Image by flickr user loreleiLet's face it: the official SXSW website isn't all that handy when it comes to planning out your festival. So the folks at B-Side have once again put together a fantastic SXSW Film Festival guide, complete with movie info, trailers, reviews and (best of all) scheduling tools to help you plan out the next nine days. And this year, the folks at Film Threat will be providing some blog-a-licious content and......

RSO [Registered Sex Offender], follows the unenviable life of one ex-convict, played by newbie Gabriel McIver, who must reintegrate into a world that has indefinitely deemed him a social leper. He must deal with all of the minutiae that all of these other sad, pitiful, white males that we love to capture on film must deal with, but with the dark cloud of criminal damnation hovering somewhere just above his brow, to humorous effect. We don't know what he did (just yet) but we are guessing that, in his case, the punishment and repulsion may not fit the crime....

Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely follows the adventures of an American Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) who meets a charming Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) on the streets of Paris. Together, they travel to a commune populated exclusively by celebrity impersonators--a Neverlandesque place where everyone is famous, and the spotlight never fades....

At a time when so many indie dramas focus on directionless white twenty-somethings, it's refreshing (if not downright invigorating) to see a film about two black twenty-somethings who have no ostensible interest in dancefighting, and who have plenty to say about relationships, identity, and cultural displacement. Director Barry Jenkins' debut feature, Medicine For Melancholy, follows urbanites Micah and Jo as they shake off the haze of a drunken one-night-stand. As they bicycle around the streets......

SXSW Film Fest Producer Matt DentlerLast year we chatted with SXSW Film Festival producer and all-around cool guy Matt Dentler about film programming, Austin audiences and Texas filmmakers. This year, he's answered even more of our questions--and this time around, we talked Mumblecore, Global Doc Days, and SXSW success stories. Has the media attention around "Mumblecore" ultimately been a positive or negative thing for the Festival and the filmmakers? As much as it's a term......

So, we know that there is some other film awards show going on this weekend that involves statues and crimson carpets and such, but how many nominees can claim Austin as their hometown? None that we can think of, which is what makes the Film Independent's Spirit Awards a bazillion times more interesting to us than the stodgy old Oscars!...

Bust out your day planner, or your spreadsheet, or your Google Calendar, or whatever the hell you use to organize your life--the full schedule for the SXSW Film Festival has been released, including all features, docs, shorts and panels....

"Both funny and emotional, both indie and Hollywood, both entertaining and political, both real and magical," is how SXSW Film Festival Producer Matt Dentler describes the palette of films being shipped into town March 7-15 for the 15th annual South by Southwest Film Conference & Festival. "It's a well-rounded slate of films, from both veteran masters and promising newcomers." With 113 new feature films, 64 of those being world premiers, there is truly something for......

Photo from Soundcheck Magazine Austin's 2nd Annual Green Holiday Festival, "The Sustainable Shopper's Ball!", returns to the Sunset Valley Farmers Market with over 60 local vendors and educators offering everything from bamboo homewares to luxury organic linens SXSW Film Festival Producer Matt Dentler shares some insider tips on what the film programming team is looking for - "Should you spend money on a fancy press kit? Should you check your DVD screener 4 different times......

Easily one of our favorite films at this year's SXSW Film Festival, indie documentary Fish Kill Flea is returning to Austin tomorrow as part of the Austin Film Society's Texas Documentary Tour series. Strange and funny and sad by turns, Fish Kill Flea is a candid, close-up portrait of a decaying mall in upstate New York that has become home to a popular flea market. But it's also a weighty, thoughtful meditation on the importance......

Okay, maybe we're not the kind of friend you'd invite to your wedding, or ask to hide a gun for you until the heat dies down. But we do try our best to keep you informed about awesome new films and film-related events—which is something your regular, non-blogger friends probably almost never do. Now that we think of it, why do you even hang out with them? Anyway, this Tuesday April 10th you'll get a......

FRIDAY [16] art • Artist's Reception: Joan Winter: From Marfa to Sudari at Flatbed Press and Gallery (6-8pm) art • Flatstock 12 Poster Convention at Austin Convention Center (11am-6pm) books • Jack Pendarvis preseents The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure at BookPeople (3:00pm) books • John Sellers presents Perfect From Now On at BookPeople (7:00pm) sxsw • SXSW Film Festival at Everywhere sxsw • SXSW Music Festival at Everywhere theatre • Austin Shakespeare......

The following films played Saturday, March 10th as part of the SXSW Film Festival: Campaign - This Japanese doc follows the travails of a "parachute" candidate for the Kawasaki city council. He's called that because he moved to the city specifically to run for office through his allegiance to the powerful LDP party. Japan is as big a character as the candidate, as the candid shots of life there offer revealing snippets of the......

Believe it or not, there's still a bunch of activities going on around town this week other than SXSW. This week's IST List won't include our usual bevy of music and film events; for those, we recommend that you check out our Interactive Guide to SXSW Parties and the Other Side Guide, respectively. Meanwhile, if you'd like to share your SXSW photos with the Austinist community, simply tag 'em "sxswaustinist" -- we'll be featuring......

Believe it or not, there's a bunch of activities going on around town this week other than SXSW. This week's IST List won't include our usual bevy of music and film events; for those, we recommend that you check out our Interactive Guide to SXSW Parties and the Other Side Guide, respectively. We'd also like to welcome LAist editor Tony Pierce and Gothamist arts editor Jen Carlson, both of whom will be joining us......

The jet lag had just started to wear off (or the booze just started to kick in) when most of the filmmakers, actors and bloggers who are showcasing work during The 2007 SXSW Film Festival & Conference met at Buffalo Billiards Thursday night. Film gets kicked off today, with Scott Frank's directorial debut, The Lookout debuting at The Paramount tonight at 9:00pm. L to R: Dan Cox, director of Running With Arnold & Reginald Harkema,......

One of the films we're really excited about seeing at this year's SXSW Film Festival is A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar..., a broad, lighthearted look at America's obsession with (and simultaneous hatred of) lawyers and lawsuits. The film follows six law students as they prepare for the notoriously difficult California Bar Exam, but it also features stories and commentary from several notable lawyers, comedians and personalities including Eddie Griffin, Robert Shapiro (counsel to O.J.......

This Sunday, the SXSW Film Festival will host the world premiere of Jennifer Venditti's much buzzed-about documentary Billy The Kid. The film follows Billy Price, a fifteen-year-old boy who overcomes obstacles with courage and wisdom to spare. This one looks really interesting—apparently, Venditti is a casting agent who's famous for her "street scouting", where she travels around finding real people (as opposed to, you know, actors) for advertising, fashion and film roles. She encountered Price......

Tonight, Alamo Music Mondays presents The Legendary Joe Meek, a made-for-TV look at the life and death of the eccentric 1960s record producer whose innovative recording techniques and bizarre personal life made him one of the most interesting figures in early 1960s pop. Probably most famous for his hit songs "Telstar" and "Have I the Right", meek is widely regarded as Britain's first independent record producer, regularly churning out top 50 hits from a DIY......

In our effort to help you sort through all of the excellent screenings at SXSW Film Festival, we've partnered up with Austin-based B-Side Entertainment, who create nifty online program guides for film festivals all around the world. Locally, they're responsible for the interactive schedules you might have encountered at Austin Film Festival, the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, and Fantastic Fest. Here are just some of the things you do over at......

Okay, okay - we've haven't been doing a very good job keeping you informed about SXSW Film stuff. But a lot of news has built up over the last week or so, so we're gonna drop it on you all at once, like some kind of awesome 50-megaton knowledge-bomb. SXSW Film Festival Passes are now on sale at Waterloo Records Video. They cost $65, and they work sort of like music wristbands (at screenings, badges......

SXSW Film Festival recently released their lineup of feature films to be screened this year. Check out the full roster after the jump. LONE STAR STATES Forfeit Directed by Andrew Shea, written by John Rafter Lee. Featuring: Billy Burke, Sherry Stringfield, Gregory Itzin, Wayne Knight. An ex-con tries to manage his way back into society, reunite with his high school sweetheart, and commit one more crime. (World Premiere) Inside the Circle Directed by Marcy......

Who among us hasn’t stood half-naked in front of a full-length mirror, knees bent, head back, one arm extended toward the heavens, the other windmilling furiously to the stomping rhythm of “Uptown Girl”? Okay, okay—maybe you’d pick something that actually has guitar in it, but that’s your hang up, not ours. Commie. Anyway, for those of us who dream of rock stardom, but don’t have the time or the inclination to learn an instrument,......

SXSW Presents returns to KLRU TV tomorrow for its third season, with four brand new episodes slated to run through the end of February. The critically acclaimed series, hosted by SXSW Film Fest Producer Matt Dentler, showcases some today's finest examples of independent filmmaking, many of which have a local emphasis -- past epiodes have featured Viva Les Amis, 24 Hours on Craigslist, and Witches in Exile. BBQ: A Texas Love Story February 6th,......

SXSW today announced an exciting new contest they're sponsoring with director Robert Rodriguez, in anticipation of the upcoming Rodriguez-Tarantino double feature, Grindhouse. Filmmakers are invited to submit their best "grindhouse trailers" for a fictional feature-length film, in the same vein as those being made by celebrity directors Eli Roth and Rob Zombie. Rodriguez (Sin City, Spy Kids, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) himself will judge the best submissions and share these at a......

It's like attending a film festival in your pajamas. And the popcorn is free. “SXSW Presents” premieres tonight on KLRU. The purpose of the show is to “share festival-circuit gems with television audiences.” Produced by SXSW, in conjunction with Austin-based company, Beef & Pie Productions, the show endeavors to bring the film festival to you. Tonight’s first installment will feature Robert Brinkmann’s film, Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party. The film is a performance-based documentary that......

Several weeks ago we told you about SXSWclick, the annual competition held by the SXSW-offshoot organization that seeks to showcase "short-form storytelling" on the web and on mobile devices. Entrants were invited to submit short films running under 10 minutes long in one of five different categories: "Old School Shorts" (narrative), "Really Real Shorts" (documentary), "Animate-It" (animation), "Sound Checks" (music video), and "What the F*#!?" (experimental/machinima). SXSWclick trimmed the hundreds of entries received down......

We like beer and nachos with our movies. Even more, we like a double feature. It also makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside to support The Alamo Downtown while drinking beer, eating nachos and watching a double feature. Veritable screaming and writhing ecstasy comes from supporting indie filmmakers while drinking beer, eating nachos and, yes, you guessed it--watching Dear Pillow and Kissing On The Mouth in a special engagement this Thursday, June 15th......

Tara Wray fled Kansas when she was 19. That was the year her mother, Evie Wray, declared herself pregnant with the devil’s baby, and the year she threatened to drive both herself and her daughter off a bridge. After that, they didn’t speak much – until Manhattan, Kansas. The feature-length documentary -- named after the town in which Tara’s life began -- had its world premiere last Friday at the SXSW Film Festival. It is......

We love Kat so much we had to get the word out about the premiere of her new film jumping off bridges this Saturday at the SXSW Film Festival. You may not have a film pass, but you should go and try to get a ticket. Kat is not only a local filmmaker to support, she is a spotlight on truth and beauty. Great independent films don't have to always be about crude jokes, violence,......