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Posted Film Festivals

SXSW: Short Films

While the 2020 SXSW Film Festival was canceled the films still live on. Recently SXSW announced their collaboration with Amazon Prime for an online film festival. They are currently in the process of allowing filmmakers to opt-in or opt-out and will host the festival at the end of April. As someone who refuses to use Amazon Prime, I was happy to see that you don’t have to have the service to attend the festival. It’s free to the public and all you need is an Amazon account.

Something that did not get as much fanfare was SXSW’s other collaboration with MailChimp which is hosting SXSW short films on their website. MailChimp Presents SXSW 2020 Shorts #SupportheShorts offers a variety of short films that would have been screened at the film festival. The categories include: Animated (7), Documentary (11), Made in Texas (8), Midnight (8), Narrative (15), Texas High School (15). It’s not clear how long these shorts will be available to view online. I hope it will be long term. Because I had press pass for the festival I was able to view many of these shorts ahead of time. Three of them I reviewed on this site. 

If you love short films as much as I do and want to know which SXSW shorts to watch, here are some recommendations:

Basic — dir. by Chelsea Devantez

A hilarious short about pettiness and dating in the era of social media. I laughed out loud and watched this one on repeat. A must see!

Read my full review of BASIC here.

Blackheads — dir. by Emily Ann Hoffman

A highly satisfying animated short film about a woman dealing with a break-up, a bad therapist and a giant blackhead.

Read my full review of Blackheads here.

Figurant — dir. Jan Vejnar

A short Czechian drama about a middle-aged man whose curiosity got the better of him as he finds himself hired for a mystery job. Amazing build-up and cinematography.

Read my full review of Figurant here.

Blocks — dir. by Bridget Moloney

An overwhelmed mom vomits lego blocks. Sounds crazy right? The overall theme of finding time for oneself really struck a chord with me. Don’t let the whacky concept turn you away from this one!

The Claudia Kishi Club — dir. by Sue Ding

In the 1980s/1990s there was a noticeable lack of Asian-American characters and those that existed were stereotypes. Claudia Kishi of The Babysitters Club books was a noticeable exception. A group of Asian-American artists and creators discuss the character’s impact.

Modern Whore — dir. by Nicole Bazuin

A retro style documentary with highly stylized re-enactments. Features a former sex worker describing her experience with escort message board review culture.

I’m Happy, I Promise — dir. by Mimi Cave

A whacky short comedy, told through a series of phone calls, about a nut-obsessed man who tries to ignore his past indiscretions.

Summer Hit — dir. by Berthold Wahjudi

Two exchange students from Iceland and Spain have a summer affair in Germany. What starts off as a meaningless fling blossoms into something much deeper.

Single — dir. by Ashley Eakin

A disability romance about a feisty young woman won’t take shit from anybody, including her blind date. The ending was so satisfying! 

Face to Face Time — dir. by Izzy Shill

Perfect viewing for our quarantine culture. A woman calls up her new love interest for a sexy Facetime session. But things don’t turn out quite how she expected them to.

Lions in the Corner — dir. by Paul Hairston

A riveting documentary short about an ex-convict who starts a fight club to encourage youths to take out their battles in a boxing ring. His efforts help reduce needless violence and eventual incarceration.

Posted Female Filmmakers

SXSW: I Will Make You Mine

Rachel (Lynn Chen), Erika (Ayako Fujitani) and Yea-Ming (Yea-Ming Chen) have one thing in common: Goh Nakamura. All three women have romantic ties to the singer-songwriter. Rachel lives a cushy life with her wealthy caucasian husband. His marital indiscretions sour the relationship and Rachel rekindles her feelings for her childhood friend. Erika is a professor and Goh’s ex-wife. They have a daughter together, Sachiko (Ayami Riley Tomine), and the two are reunited when Erika makes arrangements for her father’s funeral. Yea-Ming is a free spirit. Like Goh, she’s a singer-songwriter. She’s been trying for years to make it in the music business and she gets some inspiration from Goh when he’s back in town.

I Will Make You Mine is a beautifully sensitive and lyrical film. It explores the deep emotional bonds of the past and how they can be reignited years later. The film was written, produced and directed by Lynn Chen who also stars as Rachel. It was shot in black-and-white and is Chen’s debut as a screenwriter and director of a feature film. Music is an important part of the film and both Goh Nakamura and Yea-Ming Chen (who play versions of themselves) perform. Yea-Ming sings a beautiful rendition of the title song and the credits roll with Goh performing a touching acoustic number.

“The feeling I most want to share with I Will Make You Mine is hope. Hope that it’s not too late to be the person you dreamed you would be.”

Lynn Chen

I Will Make You Mine was set to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Gravitas Ventures is releasing the film on demand and digital on May 26th. You can pre-order the film on iTunes.

Posted Documentaries

SXSW: My Darling Vivian

Vivian Liberto Cash, Johnny Cash’s first wife and the mother of his four daughters, passed away on May 24th, 2005. This was a few months before Walk the Line (2005), the critically-acclaimed and award-winning Cash biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon and Ginnifer Goodwin, was released. Vivian didn’t live to see the film nor did she want to. The script circulated and the way it portrayed Vivian was far from the truth. It created a myth about Vivian as a vindictive woman who tried to get in the way of Cash’s music career.

In reality, Vivian Liberto was a complex woman. A strong-minded woman who was fiercely private and devoted to her husband and her children. The daughter of Italian-American Catholics in San Antonio, Texas, Vivian first met Johnny Cash in 1951 when she was a teenager and he was an Air Force cadet. They had an instant connection and exchanged love letters when Cash served abroad. When he returned in 1954, they married. Cash’s career took off. They moved to California and into Johnny Carson’s old home. They had four children together: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara. Vivian had a difficult time with Cash’s fame. It was intrusive and put Vivian on guard. Cash spent more and more time away from the family, started using drugs and started a relationship with singer June Carter that would eventually lead to Vivian and Johnny’s divorce. Vivian wasn’t the perfect mother but she did what she could to raise her four children. She re-married and wrote a book about her life. But her desire for privacy meant the world didn’t really know or understand Vivian. By the time her book published, it was too little too late. A new myth would eclipse the truth.

Filmmaker Matt Riddlehoover’s new documentary My Darling Vivian sets the record straight about the woman behind the legend. The film features extensive home footage and photos. Only Vivian’s four daughters Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara are interviewed. There are no other talking heads, no other family members, friends, pop culture experts, historians etc. This documentary keeps it in the family. It’s easy to watch this film and immediately get defensive of Vivian. You might reconsider your feelings on Walk the Line and how it portrayed her. Of course there is some bias but I was impressed how frank and open the four daughters were about their mother. They discussed both the good and the bad about their parents. My Darling Vivian is a well-rounded and fairly intimate film about a misunderstood woman.

My Darling Vivian was set to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Visit the official website for more information.

Posted Film Festivals

SXSW: Lapsis

In a parallel world, Quantum computers are connected via an internet run by extensive fiber-optic cables. These cables are connected to Quantum cubes hidden in the forest. A cottage industry is born where freelance cablers make some quick money running these cables from cube to cube.

Ray (Dean Imperial) is a delivery man who is fairly out of the loop of today’s technology. His kid brother Jamie (Babe Howard) is a tech wiz but he’s suffering from Omnia, a type of chronic fatigue syndrome. After experimenting with a variety of treatments, Ray decides to put Jamie into a treatment facility. The problem is that Ray can’t afford the the hefty medical bill with just his day job. So he signs up to be a cabler. Ray starts off on the wrong foot when he’s given another person’s username, Lapsis Beeftech. The cabling system is highly political and cablers gamify to make the most money possible. Ray meets Anna (Madeline Wise), a jaded cabler who catches on to the predicament Ray finds himself in. Can Ray just keep his head down enough to finish his cabling gig and get the proper treatment for Jamie? And who was Lapsis Beeftech?

Lapsis is an exploration of how the gig economy dehumanizes all in the name of money. Ray is a complete outsider. Cabling to him is a means to an end. A way for him to save his brother. But in the cabling world everyone is out to make a quick buck, at the cost of others. It’s a bizarre little film. I didn’t quite fully understand why people had to cable or what those Quantum cubes actually were. But as far as science fiction films go, this one was fairly enjoyable and offers just the right insight into the human condition.

Lapsis was set to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Visit the official website for more information.

Posted Documentaries

SXSW: Good Ol Girl

“Texas is the place where so much of the entire West was born. There is that sense of freedom. And it has to do with ownership of space.”

Joyce Gibson Roach, Folklorist and author of The Cowgirls

Directed by Sarah Brennan Kolb, Good Ol Girl explores the struggle between long-held traditions and female independence and the slow fade of rural life. This documentary profiles three cowgirls as they try to forge a life for themselves in a man’s world. These are women who want to show that they can compete with the guys and do what they do but still be a woman in their own right.

Mandy is a rancher who raises beef cattle and bison. She’s religious and firmly traditional. She struggles with the internal battle of opposing desires: to thrive as an independent business woman and to be a wife and mother. 

Sara is the next in line to run the family ranch. However, she bucks with tradition and decides to pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer. 

Martha desperately wants to work in agriculture but can’t find a job. With the encroaching suburbs, land is far more valuable for housing development than it is for ranching making job options scarce.

“I was born and bred to be a cowgirl.”

Martha Santos

Filmmaker Kolb grew up in Texas and says this about what she observed:

“Strict adherence to ‘traditional’ gender roles, political powerlessness over one’s own body, and the assumption that a woman’s place was safe inside a ranch-style house, permeated the lives around me. Like most women, I discovered that accepting the dissonance between the person you are on the inside, and the face you present to the world, is part of growing up.”

Good Ol Girl effectively demonstrates the struggle these women face to live within the confines of their strictly gendered upbringing while also seeking independence through their respective careers. The documentary felt uneven at times. Mandy’s story was far more interesting. For those of you sensitive to footage of dead animals, there is a particularly jarring scene where Mandy discovers one of her heifers died during childbirth. I still can’t get that image out of my mind.

Good Ol Girl was set to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Visit the official website for more information.

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