Austin Downtown Arts Magazine
Film
Years of Films at South by Southwest
by Cesar Diaz
In the last decade the South by Southwest Film Festival has
attracted a wide array of regional and international films
by veteran filmmakers and newcomers alike. This March the
South by Southwest Film Festival celebrates their 10 year
anniversary with a retrospective highlighting some of its
most noteworthy features. The retrospective promises to honor
a wide array of films that reflect the festival's last decade
of outstanding, original filmmaking. The retrospective program
will run in conjunction with this year's film festival.
A rundown on some of the films selected for the retrospective:
Screenwriter/director Tim McCanlies' Dancer, Texas Pop. 81.
Originally featured at the 1998 South by Southwest Film Festival,
McCanlies's film, shot in a span of a month in Fort Davis,
portrays four childhood friends (Brekin Meyer, Peter Facinelli,
and Ethan Embry) who struggle to leave their small town behind
after vowing to move to Los Angeles upon their high school
graduation. (Alamo Drafthouse, March 8 at 5:15pm; March 13
at 2:45pm)
Eric Saperston wrote, directed, produced and starred in his
2001 documentary The Journey. Saperston filmed The Journey
as he drove his 1971 Volkswagen bus with a dog and three other
travelers in search of "the meaning of life." The
film is an engaging look into a man's summer road trip that
often alludes to The Wizard of Oz. The film boasts cameos
from Ken Kesey, Henry Winkler, and former Texas Governor Ann
Richards. (Convention Center, March 8th, 7pm; Alamo Drafthouse,
March 13th, 12:30 pm)
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Made Up is a coming-of-middle age comedy about a divorced
mother that finds love at the most unexpected time in her
life. The film, directed by and starring recent Golden Globe
winner Tony Shalhoub, received last year's First Narrative
Feature award. (Millennium, March 12th, 5:30 pm; Paramount,
March 14th, 4pm).
Aviva Kempner's The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg is a
rousing documentary detailing the story of Greenberg, the
first Jewish-American baseball player in the 1930s. Kempner
superbly illustrates Greenberg and a sport that at the time
was racially segregated and intolerant of racial equality.
Also scheduled in this year's retrospective is Richard Linklater's
(Slacker, Tape, Waking Life) first feature It's Impossible
to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (Paramount Theatre, March
9th at 9 pm; Alamo Drafthouse, March 12th,11:30 am), Christopher
Wilchan's award-winning documentary, The Target Shoots First
(Alamo Drafthouse, March 9th , 9:30 pm; Convention Center,
March 12th, 12:45pm), and George Huang's Swimming with Sharks
(Alamo Drafthouse, March 10th, 9:00 pm; Westgate, March 12th,
6:15 pm).
South by Southwest is currently scheduling more feature films
for inclusion in this year's 10th Anniversary retrospective.
For more information on tickets and screening information
log on to www.sxsw.com/film/.
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