After canceling its 2020 edition and going virtual last year during the pandemic, the 2022 SXSW Film Festival will kick off with the premiere of the sci-fi adventure "Everything Everywhere all at Once."
SXSW announced Wednesday that its in-person Austin, Texas, festival will begin March 11 with the new film from directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the "Swiss Army Man" filmmakers collectively billed as "Daniels." The film, starring Michelle Yeoh, is described as "a hilarious and big-hearted sci-fi action adventure about an exhausted Chinese American woman who can't seem to finish her taxes."
Janet Pierson, director of film for SXSW, called the film "fantastically inventive, entertaining, emotionally grounded, and crammed with the exceptional creativity."
"Audiences are going to have their minds blown by this extraordinary feat of filmmaking," said Pierson in a statement.
A24 is to release "Everything Everywhere All at Once," whose producers include Joe and Anthony Russo. It also stars Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., and Jamie Lee Curtis.
The SXSW Film Festival will run March 11 through 20. A selection of films will be available online to badge holders.
Editor's note: Directorial duo Daniels is repped by PRETTYBIRD in the commercialmaking/branded content arena.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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