SXSW Wrapup & IFC Center
Taking The New Year Parade to SXSW was an incredible experience. I remember sitting at home a year ago, reading about SXSW and feeling frustrated that my film was not completed. SXSW seemed like a great mix of cool audiences and filmmakers who are be interested in similar formal and production models. A year later I found myself sitting in the Dobie Theater watching The New Year Parade. Our first Q and A lasted nearly a half hour!!! It was truly amazing. Thanks to everyone at SXSW for a memorable week and to Brian Poyser for his thoughtful introduction.
Also, after a year of working parallel with each other, I finally got to see the other IFP Lab films!! Rainbow Around the Sun was everything I hoped it would be and more - a playful and thrilling cinematic concept albulm. I’m blown away by what these guys pulled off. I know it is low budget, but it feels BIG and played great with an audience. It’s the kind of project that could inject new energy into the broken music and film distribution systems. The Rainbow gang also allowed us to crash on their floor when we lost our housing!
I also really love what Alex did with Woodpecker. The film had three sold out screenings and with good reason: it tells an incredibly entertaining and heartfelt story while fusing fact and fiction better than any film I’ve seen. The acting, writing, and cinematography all complemented each other to explore existential themes in an entertaining structure.
On Friday, we ran over to the Alamo South Lamar to see The Marconi Brothers. It was difficult to find seating because the theater was packed - even at the end of the festival. Wow. This feels like a mainstream movie - the production value is through the roof and the story and characters are all really strong. Mad props to Marco and Mike for taking low budget film to another level. We all left impressed. Unfortunately, I missed Older Than America due to screening conflicts, but heard excellent reviews.
I also caught some pretty cool panels, including one on doc/fiction hybrids. Obviously, I’m very interested in that sort of thing as we shot 80 hours of doc footage for THE NEW YEAR PARADE, a fiction film. The discussion was framed around the idea that this production and formal model is an evolution of cinematic forms. Indeed, there seem to be more and more hybrid films, yet at the same time I couldn’t help to think that this is nothing new. When we began shooting, my friend Eugene Martin recommended that I watch Jim McKay’s OUR SONG, in part because it deepened its characters and expanded production value by incorporating their characters into The Jackie Robinson Marching Band. In 1969, Michael Ritchie shot footage during the World Cup for DOWNHILL RACER. While there are countless examples, the most interesting to me is LIFE OF AN AMERICAN FIREFIGHTER, directed by Edwin Porter in 1903, the same year, but to my knowledge prior to THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. The film mixes documentary footage of firefighters with constructed, theatrical elements to tell the story of a dramatic rescue (also interesting because it of how it handles time pre-parallel action). The reasons then seem to be the same as now - to expand production value, build the characters’ world and depth, and to blur the line between fact and fiction (although the staged elements stand out now, I wonder how the played then). Cool stuff.
FINALLY: hot off the trail from SXSW, we will screen THE NEW YEAR PARADE in New York this Monday, March 24, at the IFC Center!!! It’s a great venue to see the film in and most of the cast will be in town for the evening. We’re pretty psyched. Click here for tickets (just change the date to 3/24 for showtimes). Thanks to Slamdance for setting up this great opportunity.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Thanks for the plug, Tom, and thanks for returning the favor by letting us crash with you when our hotel bill ran out! It was a great week.
I was thinking a lot when I got back about the interesting blend of docs and fiction that are being created these days, from Alex’s genre-bending to your subtle use of doc footage to provide context, to Craig Zobel’s mix of fictional characters with real people in GWS. I’ve been thinking of renting “Medium Cool,” the first film I remember noticing this hybrid style of filmmaking.
Good luck with your screening on Monday!