SXSW (South by Southwest)
Event management company · Arts District ·
Interactive, film, and music convergence for discovery
Interactive, film, and music convergence for discovery
"An annual festival held in Austin, Texas, featuring a variety of sessions, panels, and events across film, music, and interactive industries. Keith Lee appeared at a session on influencer entrepreneurship." - Erin Russell
"The festival released its 2025 film and television slate and runs March 7–15, 2025; among the most food-forward entries are Drop, the debut feature-film role for Meghann Fahy—perhaps best known for her breakout in season 2 of White Lotus, recently seen in Netflix’s The Perfect Couple, and formerly a featured star on Freeform’s The Bold Type—whose story unfolds mostly in a fancy rooftop restaurant with city views where Fahy is on a date with a man whom some mysterious person is blackmailing her to kill, and "all the folks in the restaurant become part of the terrifying action." Drop is a Universal film slated for a major theatrical release on April 11 and will make its world premiere at the festival. Also premiering is the pilot of an independent TV show called Stars Diner; the teaser promises that it "isn't the best choice for a quick steak and eggs." Set in Fresno, it follows the diner’s cadre of employees—ex-party girl Wendy, who runs the place; chef Milius, who is seemingly "unhinged," and a busboy named Willard, who’s a little left of center—as they try to keep the place, which faces foreclosure, open while "a geologically improbable volcano threatens to end all life in Fresno." The pilot is directed by award-winning Mexican-American director Fidel Ruiz-Healy and filmmaker Tyler Walker. In shorts and immersive experiences, the festival gives a Texas premiere to Unholy (Narrative Short), directed by Daisy Friedman, which follows a girl attending her family’s Passover seder for the first time after the insertion of a feeding tube to help with her gastrointestinal disorder—she’s unable to eat most of the food at the table and has to explain herself to a family who just doesn’t seem to get it. The Netherlands-based augmented reality project Future Botanicam makes its international premiere; it allows viewers to design "future nature within speculative ecosystems" inside an AI-enabled app—users plant crops that don’t exist yet and build ecosystems in which they grow, a tool intended to elevate understanding of how ecosystems work and to imagine futures for agriculture and humanity’s connection to plants. Finally, Sweet!, also from the Netherlands and making its world premiere, is an AI candy story that lets users explore how color affects the choices we make in candy and the impact sugar has on our brains, while promising to delve into sugar’s "history of both imperialist politics, commercial profits and exploitation, military conflict, and racism." - Courtney E. Smith
"Served as the world-premiere venue in March for the director’s feature-length debut, screening the film and hosting a Q&A where the filmmaker framed the project as the personal story of Richard Montañez rather than a definitive corporate history of the snack; the festival acted as a high-profile launch platform that paired the feel-good, family-friendly biopic—which celebrates Mexican American culture—with public discussion amid controversy over the claim of who invented the product." - H. Drew Blackburn
"Served as the site of the film’s world premiere and a Q&A with The Hollywood Reporter’s Mia Galuppo, where the director described “authenticity” as her north star. Audiences responded with knowing applause and laughter, the movie played like a theatrical crowd-pleaser, and it won the festival’s audience award in the headliners section — a response that highlighted the film’s cultural resonance and the power of lively in-person reactions." - H. Drew Blackburn
"Served as the platform for the film's world premiere on March 11, positioning the biopic as a feel-good, crowd-pleasing debut that foregrounded both the rags-to-riches story of a Mexican American man and the controversy about the factual origins of the snack featured in the movie." - H. Drew Blackburn