Texas

Making Room

The highs and lows of directing a cheap thriller


I’m the director of the low-budget psychological thriller Room (2005), which premiered at Sundance and had its international debut in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes in May. Room was produced by The 7th Floor along with Jim McKay and Michael Stipe’s C-Hundred Film Corp. Our four-week, twenty-four-day production was equally divided between two weeks in Texas and two weeks in New York City. The film centers on the mid-life crisis of a bingo hall employee and mother of two in her late 40s who leaves her family to follow migraine-induced, debilitating visions.

Keeping it Real Weird

Austin’s SXSW Fest is like no other


Long gone are the days when Austin, Texas was merely a breeding-ground for progressive types, presidential hopefuls, and music junkies. As home to the South-by-Southwest Film Festival (SXSW), Austin has become the independent filmmaker’s Eden. As first time filmmaker Allison Berg explains it, "I thought [SXSW] was one of the best festivals for my film to get into . . . I think you have maybe a more laid-back crowd, but a great attendance in getting your film going.

Double Vision

The University of Texas’s progressive film program


The so-called “Film Brat” generation of the middle to late 1970s has been blamed for, or credited with, many things regarding independent filmmaking—from sparking off a studio-sanctioned Golden Age (Scorsese, Coppola) to ushering in a studio-sanctioned Dark Age (Lucas, Spielberg).

Cave Paintings, Churches, and Rooftops

Microcinemas come of age


While the Lumiere brothers originally screened their films in a Paris café, the term microcinema was not coined until 1991 with the naming of Rebecca Barten and David Sherman’s Total Mobile Home Microcinema. Since then microcinema has come to define a broad range of small screening spaces specializing in moving image media that hovers out of range of national distributors, air conditioned art houses, and sleek museums. The hermit crabs of screening series, microcinemas claim abandoned spaces, creating surprising, inspiring, and unlikely homes for media.

The Trailer for "Goliath"

A film screened at SXSW 2008

The Trailer for "Crawford"

A documentary screened at SXSW 2008

Blogging SXSW: Will these films find an audience?

A look at the 2008 South by Southwest Festival in Austin


The Subject: The SXSW film "Dreams with Sharp Teeth" is about the writer Harlan Ellison, pictured.

Over halfway through the documentary Dreams With Sharp Teeth, the film's subject, the enigmatic writer Harlen Ellison, nods towards the camera and mentions that if this film is seen, if at all, it will most likely be on a television screen. This was met with chuckles in the audience because at the time his face took up almost all of the theater's two story screen.

Blogging SXSW: Opening Weekend

A look at the myriad films, panels, and premieres at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival. in Austin


A collage of images from "Second Skin" which screened at this year's South by Soutwest Film Festival.

The sheer number of features, documentaries and shorts, not to mention the conference panels, being shown at SXSW 2008 is more than a little overwhelming. The multi-colored grid for the nine days of this film festival is a periodic table of world premieres and special screenings.

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