By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --The popcorn will be bring your own and the barbecue won't be as good, but the Austin, Texas, SXSW Film Festival is moving online after having its 27th edition canceled by the coronavirus pandemic.
SXSW announced Thursday that it's partnering with Amazon Prime Video to stream as much of its movie lineup as possible for a 10-day period in the U.S. It will be free to viewers with or without an Amazon Prime membership.
South by Southwest organizers have worked frantically to salvage what they could of the festival and bring attention to the many films that had been planning to premiere there. SXSW, which had been scheduled to run March 13-22, last week announced awards for its competition categories, anyway.
Individual films will choose whether they want to opt in to the 10-day "SXSW 2020 Film Festival Collection" on Amazon. Don't count on movies acquired by Netflix, for example, to participate. The festival declined to say how many films it expects to host.
But for the filmmakers that do join in, the digital platform could offer a measure of solace for their missed SXSW premiere, and all the promotion benefit that a major festival entails. Filmmakers who participate will receive a screening fee.
"Ever since SXSW was canceled by the City of Austin, we've been focused on how we could help the incredible films and filmmakers in the SXSW 2020 Film Festival lineup," said Janet Pierson, director of film at SXSW. "We're inspired by the adaptability and resilience of the film community as it searches for creative solutions in this unprecedented crisis."
SXSW and Prime Video are aiming to hold the 10-day online event in late April.
Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios, said she hopes the online SXSW "can help give back some of that experience, and showcase artists and films that audiences might otherwise not have had the chance to see."
Full Lineup Set For AFI Fest; Official Selections Span 44 Countries, Include 9 Best International Feature Oscar Submissions
The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 23-27. Rounding out the slate of already announced titles are such highlights as September 5 directed by Tim Fehlbaum, All We Imagine As Light directed by Payal Kapadia, The Luckiest Man in America directed by Samir Oliveros (AFI Class of 2019), Zurawski v. Texas from executive producers Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence and directors Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and Oh, Canada directed by Paul Schrader (AFI Class of 1969). A total of 158 films are set to screen at the 38th edition of AFI Fest.
Of the official selections, 48% are directed by women and non-binary filmmakers and 26% are directed by BIPOC filmmakers.
Additional festival highlights include documentaries Architecton directed by Victor Kossakovsky; Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie directed by David Bushell; Devo directed by Chris Smith about the legendary new wave provocateurs; Gaucho Gaucho directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw; Group Therapy directed by Neil Berkeley with Emmy® winner Neil Patrick Harris and Tig Notaro; No Other Land directed by a Palestinian-Israeli team comprised of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal; Pavements directed by Alex Ross Perry; and Separated directed by Errol Morris. Notable narrative titles include Black Dog (Gou Zen) directed by Guan Hu; Bonjour Tristesse directed by Durga Chew-Bose with Academy Award® nominee Chloë Sevigny; Caught By The Tides directed by Jia Zhangke; Hard Truths directed by Mike Leigh with... Read More