South
by Southwest 2005 - Day 4 - Monday 3/14/05
I had to go back to my day job today. I'm taking
Tuesday and Friday off during the festival but Monday,
Wednesday and Thursday, I'll have long-ass days. Something
will probably have to give. I may skip some films during
the week due to cinematic exhaustion. My work day on
this particular Monday was light and I got a lot of
personal writing done in the morning about the festival.
But in the afternoon, we had some unexpected visitors
from our corporate office, so it was pretty hectic.
I finally skipped out at about 5:15 and headed
home to change. I wanted to see Lukas Moodysson's new
film, "A
Hole in My Heart" at 7 at the Arbor. I really liked
Moodysson's "Tillsammans" (called "Together" in the
US) and "Lilya
4-ever," and I am looking forward to his new film.
If possible, after the film, I planned to hightail it
back downtown to the Paramount for a 9 o'clock screening
of "Murderball."
I assumed that that show might be full so I also had
"Childstar" at the Alamo Downtown as an option at 9:15.
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Murderball
Participant
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I got to the Arbor pretty early and it wasn't
too crowded. I had, for some dumb reason, taken
my ink pen out of my SXSW bag when I was at work
and forgot to put it back, so I went back to my
car and got a new pen. On my way back in I ran
into Spencer Parsons. I know Spencer through Austin
filmmaker Kyle Henry (whose "Room" played during
Sundance but isn't in SXSW this year for some
reason). Spencer did a show about cable access
at Cinematexas a few years ago and included some
scenes from my cable access show "Lube TV" in
it. Spencer has more recently been a contributing
writer at "The Austin Chronicle." Anyway, he's
grown a cute little Van Dyke beard apparently
recently but I still recognized him immediately.
We talked a little bit about the films we'd seen.
Spencer recommended "Occupation Dreamland," but
he and Kyle are so much more interested in politics
than I. Spencer then introduced me to his companion,
the director of a film called "Kissing on the
Mouth."
My friend Paul and his gf have seen this film
and told me there was a lot of nudity and sex
in it, including a guy jacking off in the shower
with a cum shot.
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I told the guy that I had heard about his
film and hoped to see it. He gave me flier/postcard
for the film. It's showing Friday at 2pm, so I hope
I can catch it.
Back in the theater, well before the movie was
to start, my friend Vassily Fedyaev called. Vassily
runs a school in Houston where he teaches people how
to make short films. He's made a couple himself and
we've shown a few of them on Lube TV.
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Vassily told me that he has almost finished
working on his first feature, a film shot in a
single 90 minute take called "Perjury." He has
to do a little bit of ADR work here in Austin
and then a little more in L.A. where his film's
star, Antonio Fargas. Does that name ring a bell?
That's right, he's best known as Huggy Bear from
the original TV series "Starsky and Hutch." Fargas
did an appearance here recently at the Alamo Drafthouse
so I am hoping Vassily can get him to come back
to Texas when his film is done. Vassily told me
that the film would be finished in the next two
or three weeks, and I can't wait to get a look
at it.
Not too long after I hung up with Vassily,
a SXSW volunteer did a quick intro and the film
began.
After the film, I quickly got in my car and
drove downtown. The program said "A Hole in My
Heart" was ninety minutes but it was almost 100.
I forgot that often when festivals aren't sure
of the running time of a film before they print
their schedules in their guides, they just guess
that it is ninety minutes and use that time. I
should have remembered that.
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"Muderball"
Filmmakers
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But I got to downtown via Mopac in less than 15
minutes, parked, and walked to The Paramount quickly.
My watch said 8:59 when I walked in. An usher tried
to send me upstairs but I asked him if there was anything
in the front row. He told me there wasn't but I told
him I was going to try anyway. There was a seat in the
second row right on the aisle and I noticed as I approached
that the first three rows in front of the stage had
been removed and some of the people from the film who
are in wheelchairs were up at the front. Some of them
had little rubber balls and I wondered if we were going
to get a live demonstration of the sport.
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Matt Dentler soon came out and introduced
the film and mentioned how SXSW had begun a relationship
with ThinkFilm a few years ago when they showed
"Spellbound," which later went on to be a very
high grossing documentary. ThinkFilm is also releasing
"Murderball" and brought the film to the festival.
"Murderball" is about paraplegics who play a game
similar to rugby in their wheelchairs.
After the film, one member of the sport who
was featured in the film, and who lives in Austin,
Mark Zupan was on hand as well as his friend Chris
Igoe who is also in the film. Three of the filmmakers
were also there and the group fielded questions
for about 30 minutes.
I walked back to my car, which I had parked
within two blocks of the Paramount and discovered
why a spot so close to the theater was available.
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My car was completely covered in birdshit. It was
like it had been bombed. Gross.
Lodger at SXSW2005
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