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March 14, 2009

SXSW 2009 Dispatch: Opening Night

After a hellish day of flight delays, planes with mechanical problems, luggage not being loaded on the plane in a timely manner, and assorted weather-related issues here in the southwest, I finally made it into Austin tonight five hours or so later than planned.

I got to my hotel room around 10:30 and after longing lookss at both the lovely, deep bathtub and comfortable-looking bed, both of which were giving me "come hither" glances, I sucked down some coffee and mustered up the energy to hike the few blocks over to the big Opening Night party at Buffalo Billiards.

The Opening Party is, like most fest parties, hot and very crowded, but it's always a great first fest stop for seeing all the other fest circuit refugees, filmmakers, and talent. Fest regulars at the party tonight included the indieWIRE crew, represented by Eugene Hernandez, Brian Brooks and Eric Kohn ; B-Side's Chris Holland; Keaton Kail, Ryan Werner and Alison Willmore from IFC, publicists David Magdael and Winston Eammes, former SXSW head Matt Dentler, and new SXSW head honcho Janet Pierson. Also ran into the team from Make Out with Violence, one of my fave films from the Oxford Film Festival.

I heard Paul Rudd was there tonight, though I think he left before I got there, but I did see Mark Duplass, who has a film in the narrative competition film in the fest, and then a few minutes later was accosted by a friendly, if rather inebriated actor who's in a short film playing here. He apparently thought that petting my hair was a good way to introduce himself. Fortunately, the film's director more or less got him under control, so I won't hold that against him or his film.

Since I missed the opening night film, I shot some flipcam video of several folks talking about both the film and the audience response. Hope to have both that video and another of the Make Out with Violence crew up shortly, once I navigate the mysteries of uploading it to YouTube.

Tomorrow's my first day of screenings of the films in the narrative competition -- three of them, back-to-back (but thankfully all at the Alamo Ritz, so I'll be able to eat better than my usual fest diet of protein bars and 89,000 shots of espresso (hellllllooooo, milkshakes!) More later from SXSW, stay tuned.

Posted by kvoynar at March 14, 2009 02:16 AM

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Posted by: bunnybeth at March 14, 2009 08:12 AM

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