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Canadian documentaries on screen at SXSW

Posted by Robin on March 14, 2010 - 2:56am

The music, film and technology festival SXSW kicked off in Austin, Texas on March 12 and runs until March 20. Canadian docs screening in competition include Taqwacore and Reel Injun and the website for eco-doc Waterlife is in competition for a SXSW Web Award. The NFB's GDP webdoc project is being featured as part of the IDFA DocLab panel on March 13.

The SXSW Web Awards will be handed out on Sunday, March 14. Waterlife was nominated under the Activism category and is also eligible for an Audience Choise Award. Director Kevin McMahon's Waterlife follows the epic cascade of the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. The doc was co-produced by the NFB and the website (http://interactive.nfb.ca/waterlife) won Best Cross-Platform Project at the 2009 Canadian New Media Awards in December.

The SXSW Film Awards Ceremony will take place on Tuesday, March 16 at the Austin Convention Center Theater. Director Omar Majeed's doc Taqwacore chronicles the nascent Muslim punk rock movement in America. Taqwacore (which was produced by Montreal's powerhouse production company EyeSteelFilm) screens on Friday, March 19. View a trailer at www.eyesteelfilm.com/taqwacore. Director Neil Diamond's documentary Reel Injun had its first screening on March 13 and screens again on March 18. The NFB co-production examines the 'Hollywood Indian' through a century of cinema. View a trailer at www.reelinjunthemovie.com.

On Saturday, March 13, Montreal-based filmmaker Brett Gaylor (director of R.I.P - A Remix Manifesto) will moderate the IDFA DocLab - Webdocumentary and Interactive Storytelling Panel Discussion (http://sxsw.com/node/4556). The IDFA DocLab DFA's DocLab presents some of the most innovative web projects and interactive documentaries in internet media production. Panelists include the NFB's Hughes Sweeney, who will present the NFB's ongoing webdoc GDP: Measuring the Human Side of the Canadian Economic Crisis (www.gdp.nfb.ca). 

In addition, the NFB has produced two other films screening at the festival: Guy Maddin’s short Night Mayor, about an inventor who harnesses the power of the Aurora Borealis in an attempt to broadcast images of Canada to its citizens and Mamori, an experimental animated film by artist Karl Lemieux.  Canadian fiction films screening at SXSW include the rock 'n' roll vampire film Suck, the Lisa Jackson short, Savage, and Don McKellar and Bruce McDonald's feature This Movie Is Broken.

Photo: Taqwacore, courtesy EyeSteelFilm.