SXSW: An Introduction

As I write this right now my friends and I are a little more than two hours into our thirteen-hour drive back to Auburn. We left Austin on the last night of South By Southwest (SXSW), 6^th Street still bustling with crowds, bands that make up the music portion of the festival still rocking from numerous venues large and small. Leaving now is a bit surreal; since we arrived over a week ago we have seen forty one feature length films and at least six short films, we’ve met and talked with filmmakers whose work we admire and we have had experiences that none of us will ever forget. It has been equal parts exhilarating and exhausting; seeing more films in one week than most do in a year is surprisingly tiring. For my part it has also been quite the educational experience. This was the first film festival that I’ve ever attended and it indisputably altered my perspective on the potential of cinema as both an art form as well as a business. I saw several films that face little chance of ever being seen by a wide audience, films that could potentially not see any distribution at all. Yet several of these will undoubtedly stick with me; films that took chances, films that told smaller, more personal stories that only appeal to a certain kind of people and are all the better for it. I discovered that there is an entire world of filmmakers out there, toiling away without studio support or large budgets, but with a story to tell and the imagination to tell it well with the resources at their disposal. It is a welcome reminder that cinema is a necessary and vital art form, one that exists and even thrives outside of what is eventually offered in wide release or even on the “art-house” circuit. Over the next week or two I’ll be writing up some of the more notable films that I saw; films that I loved, films that I loathed and some in between. Most of all I’d like to call attention to these films, to continue the conversation and to illuminate something about my experience at SXSW. Cinema is alive and well, in the mainstream and on the margins, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.