Eight days, 267.12 miles walked, 10 interviews conducted, 29 articles written, dozens of films watched, and an untold amount of fast food consumed. The Hyperreal Film Journal stayed busy during SXSW 2024.

Film FestsHyperreal Film ClubMay 8, 2024Comment

April Eroticism: A Hyperreal Alternate Calendar

Steamy screenings and delicious double-features. Here’s the perfect pairings for the Hyperreal Film Club April calendar.

HFC at SXSW '24: My Sextortion Diary

Told exclusively through iPhone footage, laptop cameras, and text exchanges, Patricia Franquesa’s My Sextortion Diary plays out more like a thriller more akin to films like Missing, Searching, and UnFriended than the traditional talking head documentary.

Bruno-Vision: North

Bruno-vision continues with Bruce Willis’ turn in North - in which he is, honestly, not great. Not terrible, but not great. He tries though!

HFC at SXSW '24: We're All Gonna Die

The first feature-length film from Rocket Jump (Freddie Wong and Matthew Arnold), We’re All Gonna Die has some rough edges but is at its greatest when it finds the balance between emotional and comedic.

This Week in Screenings 5/3-5/9

This week in Austin screenings 5/3 - 5/9.

Community ScreeningsJames McDonaldMay 3, 2024Comment

HFC at SXSW '24: Sing Sing

Sing Sing is a magician’s best trick from a filmmaker still early in his career.

Alice Rohrwacher Crafts a Modern Hero’s Tale of Mythic Proportions with La Chimera

In La Chimera, Rohrwacher delicately crafts a moving romantic tale of magical realism, entwining the immortal and mortal spheres, and those who find themselves stuck on either side.

ReviewsGabrielle SanchezMay 2, 2024Joshua O'Connor, Alice Rohrwacher, La Chimera, Yile VianelloComment

Crossing the Rainbow Bridge with Dimitri Simakis and Suki Rose

The Rainbow Bridge, which was featured in the Narrative Short Program at this year’s SXSW, explores the grief of losing a pet and how it makes eccentrics of us all.

Julia HebnerMay 1, 2024Comment

With Challengers, Guadagnino and Company Dive into Beauty and Ruin

Challengers is a hell of a film—well-performed, well-scored, well-choreographed and well worth seeing.

Justin HarrisonMay 1, 2024Comment

Her Dog Satan and the DIY Art Scene: An Interview with Scott Conn

In advance of the Eastside Cinema screening of Her Dog Satan on May 4,Scott Conn, the director of Dirt Road to Psychedelia, sat down with Hyperreal Film Journal to talk about DIY filmmaking, the Austin punk scene, and Roger Corman inspirations.

InterviewsZiah GraceApril 30, 2024Scott Conn, Texas Archive of the Moving Image, Her Dog Satan, SlackerComment

Peeling Away the Artifice of Self with Dissolution Director Anthony Saxe

With Dissolution, the short film which won the Narrative Shorts Jury Award at SXSW, director Anthony Saxe explores this disconnection from the past by looking to his parents. Through home videos captured in his infancy or before he was born, he investigates who his parents were to themselves and to each other when they lived completely different lives to the ones he now knows.

InterviewsJulia HebnerApril 30, 2024SXSW, Anthony Saxe, Dissolution Comments

Pondering the Multitudinous Laundromat with The Bleacher directors Nicole Daddona and Adam Wilder

Nicole Daddano and Adam Wilder’s short animated film The Bleacher makes the viewer a voyeur in a dark and gritty world, centered around a laundromat where a regular has some very dirty laundry to do indeed. HFC sat down with Nicole and Adam to discuss all the strange turns the film takes and shifting from live action to animation.

Carl Weathers made Predator’s Dillon a son of a bitch worth mourning

Predator (1987) is, in its own quiet way, an actor’s movie. And then there’s the late, great Carl Weathers, whose soldier-turned-CIA-creep Dillon is the most complex character in Predator—a role that sees Weathers thread a tricky dramatic needle with skill and panache.

AFS Doc Days Screenings to Watch

Take a first look at the movies our team of writers can’t wait to see at Austin Film Society’s fifth annual Doc Days festival.

Hyperreal Film ClubApril 26, 2024Comment

This Week in Screenings 4/26 - 5/2

This week in Austin screenings 4/26 - 5/2

Community ScreeningsJames McDonaldApril 26, 2024Comment

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire: An Airless Bore of a Blockbuster

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire ends up an airless bore of a blockbuster, so crammed full of nostalgic enshrinement that nothing gets the space to breathe.

Justin HarrisonApril 25, 2024Comment

The 5 Best Movies Full of Yearning

For lessons on how to yearn, check out this list of films in which the protagonists are madly in love—or at least experiencing a psychosis-inducing limerence—but the physical manifestation of their love exists in concept only.

Aja NicelyApril 25, 2024Comment

Shooting Up The Abyss: Pandemic Malaise in Grand Theft Hamlet

It is all the more surprising then, when Sam and Mark stumble upon an empty amphitheater in Los Santos. Almost certainly, the game designers were thinking of a concert space in this moment of world building, but Sam and Mark immediately see it for its theatrical potential. They hop their Ed Hardy-clothed avatars upon the stage and begin reciting Shakespeare. It doesn’t take long for one of them to suggest the loftiest of side missions: staging a production of Hamlet within the world of Grand Theft Auto.

ReviewsJulia HebnerApril 24, 2024 Comment

Discussing Bodily Autonomy in Life and Death with If I Die In America director, Ward Kamel

Ward Kamel’s beautiful and devastating short film, If I Die In America, which debuted at SXSW, tackles this question with searing aplomb. When Manny’s husband, Sameer, dies suddenly, his grief is usurped by an unexpected battle with Sameer’s family, who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of their relationship and any claim he tries to stake on his husband’s body. I sat down with Ward to discuss his process and the thoughts and experiences that inspired the film.

InterviewsJulia HebnerApril 23, 2024SXSW, Ward Kamel, Gil Perez Abraham, Yan Lau, Cameron MortonComment