Episode 547: The 2025 SXSW Film Festival

Erik Childress has been traveling to Austin for over 20 years for the annual South by Southwest Film Festival. He is back to tell you all about 19 films that he saw this year. Among the films you can see soon are the return of Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively to the world of simple favor. Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega trying to survive the revenge of a unicorn and Nicolas Cage battles some territorial Australians. Hopefully audiences won’t have to wait too long to see the solo directorial debut of Jay Duplass or the latest from Matt Johnson that pays homage to the world of Robert Zemeckis and Rosamund Pike & Matthew Rhys desperately try to get to the scene of their daughter’s accident, Daisy Ridley has to dodge zombies and a pair of brothers take a leisurely stroll through San Francisco with their guitars in a single take. There are documentaries about Curtis Mayfield, Marc Maron, the horrors and fascism in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting and what to do when an A.I. Pioneer won’t answer your questions. Erik reviews all that plus Michael Bay’s parkour documentary in this recap of one of his favorite festivals.

0:00 – Intro

2:02 – Another Simple Favor

5:08 – Hallow Road

8:27 – Brother Verses Brother

11:19 – The Dutchman

14:03 – Death of a Unicorn

18:51 – American Sweatshop

22:18 – Uvalde Mom

25:22 – Forge

28:10 – We Bury the Dead

31:25 – Nirvanna the Band the Show – The Movie

35:59 – Deepfaking Sam Altman

39:40 – The Baltimorons

45:02 – For Worse

49:21 – The Surfer

53:14 – The Makings of Curtis Mayfield

54:27 – Make It Look Real

57:07 – Caper

59:50 – We Are Storror

1:03:59 – Are We Good?

1:07:02 - Outro