SXSW film festival day 5: Billy Bob and rules for attending a film fest

by John P. Meyer

Posting this installment the day after because I had a flaky internet connection at the fine motel I'm calling home for the length of the film festival. Won't mention any names, but they'll leave the light on for ya.

It was a good day because I actually made all my scheduled screenings, which was essential because I am interviewing a couple of the filmmakers today (Wed., March 12). And it's bad form to start an interview with, "Well, I haven't seen your film, but from what I hear..."

The great little short called The Temerity of Zim played with a a longer feature called My Effortless Brilliance, more of which about both films later. But the point here is that I'd thought Brilliance ran only about an hour, while in fact it played for almost an hour and a half, seriously crimping my ability (or so I was beginning to worry) to hoof it back over to the convention center (a few blocks away) to catch the Billy Bob talk. In fact, with only 15 minutes before the scheduled start of the event, I was pretty much resigning myself to not getting in. That's just the way most of the single-event things go down here - if you're not in line a half hour or so early, you risk disappointment.

In this case, though, it was not an issue, other than the fact that I had to sit farther back in the auditorium than I would have preferred.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day, Charlotte - and so is today, if you want to get technical about it.