SXSW ‘06 – Day 3 – Sunday

Woke up Sunday morning with nowhere to go for breakfast. Packed some turkey jerky and a Clif Bar (they’re a sponsor) in my purse and headed to Jam, a doc about fading San Francisco roller derby icons. Walking into town we passed the capitol building. I heard it’s the tallest capitol building in America. I know…it’s interesting.

After Jam a friend told us to not eat anything on 6th Street. Then we promptly ran into a local who pointed us to the Jazz Kitchen…on 6t Street. It was okay. I would have hit Ironworks again but the local told us they’re closed on Sunday. After lunch I had a little time to kill so I went to the trade show on the top floor of the convention center. It’s a small show but I had a nice chat with the folks at CustomFlix. (Check out what they do for indie filmmakers – it’s interesting.) I had to make the 3:00 panel to find out what’s happening with the Wagner/Cuban Company at A Landmark Business moderated by Editor in chief and co-founder of indieWIRE, Eugene Hernandez. The panel included folks from almost all of the Wagner/Cuban businesses. They’ve got their hands in all the cookie jars with Magnolia Pictures, Magnolia Video, Landmark Theaters, HD Net, HD Net Movies and 2929 Films. Todd Wagner explained what has to happen:

Increase the audience.
Increase the profits.
Keep costs down.
Keep consumers happy.
Look for new revenue streams.

All of these things basically lead back to day and date. Allowing promotional money to work for theatrical releases, DVD sales and TV broadcast all at the same time.

I had to get out of the convention center and get some fresh air. Free tacos are a great way to beat the blues; so luckily just across the street from the ACC at Brush Park the festival hosted a tex-mex dinner for badge holders. Nice. It was just the energy I needed to get me through my next film, The Life of Reilly. It’s basically a concert film of the imitable Charles Nelson Reilly’s final one-man show. The film has a lot of heart and is similar in tone to another film I loved, Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party . Director/editor Barry Polterman and director/music Frank Anderson used grace and honor to show Reilly’s story from top to bottom. I was actually moved.

And to top the day off, more free tacos at the Cassidy Kids party. There’s just a whole lot of stuff going on at this festival. So much to do! And according to other reports ticket sales are up about 50%. Austin is primed to see films and get into the panels too.

Day 4 – what can I say? More, more, more.

This is a fun lego thing in the lobby of the convention center.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 13th, 2006 at 2:52 am and is filed under Film Festival Reports, Originals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.