SXSWFilm is (mostly) over so I’ve now gotten a chance to sleep, see my family for more than a few minutes, and start reviewing everything that happened in one of the most amazing weeks ever. In the past, I’ve intentionally avoided downtown during the festival even though I’ve lived in Austin the vast majority of my life. As it turns out, it’s not the nightmare of pretentious out-of-towners invading our weird little city that most of us make it out to be (although it does make traffic even more ghastly than usual). Rather, it’s a bunch of people who passionately geek out about the art and music and innovations being displayed, want to enjoy it and share experiences with each other and with about a bazillion strangers.
It’s pretty alright, to say the least.
I left most of the heavy-party-lifting to Josh and Patrick. It’s not really my scene, and if you’d ever met Josh you’d want him to be the one rubbing elbows on your behalf too. The man is composed almost entirely out of charm. So I went to a few releases, an event or two, but spent more of the week in the press screening room in front of a monitor trying to get through as many films as possible without going bonkers or forgetting to eat too many days in a row. The volunteer organizing the DVDs, Christina, is probably one of the raddest human beings on earth. She more than once kept me motivated just by letting me ramble at her whenever I’d stumble from the cave, blinking at the fluorescents and feeling disoriented from lack of sleep and sense.
I’ve got a lot to get through, mostly documentaries because I’m a documentary junky. I’ll start, though, with the animated shorts.
And here we go.
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