Alien spiders, endangered vampires and – perhaps most horrifically – family reunions. These are among the many terrors contained in South by Southwest Film’s “Midnighters” series.
SXSW starts four weeks from tomorrow, which means Friday is the last day to buy badges before prices jump. It also means the lineups for its provocative after-dark Midnighters series and short films are out.
Rob Zombie’s “The Lords of Salem” and Adam Wingard’s festival favorite “You’re Next” are among a Midnighters section SXSW official Jarod Neece says is “full of scares, sex, madness, laughs [and] chills.”
And from scares to shorts: after a record-breaking submission season, 106 short films were selected to screen during the nine-day film festival. The films have been divided into six categories, including Texas High School Shorts. Twenty-nine Texas high school students will debut their work and provide a preview of the state’s cinematic future.
“It was harder than ever to narrow down our final program, but this year's selections beautifully capture, in a multitude of ways, the essence of existence in this very specific moment, while still managing to provide a much wider and relatable commentary across time," Shorts Programmer Claudette Godfrey says in a statement.
On the Interactive end of the festival, Internet mogul Kim Dotcomwill—keeping true to his medium—chat with Wired editor Charles Graeber during a SXSW Skype interview. Dotcom is founder of the now-banned file sharing site Megaupload, and new cloud storage site Mega.
And what first made the festival world-renown can’t be ignored: music. SXSW recently announced Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Eric Burdon as a featured speaker.
SXSW 2012 starts March 8.