe them in words.

The idea to make a feature film came later, and that really evolved from a desire for social justice. As I began to learn the long history of my disease, and the way millions living with ME have been forgotten by medicine and ignored because of misogyny and stigma, I thought that if I could share the experience of this disease with the world, perhaps I could help to bring about change.

Q: What do you want the audience to take away from this film?

JB: I hope people learn from the film that ME is a serious disease with a long history of neglect due to sexism, ignorance, and bias; that those of us living with disabilities are complex and human and deserve to be seen; and that we all have the ability to find strength and resilience in ourselves.

Barbecue is currently available to stream on Netflix, Easy Living will play in select theaters on September 15, and Unrest opens in theaters on September 22.

Join Us For SXSW 2018

Grab your Film Badge today for primary access to all SXSW Film events including world premieres, roundtables, workshops, and parties. Register to attend by Friday, October 20 and save before prices go up in November. Make your hotel reservations through SXSW Housing & Travel for the best available rates. We hope to see you in March!

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SXSW News for the latest SXSW coverage, announcements, application tips, and updates.

The post Filmmaker In Focus: Barbecue, Easy Living, and Unrest appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film