The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival is thrilled to announce the features lineup for this year’s Festival, March 11 - 19, 2011 in Austin, Texas. The 2011 lineup continues the SXSW tradition of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, highlighting emerging talent and breakthrough performances and supporting first-time filmmakers. The Midnighters and SXFantastic feature sections, along with the short film program, will be announced next week.
“This is the most exciting moment for us. After a fantastic festival of discovery in 2010, we can finally unveil the line up for this year’s event,” says Film Conference and Festival Producer Janet Pierson. “SXSW prides itself on taking chances, sifting for films that are the seedlings of the next generation of must-see artists. This year’s line up is full of emerging voices and filmmakers who transcended the resources they had on hand, often with an alchemist’s touch.”
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Over the course of nine days, 130 features will screen at SXSW 2011. The program consists of 60 World Premieres, 12 North American Premieres and 16 U.S. Premieres. These films were selected from a record 1,792 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,323 U.S. and 469 international feature-length films. SXSW saw a 23% increase in its overall submissions over 2010, with a record number of nearly 4,900 total.
The festival’s main competition categories once again find eight Narrative Features and eight Documentary Features, vying for their respective Grand Jury Prizes. New for 2011, films in competition will also be eligible for screenplay, editing, cinematography, music and acting awards.
The Narrative Feature Competition includes: 96 Minutes, directed by Aimée Lagos, A Year in Mooring, directed by Chris Eyre, American Animal, directed by Matt D’Elia, Charlie Casanova, directed by Terry McMahon, Fly Away, directed by Janet Grillo, Happy New Year, directed by K. Lorrel Manning, Natural Selection, directed by Robbie Pickering and Small, Beautifully Moving Parts, directed by Annie J. Howell & Lisa Robinson. The Documentary Feature Competition includes: A Mouthful, directed by Sally Rowe, Better This World, directed by Katie Galloway & Kelly Duane, The City Dark, directed by Ian Cheney, Dragonslayer, directed by Tristan Patterson, Fightville, directed by Michael Tucker & Petra Epperlein, Kumaré, directed by Vikram Gandhi, Last Days Here, directed by Don Argott & Demian Fenton and Where Soldiers Come From, directed by Heather Courtney.
Previously announced films include Opening Night film Source Code, as well as narrative features The Beaver, Paul and The Innkeepers, and documentaries Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, It’s About You and Square Grouper. In addition to nine full days of film screenings, SXSW Film will ultimately feature over 80 sessions of panels and workshops in the Film Conference. For details on the confirmed sessions, selected from proposals submitted via the SXSW PanelPicker interface, visit SXSW.com/Film/Talks. The final panel and conference lineup will be announced on February 15. Visit SXSW.com/Film for more information and updates.
The 2011 SXSW Film Festival will feature:
Narrative Feature Competition
This year’s 8 films were selected from 984 submissions. Each film is a World Premiere.
Films screening in Narrative Feature Competition are:
96 Minutes
Director & Writer: Aimée Lagos
Four young lives. One night. One terrifying event. These 96 minutes will change everything.
Cast: Brittany Snow, Evan Ross, Christian Serratos, Jonathan Michael Trautmann, and David Oyelowo (World Premiere)
A Year in Mooring
Director: Chris Eyre, Writer: Peter Vanderwall
In his first leading dramatic role, Josh Lucas walks an isolated line between solitude and redemption. This quiet cinematic journey tells a of tale grief, solace and peace.
Cast: Josh Lucas, Ayelet Zurer, James Cromwell, Jon Tenney, Taylor Nichols (World Premiere)
American Animal
Director & Writer: Matt D’Elia
Jimmy - eccentric, delusional, dying - feels betrayed when roommate James gets a job. During one night of drinks, drugs and women, a classic battle of wills ensues as James prepares for work and Jimmy goes mad.
Cast: Matt D’Elia, Brendan Fletcher, Mircea Monroe, Angela Sarafyan (World Premiere)
Charlie Casanova (Ireland)
Director & Writer: Terry McMahon
A ruling class sociopath knocks down a working class girl in a hit-and-run and uses a deck of playing cards to determine his fate.
Cast: Emmet Scanlan, Leigh Arnold, Damien Hannaway, Ruth McIntyre, Tony Murphy (World Premiere)
Fly Away
Director & Writer: Janet Grillo
A poignant yet humor filled story about a single mother of a teenager with autism, confronting her child’s future. What will sustain her daughter, and herself? A parent/child love story, when love means letting go.
Cast: Beth Broderick, Ashley Rickards, Greg Germann, JR Bourne, Reno (World Premiere)
Happy New Year
Director & Writer: K. Lorrel Manning
A war torn marine returns home to face his fiercest battle yet - the one against himself.
Cast: Michael Cuomo, J.D. Williams, Monique Gabriela Curnen, Tina Sloan, Alan Dale (World Premiere)
Natural Selection
Director & Writer: Robbie Pickering
When a dutiful, albeit barren, housewife discovers that her ailing husband has an illegitimate son, she sets out to find the young man and reunite him with her husband before he dies.
Cast: Rachael Harris, Matt O’Leary, Jon Gries, John Diehl (World Premiere)
Small, Beautifully Moving Parts
Directors & Writers: Annie J. Howell & Lisa Robinson
Technology-obsessed Sarah Sparks is pregnant and ambivalent, afraid she relates better to machines than to people. Looking for answers, she hits the road in search of her estranged mother, now living off the grid.
Cast: Anna Margaret Hollyman, Andre Holland, Sarah Rafferty, Susan Kelechi Watson, Mary Beth Peil (World Premiere)
Documentary Feature Competition
This year’s 8 films were selected from 808 submissions. Each film is a World Premiere.
Films screening in Documentary Feature Competition are:
A Mouthful
Director: Sally Rowe
Considered a rising star of haute cuisine, Paul Liebrandt found his career stalled in New York’s austere environment post 9/11. Paul struggles over the next decade as he tries to make his way back to the top. (World Premiere)
Better This World
Directors: Katie Galloway & Kelly Duane
Two childhood friends from Midland, Texas cross a line that changes their lives forever. The result: eight homemade bombs, multiple domestic terrorism charges and a high stakes entrapment defense hinging on a controversial FBI informant. (World Premiere)
The City Dark
Director: Ian Cheney
The film chronicles the disappearance of darkness, following astronomers, cancer researchers, ecologists and philosophers in a quest to understand what is lost in the glare of city lights. (World Premiere)
Dragonslayer
Director: Tristan Patterson
Killer Films presents the transmissions of a lost kid, falling in love, in the suburbs of Fullerton, California. Featuring skateboarding, the usual drugs, and stray glimpses of unusual beauty. (World Premiere)
Fightville
Directors: Michael Tucker & Petra Epperlein
A documentary about the art and sport of fighting: a microcosm of life, a physical manifestation of that other brutal contest called the American Dream. (World Premiere)
Kumaré (U.S.A/India)
Director: Vikram Gandhi
A documentary about a man who impersonates a wise Indian Guru and builds a following in Arizona. (World Premiere)
Last Days Here
Directors: Don Argott & Demian Fenton
The film follows middle-aged rocker Bobby Liebling, lead singer of the cult hard rock/heavy metal band Pentagram, as he leaves his parents’ basement in search of the life he never lived. (World Premiere)
Where Soldiers Come From
Director: Heather Courtney
From a snowy small town in Northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan and back, the film follows the four-year journey of childhood friends and their town, forever changed by a faraway war. (World Premiere)
Headliners
Big names, big talent: Headliners bring star power to SXSW, featuring red carpet premieres and gala film events with some major and rising names in cinema.
Films screening in Headliners are:
Thirteen Assassins
Director: Takashi Miike, Writers: Shoichirou Ikemiya & Daisuke Tengan
Distressed by the Lord’s murderous rampage, top Shogun official Sir Doi secretly calls on esteemed samurai Shinzaemon Shimada to assassinate the evil Naritsugu. Outraged by Lord Naritsugu’s vile acts, Shinzaemon willingly accepts the dangerous mission.
Cast: Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, Gorô Inagaki, Masachika Ichimura
Ain’t It Cool News 15th Anniversary Screening
Harry Knowles will curate a surprise screening in honor of the 15th Anniversary of his popular cult website Ain’t it Cool News.
The Beaver
Director: Jodie Foster, Writer: Kyle Killen
Two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster directs and co-stars with two-time Academy Award winner Mel Gibson in an emotional story about a man on a journey to re-discover his family and re-start his life. Plagued by his own demons, Walter Black was once a successful toy executive and family man who now suffers from depression. No matter what he tries, Walter can’t seem to get himself back on track…until a beaver hand puppet enters his life.
Cast: Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence, Cherry Jones (World Premiere)
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
Director: Rodman Flender
Did Conan O’Brien go on tour to connect with his fans or fill a void within himself? Rodman Flender’s documentary captures an artist trained in improvisation at the most improvisational time of his career. (World Premiere)
Paul
Director: Greg Mottola, Writers: Simon Pegg & Nick Frost
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost reunite as two geeks who meet an alien named Paul (Seth Rogen) on a pilgrimage to America’s UFO heartland. Their road trip will alter our universe forever.
Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Blythe Danner, John Carroll Lynch, with Sigourney Weaver, and Seth Rogen as Paul (North American Premiere)
Source Code
Director: Duncan Jones, Writer: Ben Ripley
When soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he’s part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he’s ever known, he learns he’s part of a government experiment called the Source Code, a computer program that enables him to cross over into another man’s identity in the last 8 minutes of his life.
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright (World Premiere)
Super
Director & Writer: James Gunn
In this outlandish dark comedy, James Gunn has created what is perhaps the definitive take on self-reflexive superheroes.
Cast: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Michael Rooker (U.S. Premiere)
Win Win
Director: Thomas McCarthy, Writers: Thomas McCarthy & Joe Tiboni
Thomas McCarthy, acclaimed writer/director of The Visitor and The Station Agent, once again explores the depths and nuances of human relationships in his new film about the allegiances and bonds between unlikely characters.
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young, Melanie Lynskey, Alex Schaffer, Margo Martindale, David Thompson
Spotlight Premieres
Shining a light on new documentary and narrative features receiving their World, North American or U.S. Premieres at SXSW.
Films screening in Spotlight Premieres are:
A Bag of Hammers
Director: Brian Crano, Writers: Brian Crano & Jake Sandvig
An offbeat comedy about two misfit best friends incapable of growing up, whose direction is tested by an abandoned child, worn beyond his years; together they invent the family they’ve always needed.
Cast: Jake Sandvig, Jake Sandvig, Chandler Canterbury, Rebecca Hall, Carrie Preston (World Premiere)
Becoming Santa
Director: Jeff Myers
In an effort to rekindle his Christmas spirit, Jack decides to spend this season as Santa Claus, but the role of Kris Kringle is more complex than he thinks. (World Premiere)
Beginners
Writer & Director: Mike Mills
A young man is rocked by two announcements from his elderly father: that he has terminal cancer, and that he has a young male lover.
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic, Kai Lennox (U.S. Premiere)
Bob and The Monster
Director: Keirda Bahruth
A highly compelling portrait of outspoken indie-rock hero Bob Forrest through his life-threatening struggle with addiction, to his transformation into one of the most influential and controversial drug counselors in the US today. (World Premiere)
Detention
Director: Joseph Kahn, Writers: Joseph Kahn & Mark Palermo
A downtrodden 17-year-old girl is sent to detention where she must survive a slasher film killer and save the world in time for prom.
Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Dane Cook, Shanley Caswell, Spencer Locke, Aaron David Johnson (World Premiere)
Elevate
Director: Anne Buford
From a basketball academy in Senegal, to the high-pressure world of American prep schools, the film documents the extraordinary personal journeys of four particularly tall West African Muslim teenage boys with NBA dreams. (World Premiere)
Fambul Tok
Director: Sara Terry
Victims and perpetrators of Sierra Leone’s brutal war come together for the first time in an unprecedented reconciliation program of grassroots truth-telling and forgiveness ceremonies. (World Premiere)
Fubar: Balls to the Wall (Canada)
Director: Michael Dowse, Writers: David Lawrence, Paul Spence
Documentarian Farrel Mitchner explores the lives of headbangers Dean Murdoch and Terry Cahill.
Cast: Paul Spence, David Lawrence (U.S. Premiere)
Girl Walks Into a Bar
Director & Writer: Sebastian Gutierrez
A sharp-witted comedy that follows a group of apparent strangers in interlocking stories taking place in ten different bars during the course of one evening in Los Angeles.
Cast: Carla Gugino, Zachary Quinto, Danny DeVito, Josh Hartnett, Rosario Dawson (World Premiere)
The Innkeepers
Director & Writer: Ti West
Hotel clerks by day, amateur ghost hunters by night, the last two employees of the historic Yankee Pedlar Inn set out to prove that their place of business is as haunted as its reputation.
Cast: Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, Kelly McGillis (World Premiere)
It’s About You
Director: Kurt Markus
First-time filmmakers, photographer Kurt Markus and son, Ian, document John Mellencamp’s 2009 summer tour and recording of his latest album. This film celebrates the visual beauty and power of Super8 film and the human voice. (World Premiere)
LBF (Australia)
Director & Writer: Alex Munt
A pop-art film based on the novel “Living Between Fucks” by Cry Bloxsome. It follows Goodchild, a young writer back home for his ex-girlfriend’s funeral, The Dead Girl. Love, Loss & Desperation.
Cast: Toby Schmitz, Bianca Chiminello Roe, Gracie Otto, Septimus Caton, April Rose Pengilly(World Premiere)
The Other F Word
Director: Andrea Blaugrund Nevins
When the most anti-authoritarian among us become the ultimate authorities… we might just have to use The Other F Word. (World Premiere)
PressPausePlay (Sweden)
Directors: Victor Köhler & David Dworsky
The first real testimony of the digi-creative revolution. It’s an 80 minute global journey capturing how digital technology and mindset has transformed the concept of art and culture. (North American Premiere)
Something Ventured
Directors: Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine
Apple. Intel. Genentech. Cisco. Atari. This film tells the story of a handful of risk-takers who alongside visionary entrepreneurs created these revolutionary companies, and in the process ignited the industry known as venture capital. (World Premiere)
Square Grouper
Director: Billy Corben
A colorful portrait of Miami’s pot smugglin’ scene of the 1970s, populated with redneck pirates, a ganja-smoking church, and the longest serving marijuana prisoner in American history. (World Premiere)
Undefeated
Directors: Daniel Lindsay & T.J. Martin
A volunteer coach helps a neglected inner-city football team in their quest to win the first playoff game in the high school’s history. (World Premiere)
Yelling to the Sky
Director & Writer: Victoria Mahoney
As her family falls apart, seventeen year old Sweetness O’Hara is left to fend for herself in a neighborhood where her survival is uncertain.
Cast: Zoë Kravitz, Jason Clarke, Antonique Smith, Gabourey Sidibe, Tim Blake Nelson (U.S. Premiere)
You Instead (Scotland)
Director: David Mackenzie, Writer: Thomas Leveritt
Two rival musicians find themselves handcuffed together at the world renowned music festival, T in the Park, where they are both scheduled to perform.
Cast: Luke Treadaway, Natalia Tena, Sophie Wu, Ruta Gedmintas, Kari Corbett (North American Premiere)
Emerging Visions
Innovation and creativity from new and emerging feature filmmakers, showcasing raw talent in documentary and narratives of varying premiere status.
Films screening in Emerging Visions are:
Bad Fever
Director & Writer: Dustin Guy Defa
A humorless loner attempts to win the admiration of a drifter with his debut performance at the local comedy club.
Cast: Kentucker Audley, Eleonore Hendricks, Annette Wright, Allison Baar (World Premiere)
Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye
Director: Marie Losier
A portrait of the life and work of ground-breaking performance artist and music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and his wife Lady Jaye, centered around their sexual transformations for their “Pandrogyne” project. (North American Premiere)
Bellflower
Director & Writer: Evan Glodell
A love story with apocalyptic stakes.
Cast: Evan Glodell, Jessie Wiseman, Tyler Dawson, Rebekah Brandes, Vincent Grashaw
The Catechism Cataclysm
Director & Writer: Todd Rohal
Father William Smoortser drops his bible into a toilet at a rest stop just before embarking on a day-long canoe trip, breaking loose all glorious hell.
Cast: Steve Little, Robert Longstreet, Wally Dalton, Miki Ann Maddox,
