January 19, 2018

SouthBites Update: Introducing Roasters Village and Three New Trucks

In collaboration with Sprudge, the Official Media Partner of Roasters Village, SXSW is thrilled to welcome the specialty coffee and tea industry in 2018 with the introduction of Roasters Village in the SouthBites Trailer Park. Curated to feature the top brands in the growing industry, this exhibition will run daily from 11am-9pm, March 10-12.

Come taste, touch, and smell some of the best names in the coffee and tea biz. Here’s a sneak peak of the vendors that will be in Roasters Village:

• Deadstock Coffee
• Five Elephant
• Intelligentsia Coffee, Inc.
• Irving Farm Coffee Roasters
• Slingshot Coffee Company
• Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company, Inc.
• Third Wave Water
• Tweed Coffee Roasters
• upruit
• Vega Coffee

Three New Food Trucks

In addition to Roasters Village, we are delighted to announce three more food truck additions to the SouthBites Trailer Park: Bodhi Viet Veggie Cuisine, OneTaco, and Ranch Hand.
This brings the total number of food trucks in the lot to 14. If you missed the last announcement, you better go peep that list and get your taste buds ready for March.

SouthBites Trailer Park is open daily from 11am-midnight, March 9-17.

Bodhi Viet Veggie Cuisine

Peace begins on your plate. Our goal is to spread this message through tasty, meat-free and meat-alternative Vietnamese cuisine. We are a group of local Buddhist nuns who believe that wholesome vegetarian food is the key to a peaceful and healthy lifestyle. We seek to spread basic principles of wisdom and peace through fresh and affordable food.

OneTaco

OneTaco co-owners Tony Avila and Axel Beverido aim to bring a traditional Mexican Taqueria to the city. “What you want to do is perfect them and make them taste as best as you can and work on your environment. It’s not about experimenting. It’s about being true to the tradition.” OneTaco opened a food truck in November 2009 off 6th Street in downtown Austin. In June 2016, OneTaco opened their first brick-and-mortar location.

Ranch Hand

Ranch Hand was started by two Texas MBA students who believe meat from Texas ranches is too often showcased in an unhealthy way: think BBQ, Tex Mex, or cheeseburger joints. Ranch Hand flips the script and showcases Texas proteins in a healthy, sustainable way. Take their “Cilantro” bowl for example, which features ground Akaushi meatballs from HeartBrand ranch, organic avocado, organic mixed greens, watermelon radish, cucumber, black beans, grilled corn and a garnish of cilantro, served with a lime-jalapeño vinaigrette.

The post SouthBites Update: Introducing Roasters Village and Three New Trucks appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

January 19, 2018

Cyber Extortion, Social Media Music Licensing, and Ethics: CLE Track Sessions for SXSW 2018

Dive into hot-button legal issues across the music, film, and emerging technology industries. The Continuing Legal Education or CLE Track at SXSW offers 12 hours of accredited sessions – including 1 hour of ethics – available at no extra cost to SXSW registrants. Explore some of the most notable CLE sessions for SXSW 2018 and be sure to add our session recommendations to your schedule.

According to SXSW Programmer Adam Wode, “With speakers from a number of different companies across the music, film, and interactive worlds, the CLE Track epitomizes SXSW’s Convergence programming. Legal experts from Twitter, Sundance Institute, Sony Music, Facebook, and Musical.ly will share their insights and expertise.”

Discussions range from OTT video deals, licensing music for social media, cyber extortion, and much more. Join us for the CLE Track from March 15-17 during SXSW Convergence programming. SXSW Convergence programming features a range of topics that straddle the cultural and technological intersection at the heart of SXSW with primary access granted to all SXSW Badges.

If you’re a law student, faculty or staff check out our student and staff discounts for SXSW badges. If you’re interested in larger university focused initiatives, reach out to sales@sxsw.com.

CLE Session Highlights

Cyber Extortion: Doing Business With Crooks

Speakers: Elizabeth Cookson (Kivu Consulting Inc), Bart Huffman (Reed Smith LLP), Wendell Bartnick (Reed Smith LLP), and Benjamin Stone (Federal Bureau of Investigation)

Cyber extortion (typically but not always using ransomware) has become a billion dollar “business.” Individuals and companies of all sizes and industries are vulnerable. For health, safety, and financial stability reasons, regulators have heightened expectations for data “availability” as a critical component of security. In the digital arena, as elsewhere, disaster recovery and business continuity have a seat at the head table for incident response planning purposes. Panelists will discuss how to deal with a cyber extortion situation, how things are likely to go down if a decision is made to pay, what you may wish you had done or thought of, and what the law and law enforcement have to say about doing business this way.

Add to Your Schedule

TV Goes OTT: Video Deals in an Age of Cord Cutters

Speakers: Matt Heckman (Twitter), Gabriel Fleet (Greenberg Traurig LLP), J. Christopher Hamilton (The Black Group), Michelle Skinner (Sundance Institute), and Tonya Rutherford (Verizon FiOS Tv And go90)

As more and more consumers decide to forego cable subscriptions in favor of “over the top” streaming offerings from the likes of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, digital video distribution deals have become increasingly important to the bottom-line of the entertainment business. This trend has surfaced a host of unique challenges that could never have been contemplated in the prior Golden Age of Television. This panel of experienced legal dealmakers will explore some common, hot-button legal and business issues associated with the structuring and negotiation of complex agreements in this evolving space.

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Licensing Music for Social Media: A Perfect Storm

Speakers: Bobby Rosenbloum (Greenberg Traurig LLP), Tracy Gardner (Warner Music Group), Neil Miller
(Facebook), and Ted Suh (musical.ly)

As full-catalog streaming services have become more of an institutionalized business model and the core of the recorded music industry’s business, there is a new horizon of opportunities as music becomes integrated with social media. That said, the emerging social media models often push the limits of traditional music licensing, and new concepts are needed where the law has not adequately contemplated the new world order. This panel will feature some of the innovators and thought leaders in the space and will focus on the complex legal, business and licensing issues that have confronted service providers.

Add to Your Schedule

Browse All Continuing Legal Education Sessions

Crossover Track Recommendations

Make the most of your time at SXSW and learn from SXSW sessions across all 24 Tracks of Conference programming. These recommended sessions are outside of the CLE Track but will interest any SXSW attendee.

• Ethics in VR/AR Journalism – Jean Yves Chainon (JYC), and Lakshmi Sarah (Tiny World Productions)
  Track: News & Journalism

• Design in the Criminal Justice System – Ryan Menefee (frog design), and Kelsey McKay (McKay Training & Consulting)
  Track: Government

• When Programmers are Asked to do the Unethical – Julie Bort (Business Insider), Bill Sourour (Devmastery.com), and Katie Smith (Convercent)
  Track: Code & Programming

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Purchase your SXSW Badge and reserve your hotel today to experience these sessions along with 10 days of screenings, showcases, exhibitions, networking, and more this March 9-18 in Austin, TX. Take the Tracks Quiz to discover which badge will suit your needs. Attending SXSW with a group of (10+)? Complete our SXSW Group Registration form to get started and find out more about group discounts.

Already have your badge? Learn how to upgrade to Platinum for primary access to all of SXSW and then begin building your 2018 SXSW Schedule.

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

Teaser Photo by Jay Nicholas

The post Cyber Extortion, Social Media Music Licensing, and Ethics: CLE Track Sessions for SXSW 2018 appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

January 18, 2018

American Music Abroad Now Accepting Applications to Tour the World

From a Detroit-based hip-hop group collaborating with musicians in a studio in Madagascar to an L.A. rock band playing clubs in Minsk, Belarus, American Music Abroad (AMA) provides life-changing opportunities for U.S. bands to travel the globe.

The program, an initiative of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, sends American bands from all genres on fully-funded month-long tours, focusing on countries with little or no access to live American musical performances.

Since it began in the 1950s with Louis Armstrong’s tour of Africa and Eastern Europe, AMA has focused on Cultural Diplomacy, creating person-to-person connections through performances, workshops, and collaborations.

Bands must contain between 3–5 members, and all members must be U.S. Citizens. We encourage groups in any characteristically American genre to apply, including those who span multiple genres or who may not find a genre that accurately describes their music.

Sound like your thing? Applications are being accepted through January 21 for the September 2018-May 2019 Touring Season. Apply now for your chance to perform, educate, and collaborate with musicians around the globe.

Questions? Email ama@americanvoices.org.

Content and image provided by American Voices Abroad

The post American Music Abroad Now Accepting Applications to Tour the World appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

January 18, 2018

Futuristic Kitchens, Transforming Wine, and Plant-Based Meat: Food Track Sessions for SXSW 2018

Join the food community’s most inspired entrepreneurs, chefs, data scientists, investors, filmmakers, and enthusiasts this March to learn and discuss the ways in which technology continues to transform the food industry. The Food Track programming at SXSW focuses on innovation and technological advances across the entire food industry. Get a taste for some of the most exciting Food Track sessions for SXSW 2018 and be sure to add our session recommendations to your schedule.

One question is constantly brought up within Food programming; How will we feed the world’s population in 2040? At the current rate, we will not be able to grow/produce enough food to feed the booming global population. According to SXSW Programmer Adam Wode, “A number of sessions within the Food Track aim to tackle this question through innovative solutions. Discussions range from practical uses of artificial intelligence technology in agriculture to sustainable fishing methodologies, as well as a deep look into how chefs are fighting against food waste.”

Dive deeper into the Food Track from March 12-14 during SXSW Convergence programming. SXSW Convergence programming features a range of topics that straddle the cultural and technological intersection at the heart of SXSW with primary access granted to all SXSW Badges.

Food Session Highlights

The Restaurant of the Future

Speakers: Arielle Johnson (MIT Media Lab), Josh Kulp (Honey Butter Fried Chicken & Sunday Dinner Club), Joy Crump (Foode), and Mitchell Davis (The James Beard Foundation)

The cost of food, labor, and rent are forcing many in the restaurant industry to change their business model or get out of the business. What does a successful restaurant in 2018 look like compared to 15 years ago? And what kind of restaurant will we all be eating at 5 or 10 years from now? Will consumer preferences, food and climate policy, social and economic change, technological advances, and other forces play a role in the evolution of the restaurant industry?

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Plant-Based & Clean Meat Will Save The World!

Speakers: Bruce Friedrich (The Good Food Institute), Alexis Fox (Lighter), Ethan Brown (Beyond Meat), and Dr. Uma Valeti (Memphis Meats)

Industrialized animal agriculture takes a significant toll on our environment, food security, global health, and animal welfare. But decades of work focused on convincing consumers to consume less meat have not put a dent in meat consumption in the developed world, and meat consumption in the developing world is skyrocketing. We have four panelists who are on the cutting-edge of food innovation that will relegate industrialized animal agriculture to the dustbin of history.

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Taking Mass Extinction Off the Seafood Menu

Speakers: Amy Grondin (Duna Fisheries), Katherine Miller (The James Beard Foundation), Renee Erickson (Sea Creatures Restaurants), and Sheila Bowman (Monterey Bay Aquarium)

Over 90% of the world’s seafood stocks are depleted – and just three species are on nearly every restaurant menu. To save seafood (so we can keep eating it), the way we catch, serve and consume it must change. James Beard Foundation recruited the most powerful influencers – chefs and fishermen – as the new heroes to save the world’s seafood stocks. Along with scientists and activists, can they convince consumers to branch out from salmon, shrimp and tuna – and bring seafood back from the brink?

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Disruptive Tech in Your Home Cannabis Kitchen

Speakers: Abdullah Saeed (ViceLand), Shanel Lindsay (Ardent LLC), Warren Bobrow (Cocktail Whisperer), and Caroline Rustigian Bruderer (K-Line Productions, LLC)

The panel is a great cross-section of experts in the cannabis industry who focus on the fundamentals of cooking with cannabis. We’ll talk about the best, fastest and easiest tech tools to make the perfect medicine, culinary treat or craft cocktail

Add to Your Schedule

Browse All Experiential Storytelling Sessions

Crossover Track Recommendations

Explore topics outside of your focus area and learn from SXSW sessions across all 24 Tracks of Conference programming. These recommended sessions are outside of the Food Track but will interest any SXSW attendee.

• Sizzle: VR for Cuisine, Content, and Commerce – Cathy Hackl, Eric Gillin (Condé Nast), Gabriele Corcos (The Tuscan Gun), and Gordon Meyer (YouVisit)
  Track: VR/AR

• Food as a Platform for Neighborhood Revitalization – Chris Kabel (The Kresge Foundation), J Hackett (Green Opportunities), Malini Moraghan (DAISA Enterprises), and Shawn McLearen (placeful.org)
  Track: Cities Summit

• Food Innovation-Growing a Successful Food Business – Andrew Ive (Food-X), Tinia Pina (Re-Nuble), Dominique Barnes (New Wave Foods), and Amanda Weeks (Industrial/Organic)
  Track: Startup and Tech Sectors

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Purchase your SXSW Badge and reserve your hotel today to experience these sessions along with 10 days of screenings, showcases, exhibitions, networking, and more this March 9-18 in Austin, TX. Take the Tracks Quiz to discover which badge will suit your needs.

Already have your badge? Learn how to upgrade to Platinum for primary access to all of SXSW and then begin building your 2018 SXSW Schedule.

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

Teaser Photo by Merrick Ales

The post Futuristic Kitchens, Transforming Wine, and Plant-Based Meat: Food Track Sessions for SXSW 2018 appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

January 14, 2018

‘Early Man’ Review: Nick Park’s Stop-Motion Marvel Is More Advanced Than Its Primitive Protagonists

With all due respect to Pixar and Studio Ghibli, can we start acknowledging Nick Park and Aardman Animations as the innovators they are? Those who’ve seen the “Wallace & Gromit” shorts and 2005 movie tend to love them, but the studio responsible for that iconic duo doesn’t get a fraction of the acclaim. Maybe it’s because the British studio has never been especially prolific, but with “Early Man,” its first feature film since 2015’s delightful “Shaun the Sheep Movie,” Aardman once again reminds viewers that its stop-motion creations are consistently joyous spectacles.

Beginning, as it must, with a primordial prologue about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs — just as it strikes, two dinos who were fighting moments before embrace in fear — the film concerns a tribe of well-meaning cavemen whose happy existence is disrupted by the arrival of civilization: Bronze Age intruders show up one day, there to turn their communal cave into a mine so that Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) can maintain his lavish lifestyle.

Park, a four-time Oscar winner who created Wallace & Gromit 30 years ago, is stepping into the director’s chair for the first time since 2008’s “A Matter of Loaf and Death” short. He hasn’t lost his step, with his latest fictional world being both a departure from, and continuation of, his usual settings. At the center of it is Dug (Eddie Redmayne), Park’s latest affable protagonist whose good nature can’t stop him from getting into increasingly ridiculous situations.

He and his cohort live in the crater left by the asteroid’s impact, which has grown lush and verdant in the centuries since it struck; the human price of progress was steep even then, as stone gave way to bronze and left the primitives in its wake.

Park fashions this inevitability something akin to Mordor encroaching on the Shire: industry subsuming an old idyllic world. If that setup sounds too Luddite-friendly, it’s also quite funny: Dug is among the smartest of his tribe, which is led by the very old (read: 31) Chief Bobnar (Timothy Spall), includes a rock with a face painted on it and a pig named Hognob (voiced by Park himself). He feels like a Gromit stand-in and, though not as memorable a companion, is still good for some laughs.

Under Nooth’s yoke, warring tribes settle their differences on the soccer pitch rather than the battlefield; England’s national team may be underachievers in the 21st century, but their predecessors in Real Bronzio were a dominant force to be reckoned with. And so it is that “Early Man” turns into a sports comedy of sorts, one in which the motley crew of good guys must somehow overcome an imposing squad that is in every way their better.

That’s especially difficult when Dug’s tribe is exiled to the Badlands, where they’re besieged by giant mallards, harsh conditions, and a paucity of the rabbits they used to depend on. Their temporary home proves the ideal training ground, however, its cruel landscape and craggy formations making formidable obstacles that do a right proper job of preparing the underdogs for their big match.

As ever with Aardman, the cleverest moments are also the most fleeting. Lord Nooth can be spotted reading a newspaper called the Prehistoric Times; a woman seeing sliced bread for the first time exclaims, “Wow! That’s the greatest thing since, well, ever.” The narrative as a whole is familiar, if not overly so, and after the Silent Era gags of “Shaun the Sheep Movie” it sometimes feels like “Early Man” could have gone further and been similarly ambitious.

What really gives our heroes a potential upper hand can be best described by a scene from, of all things, Carlos Reygadas’ “Post Tenebras Lux.” Assembled on a rainy field, a rugby team huddles as their leader explains the key to victory: “They’ve got individuals; we’ve got a team.” That isn’t an uncommon message in an animated movie aimed toward kids, but it is a worthy thematic bedrock.

Grade: B

“Early Man” opens in wide release on February 16.

Source: IndieWire film

January 11, 2018

25 Years of SXSW Film Festival – Jamie Babbit

To commemorate the 25th edition of the SXSW Film Festival, we continue our weekly alumni spotlight on careers launched, artists discovered, powerful performances, and more with filmmaker Jamie Babbit.

After her groundbreaking debut film But, I’m a Cheerleader, Babbit world premiered her third feature, The Itty Bitty Titty Committee at SXSW 2007, where it earned the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature Competition. In 2015, she brought her ensemble dark comedy Fresno, starring Natasha Lyonne, Judy Greer, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen, Ron Livingston, and Aubrey Plaza. Babbit has worked consistently in television and directed multiple of episodes of hit television series such as, Gilmore Girls, Looking, Girls, Silicon Valley (also co-executive producer), and more!

We are pleased to share her #SXSWFilm 25 story with you.

“I love SXSW because I made a film about a ragtag punk group of ladies who blow up phallic symbols in DC (The Itty Bitty Titty Committee) and not only did SXSW show it, but the jury gave us an award. The SXSW audiences are fearless and the programmers aren’t scared to show some out there films.

I’ll never forget that at our Itty Bitty Titty Committee premiere at The Alamo Drafthouse, a petite shy woman whom I would NEVER think would like this punk film just started crying as she came up to me afterwards whispering ‘it’s just so empowering’. This encounter is why I make movies. Thank you, SXSW!”

Stay tuned to SXSW News each week for more 25th edition stories.

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, January 12 and save. Book your hotel through SXSW Housing & Travel for the best available rates.

Stay tuned for the 2018 SXSW Film Festival lineup which will be announced in January.

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

See you in March!

World Premiere of Fresno at SXSW 2015 – Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for SXSW

The post 25 Years of SXSW Film Festival – Jamie Babbit appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film