Following last week's Feature Film lineup announcement, today SXSW revealed the 11 films that will make up the genre-oriented Midnighter category as well as 135 short films that will span twelve different shorts programs. more ›

For those of us who always wanted to customize a beer and lacked motivation to brew our own, Sam Adams has a unique solution. The brewery teamed with social media enthusiast Guy Kawasaki to release a Facebook app that allows fans to crowdsource a new beer. more ›

Music nerds, take note. South By Southwest organizers just sent out a release saying that 2,000 music wristbands will go on sale at 10am via wristbands.sxsw.com at an initial price of $149. These wristbands grant the wearer space-available access to all evening SXSW showcases from March 13th to March 18th. Over 2,000 bands will perform at the 2012 edition of the festival at approximately 95 venues. more ›

Thomas Dolby has been busy: his latest album, Map of the Floating City and its accompanying game, FloatingCity.com have inspired a new tour which will kick off at this year's SXSW Festival. On March 16 (no word on venue yet), Dolby will roll into town to perform, but he'll have a unique contraption in tow: his time capsule. Fans at the show will have an opportunity to “make their own fully produced and effected digital 30-second video clip”, a message to the future, which will be uploaded to Dolby's YouTube channel. Prizes will be given for the clips with the most views. The capsule itself is a "chrome- and brass-plated road trailer that seats three. With handcrafted leather and wood fittings, and complex electrical wiring that could have been designed by Nikola Tesla, it resembles a Jules Verne/HG Wells-inspired time-travel machine." Inside, however, it's nothing but modern technology, hosting a "high-tech" video recording suite. The clips will be combined at the end of the tour to create an over-arching montage of messages to the future. Sounds fun, and as Dolby says, "Our species may not be around on this planet much longer, so you might as well leave a welcome message for the next guys!” Read more here. more ›

The "Hitler reacts" meme, which traces its origin to a pivotal scene from the 2004 film Der Untergang, or "Downfall," has been used to frequent, if not always great, comic effect in the last few years. In this meme, subtitles of Hitler show him getting upset about everything from Kanye's VMA interruption to the tough news that Pokemon (men?) are not real. In the latest installment, comedian Hitler is upset that SXSW will not pay him to perform at the festival, or at least reimburse his airfare. more ›

The City of Austin put out a press release yesterday saying that they "will change the application period for SXSW 24-hour and multi-day sound permit applications," and yes, those changes are effective immediately. Here is the gist: "There is now a 21-day pre-event deadline requirement to submit a 24-hour sound permit application, and a minimum 30-day deadline to submit multi-day sound permit applications." more ›

Back in November, SXSW Interactive announced that Jeffrey Zeldman would be the inaugural inductee into the Interactive Hall of Fame at the 2012 SXSW festival. For us, Zeldman is a natural choice and we're always happy to see his influence and insights recognized. Zeldman has been online since 1995, and his blog, Jeffrey Zeldman Presents the Daily Report, is one of the longest running continuously published personal sites on the Web. He also publishes A List Apart and acts as executive creative director at Happy Cog, a digital agency with three offices in the US. Oh, and Business Week calls him the "King of Web Standards."

The rest of the winners (in categories like Film/TV, Music, Business, Art and Community) will be announced this month. In addition to these categories, special honors will be given to sites for things like digital trends and people's choice. There will also be an award for the speaker of the festival who has the "biggest impact on the digital community." We'll keep our readers posted on the winners and more news around SXSW Interactive as it unfolds. more ›

Hey, the first round of SXSW bands have been announced. Included in the list are Austin bands Marmalakes, Black Books, Love Inks, SPEAK and more. more ›

Last March we interviewed Emily Hagins, the young and delightful director of My Sucky Teen Romance, when the film debuted at SXSW, and are now thrilled to hear the news that this high-school vampire flick has landed a distribution deal. more ›

We've begun. Bands, submit your material to the honchos at SXSW now to be considered for the festival. You have until November 4th, but if you apply between now and October 7th, you'll only have to pay $30 as opposed to the latecomers fee of $40. More here. more ›

SXSW updates abound here in Austin. First the bad news - prices are going up, most notably for the Interactive portion of the festival. more ›

A new addition to the SXSW Conferences and Festivals was announced yesterday with little fanfare: focusing on environmental issues, the SXSW Eco Conference is slated to occur October 4-6 of this year. The conference's goal will be to gather experts across various fields in sustainability to openly discuss solutions for the environmental challenges faced throughout the country. more ›

If you’ve been in the Convention Center for South by Southwest even once in the past few years, you probably saw and maybe even talked to, a lot of panels (and dudes behind booths). It can be an exhilarating and incredibly useful set of inspiring individuals and just as easily turn to sleep-inducing sludge (you can always blame the beer). Perhaps this is why South by Southwest, being the innovators they are, give the audience the opportunity to tell them what panels to put on. more ›

Two of the best documentaries of the year are hitting town this weekend. Mainstream theaters are overloaded with bloated 3D action films these days, but for the arthouse crowd, any extra dimensionality usually comes from well-crafted dialogue and performances. Werner Herzog and Violet Crown Cinema are about to change the local landscape, at least for a few weeks. more ›

If A Serbian Film aims to assess the current state of Serbia with the metaphor of sexual exploitation, it has only skimmed the surface. Pushing an envelope with a half-baked sense of purpose is almost worse than pushing it for no reason at all. more ›

• There’s a musical instrument drive to help out the kids in the foster care system.
• It’s not easy being a heterosexual male, and the Lege wants to help ease the trauma.
• Have you seen this Hitler/Franklin’s BBQ Internet meme hoo-ha?

Roland Swenson, managing director of SXSW, took some time yesterday to respond to Audrie San Miguel's Op-Ed over at The Horn. San Miguel is the owner at Prototype Vintage and co-producer of Fashion Freakout each year. She is also instrumental in helping support dozens of events around town year long. In her piece for The Horn, she stressed that this year's incidents had once again raised red flags for SXSW promoters who seek to deter free, rogue events taking place during the official festival. more ›

Two very different films with unique teenage characters hit Austin this weekend, and they're both worth a visit to the theater. In fact, these are two movies that are easy to give strong recommendations to as they're among the best that we've seen so far this year. more ›

Take a moment to read Andy Budd's thoughtful consideration of SXSWi 2011. "In reality in think SXSW jumped the shark in 2008/09 and is now an entirely different conference. It’s just taken me a couple of years to reconcile the difference and develop a new set of coping strategies. This year I finally gave up on the conference itself, going to a handful of sessions. I met many more who hadn’t seen a single session and several who didn’t even bother buying a ticket. Instead people spent time seeing friends and maintaining the weak ties in their social graph. I say that somewhat wryly, but SXSW really has become about networking in the most real and genuine sense of the word." more ›

Jake Roper came down to Austin for SXSW and used his Canon 7D and his iPhone 4 to capture a ton of footage over a 24 hour period. The result is a stunningly artistic look at the transformation of our city during its most ostentatious time of year. The contrast between the absurd and the elegant truly come to life here, and we wanted to share. more ›

It's slightly surprising that Ezra Furman and the Harpoons haven't yet gained more popularity in a musical world that digs indie folk rock more each day. Furman and the Harpoons found each other at Tufts University and began playing together in 2006. They have been evolving their sound ever since, managing to alternate between the influences of the Violent Femmes and Bob Dylan while adding their own unique spin. Playing at Paste's party early on Wednesday afternoon at The Stage, the group garnered a good sized audience for the quartet's easy going tunes. Undeterred by the strangely timed fire alarm check required by the police/building management just prior to the start, Furman led the Harpoons through a set full of classics such as "Take Off Your Sunglasses" complete with harmonica solos. The group's new album Mysterious Power come out in early April. more ›

After releasing the stunningly brilliant Forget last year, the only question left of George Lewis Jr. was how well his take on '80s new-wave romanticism would translate into a live setting. He was the sole individual responsible for crafting those ten slices of near perfection, and the idea that he would simply replicate those sounds while standing behind a laptop would never do them justice. Wisely, his live iteration includes three other musicians to help him realize his sound, as well as give him plenty of opportunities to prove himself as a front man. This is exactly what happened on Thursday at Central Presbyterian Church during their set at Pitchfork’s showcase. The pristine basslines and synth flourishes that dominated most of the album were present and accounted for, and it was clear that Lewis recruited some very capable musicians to back him up. This was readily apparent from opener “Slow,” which contained an alternate (ahem) slowed down intro, and that same kind of tight musicianship permeated throughout the rest of the band’s set, including the romantic “At My Heels” and eerie “Castles in The Snow.” more ›

In this series you'll see instant photos of bands including Thee Oh Sees, The Vaccines, Surfer Blood, and other notables our photographer Pooneh Ghana was able to catch last week. more ›

Here you can check outPooneh Ghana's live coverage of SXSW, which includes photographs of bands like TV on the Radio, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Jeff the Brotherhood, and whoever else she was racing around to catch last week! more ›

As promised, we sent Steve Hopson out on a mission to search and photograph the many awesome bands performing at day parties and late evening events during SXSW. Steve partied hard, but in his sleep-induced euphoria overlaid with Tito's withdrawal, he filed this report with photos of Moby, Fishbone, Morning Teleportation, and the ever-present Carolyn Wonderland. We're now letting him go back to sleep, but promise a wake-up call in time for the next festival. more ›

Photographer Eric Uhlir hit the streets to capture all he could this SXSW. His caught La Sera, TV on the Radio, and many more. more ›

SXSW audiences have gotten so fashion conscious that its sometimes difficult to tell the performers from the fans. Austinist's investigative photographer Steve Hopson documented musicians including Sean Lennon, Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Carolyn Wonderland, Morning Teleportation, and well-groomed fans. As his assignment was to shoot the bands, Steve promises a Part 2 post with actual stage shots of musicians by press time tomorrow. Stay tuned. more ›