For many, Sxsw was the first big event canceled in that now-infamous year of 2020, so it made sense that to celebrate the return of the Austin festival in an IRL capacity, S/W should be on the ground! If you’re in attendance, keep an eye out for co-founder Jason Sondhi, and senior programmers Chelsea Lupkin and myself roaming the Texas capital or at one of the many screenings.

With the festival’s selections always aligning strongly with the S/W curation, and being a double agent, the announcement of the program is something we look forward to, being eager to share those familiar names on the press release with the rest of the team. From the big headliners to the episodic pilots, we were excited to see new projects from S/W alums included throughout the 2022 line-up. Here is the list of the screenings we will most definitely be lining up for.

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Headliners

Both the opening and closing night selections for this year’s festival feature filmmakers we’ve not only Featured on S/W, but followed for years.

• Atlanta (Season 3) by Hiro Murai – Closing out this year’s festival, Murai and Donald Glover’s series following rapper Paper Boi and his entourage returns for a third season, as this time he travels Europe on tour. With Murai and Glover’s collaborations reaching back years, following a series of music videos (under Glover’s Childish Gambino pseudonym) and short film Clapping for the Wrong Reasons (which very much feels like a predecessor for Atlanta), we’re excited to see where these next 10-episodes take us

• Everything Everywhere All At Once by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – aka The Daniels – previously featured on S/W four times (Possibilia, Pockets, Interesting Ball, My Best Friend’s Wedding / My Best Friend’s Sweating), needless to say, that on opening night we’ll be hoping to be present for the World Premiere of the pair’s latest feature. Regulars at the festival from their music video days, SXSW Director of Film Janet Pierson has described EEAAO as ‘fantastically inventive, entertaining, emotionally grounded, and crammed with the exceptional creativity’.

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Features

As is becoming expected now, there are a number of filmmakers who started their careers in the world of short film in this year’s features programmes. Our interest has been sparked by Teemu Nikki’s The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic and Mariama Diallo’s Master, but these four features below, from our alums, are the ones we’re desperate to see.

• 2nd Chance by Ramin Bahrani – Since we featured his short Plastic Bag back in 2010, producer/director Bahrani has amassed a list of impressive credits, which resulted in him being both BAFTA and Oscar-nominated, for The White Tiger, in 2021. His latest feature is a portrait of Richard Davis, the charming and brash inventor of the modern-day bulletproof vest who shot himself 192 times to prove his product worked.
• Diamond Hands: The Legend of WallStreetBets by Drea Cooper, Zackary Canepari – A staple of our site as far back as 2011, when we featured shorts docs Aquadettes and Uppercut from their California is a Place series, the directorial duo are playing SXSW ’22 with their debut feature, which explores the legend of the subreddit, r/WallStreetBets.

• Emergency by Carey Williams – Based on the short of the same name, Williams’ second feature centers on a group of college students who must weigh the pros and cons of calling the police when faced with an unusual emergency.
• Millie Lies Low by Michelle Savill – Impressing us in 2018 with her break-up short Ellen is Leaving – which our writer Serafima described as a ‘brilliant example of elegant simplicity in film’ – Savill hits Austin this year with her debut feature Millie Lies Low – the story of a broke and anxiety-ridden architecture grad who hides out in her hometown after missing the flight to take her to a prestigious internship.

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Pilots

The Episodic Pilot Program features some interesting titles this year and while we’re excited to see the selection, these two from our alums hold extra importance to us:

• Awayy by Aqsa Altaf, John X. Carey – Having featured their film Deadlock back in late 2021 for anyone who watched that short (which plays very much like a proof-of-concept) it will come as no surprise that Altaf and Carey are at this year’s SXSW with a pilot. The story of a small-town waitress who seems her dream move to NYC disrupted after a solar flare, the premise for this one has us intrigued.

• My Year of Dicks by Sara Gunnarsdóttir – If the title of this pilot wasn’t enough to catch your attention, not only is it by a filmmaker we featured back in 2013, with her short The Pirate of Love Vol. 1, but it also lists S/W contributor and previously featured filmmaker, with Trusts & Estates, Jeanette Jeanenne as producer. Set in the early Nineties, this animated pilot follows protagonist Pam as she tries, very hard, to lose her virginity.

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SHORTS

This year eight of the selected shorts were directed by alums while another two – Glitter Ain’t Gold by Christian Nolan Jones and West by God by Scott Lazer – will be featured on our site soon.

• Belle River by Guillaume Fournier, Samuel Matteau and Yannick Nolin – From the directorial trio who brought us Acadiana, set in a flooded Mississippi, this visually impressive short doc examines what will happen if local authorities will soon be forced to open the floodgates of the Morganza Spillway.
• Clare by Lauren Minnerath – One of those films that goes in a direction you weren’t initially expecting, Minnerath’s (The Morning After) Clare immerses you in the world of a 17yr-old highschooler and the complex situation she’s got herself into.

• Daddy’s Girl by Lena Hudson – Described as ‘a transgressive comedy about a father/daughter relationship gone awry’, Hudson’s (Too Long at the Fair) follows Alison as she prepares to move out of her wealthy, older boyfriend’s apartment, but instead gets stoned with her dad.
• Dress a Cow by Dawn Luebbe – Known for her WTF comedy work with Jocelyn DeBoer (Greener Grass, The Arrival), Luebbe is at SXSW this year with a very different film, a charming documentary looking at a County Fair’s tradition of cow costume parades.

• Long Line of Ladies by Shaandiin Tome, Rayka Zehtabchi – Another filmmaker already featured multiple times on our site, for her latest short Zehtabchi (Are You Still There?, (SHn(y)oof)) teams up with director/cinematographer Tome to document the coming of age ceremony of the Karuk tribe of Northern California.
• not even for a moment do things stand still by Jamie Meltzer – An observational glimpse into Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg’s National Mall art installation, Meltzer’s (Huntsville Station) short provides intimate moments of people honoring loved ones who lost their lives to COVID.

• Soft Animals by Renee Zhan – A real favorite on our  site, having already been featured three times with Pidge, Hold Me (Ca Caw Ca Caw) and Reneepoptosis, Zhan’s three-minute film captures the flood of emotions that are sparked when two ex-lovers cross paths at a train station.
• Steakhouse by Špela Čadež – Although there are no inebriated badgers in Čadež’s latest piece, she’s once served up a distinct and unforgettable animation about steak and surprises.

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You can browse the rest of the films playing the festival here and if you want to watch previous shorts from the festival, check out our dedicated SXSW Channel.