• Travel Tales

    SXSW: the Good, the Bad, the BBQ

    In 2009, I was working full-time at a tech company building some serious client-facing experience and learning the digital marketing ropes while I toiled away at the Indy Film Fest on nights and weekends. Sometime late that year, it occurred to me that I could take advantage of the company’s conference policy – employees on my team could attend one career-centered conference a year – while bolstering my film festival cred at the same time. The magic event? That grown-up Spring Break that descends on Austin each March, SXSW. So it was that I attended my first SX (read: South By) in 2010, dedicating the first part of my week to…

  • Cinephilia

    An indie from Austin

    I’d heard rumblings about this great little film, something called Short Term 12 – but what a curious title. And what could I really expect of it? Having made its debut at SXSW instead of Sundance, it was one of this year’s slate of indies I wasn’t too terribly familiar with. But little by little, more and more good buzz about this character-driven drama started to build, started to catch my attention. A lot of good comes out of Austin, so it’s no surprise that this movie was getting noticed. I made plans over Labor Day Weekend to see several films, and while it took me three days to do…