South by Southwest is nearly here and this year’s edition has a strong lineup of films. As with any large festival, there is so much to choose from many of the smaller entries get lost. Especially with Sydney Sweeney and Ryan Gosling grabbing most of the headlines. There is plenty of stuff coming to this year’s SXSW, however. Here are some of the screenings to be most excited about.
Birdeater
This Australian import is about a bride-to-be who is invited to her fiancé’s bachelor party on a remote property. Beer (and other things) are consumed and secrets are shared. A simple premise that goes in directions that will surprise audiences. Visually powerful and a tense and uncomfortable story.
Clemente
No sport looks back on its rich history as much as Major League Baseball. Roberto Clemente is the first high-profile Latino player to play the sport in the United States, opening the door for athletes to this day. As much as he did to shape the sport, it is all of his deeds off the field that make him iconic.
Dead Mail
Deal Mail is a thriller with an interesting premise. Jasper (Tomas Boykin, Rob Zombie’s The Munsters) is a “dead letter” investigator. His job is to return lost mail to its sender. His latest case leads him to a man who has a vested interest in the note and will stop at nothing to retrieve it.
Desert Road
The best thrillers do a great job of conveying two key feelings to the audience: confusion and frustration. Desert Road is about a woman who crashes her car and decides to walk down the road to look for help. The problem is no matter which way she walks, she ends up back at the crashed car again.
Dickweed
As popular as true crime is, it has been in need of new types of stories for a long time. Enter Dickweed, the story of a heist that went horribly wrong. A million dollars, kidnapping, and a missing dick are all a part of a story that sounds too insane to be real – but it absolutely is.
We Strangers
We Strangers sounds like the plot of a 1980s sitcom. Rayelle Martin (Kirby, Barry)is hired by a therapist to work as his housecleaner. The therapist then offers a second job to clean his mistress’s home. Ray accepts the job but while there she tells what seems like a small innocent lie. She lets the pair know she can speak with the dead. Ray soon finds herself in a new odd position of power.
SXSW takes place March 8 – March 16. The full lineup can be found HERE
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