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for the South by Southwest Film Festival. | :00:00. | :00:27. | |
Hello and welcome to the South by Southwest Film Festival | :00:28. | :00:36. | |
In today's programme we hear from hometown hero and top American | :00:37. | :00:42. | |
director Richard Linklater on his movie made in Texas. | :00:43. | :00:47. | |
A big comedy on opening night and I'm happy to make | :00:48. | :00:56. | |
With more music films from Britain and Japan shown | :00:57. | :01:00. | |
They might be the biggest band in the world. | :01:01. | :01:03. | |
And two very different festival documentaries, | :01:04. | :01:04. | |
one looking at a team of female bicyclists trying to reclaim | :01:05. | :01:07. | |
the streets and another reconstructing, by way of animation, | :01:08. | :01:10. | |
a mass shooting almost 50 years ago here in Austin. | :01:11. | :01:23. | |
There is a sniper on the university campas firing at will. | :01:24. | :01:26. | |
All that and more in this special South by Southwest edition | :01:27. | :01:28. | |
A music, interactive and film festival all rolled into one. | :01:29. | :01:35. | |
It's an event that certainly energizes and, in some instances, | :01:36. | :01:38. | |
almost overwhelms the city of Austin every spring. | :01:39. | :01:41. | |
Today we're going to be focusing on the film festival which came | :01:42. | :01:44. | |
It has grown to become a highly respected showcase for independent | :01:45. | :01:50. | |
cinema and also there's a smattering of Hollywood. | :01:51. | :02:00. | |
For the past 30 years, Austin, the state capital of Texas, | :02:01. | :02:02. | |
Last year it brought more than 80,000 people to the city. | :02:03. | :02:12. | |
When it comes to film, this year some 140 | :02:13. | :02:14. | |
I think it is becoming more and more formidable as the years go on. | :02:15. | :02:20. | |
Ever since Bridesmaids premiered at South by Southwest, | :02:21. | :02:22. | |
it has been a very splashy festival for big comedy movies. | :02:23. | :02:31. | |
Trainwreck too was the big one last year and it went | :02:32. | :02:34. | |
This year, there's one called Sausage Party which is a very | :02:35. | :02:39. | |
It has really become the landing spot for really good | :02:40. | :02:45. | |
The festival has been the launching pad for several noteworthy films. | :02:46. | :02:54. | |
From blockbusters like Furious 7 to the low-budget Tiny Furniture | :02:55. | :02:57. | |
which helped put Lena Dunham on the map. | :02:58. | :03:00. | |
It also showcases local Texas films and film makers. | :03:01. | :03:04. | |
A case in point, the Oscar-nominated hometown hero, Richard Linklater, | :03:05. | :03:09. | |
pleased that for the first time a film of his, Everybody Wants Some, | :03:10. | :03:14. | |
has been selected for the opening night. | :03:15. | :03:16. | |
It's a great tradition to have a comedy on opening night | :03:17. | :03:22. | |
and so I am glad to have made a comedy that qualifies to be | :03:23. | :03:26. | |
A big event on the first day of the film festival wasn't just | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
the unveiling of that film, but President Obama being in town | :03:31. | :03:32. | |
I don't know how to say it any better. | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
It's an honour to have him here at the same time. | :03:38. | :03:41. | |
Given that South by Southwest incorporates a music festival, | :03:42. | :03:45. | |
music films have always loomed large. | :03:46. | :03:47. | |
Documentaries are very important in the lineup. | :03:48. | :03:54. | |
Not as important as comedies in the lineup but they are gaining | :03:55. | :03:57. | |
There are many music documentaries, many strange | :03:58. | :04:07. | |
Many documentaries are about eccentrics which sort of falls | :04:08. | :04:15. | |
So where at the end of the day does South by Southwest stand | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
in the constellation of world film festivals, | :04:21. | :04:22. | |
falling as it does between Sundance and Cannes? | :04:23. | :04:29. | |
Some of the locals think nothing can beat it. | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
It's a big and influential festival but I think because it's Austin, | :04:35. | :04:50. | |
it retains a bit of an outsider non-industry vibe, | :04:51. | :04:52. | |
It has got a really good feel and it is really about the movies. | :04:53. | :04:56. | |
But there are detractors who think South by Southwest shows mediocre | :04:57. | :04:59. | |
films and that the wider event is too commercial but there are also | :05:00. | :05:02. | |
avid fans who believe in South by Southwest and think that every | :05:03. | :05:08. | |
March, Austin in Texas is just the coolest place to be. | :05:09. | :05:10. | |
There was a British presence at South by Southwest this year | :05:11. | :05:13. | |
and one British electronic music pioneer, Gary Numan, | :05:14. | :05:15. | |
was the subject of a festival documentary. | :05:16. | :05:23. | |
Now we go to our correspondent who reports on that film. | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
Gary Numan is sometimes called the godfather of electro-pop, | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
probably best known for his 1979 hit Cars. | :05:32. | :05:38. | |
# Here in my car # | :05:39. | :05:49. | |
He was arguably one of the most famous men on the planet. | :05:50. | :05:52. | |
At one point he had three albums in the charts at the same time. | :05:53. | :05:55. | |
That is kind of Beatles level of success and fame. | :05:56. | :05:58. | |
The film is a portrait of a man who was a trail blazer | :05:59. | :06:01. | |
He would say himself he was not the only one at the time. | :06:02. | :06:12. | |
There are people like Bowie, of course, and Kraftwerk, | :06:13. | :06:15. | |
all of whom experimented with electronic music | :06:16. | :06:16. | |
and synthesizers but Gary was the first one who became | :06:17. | :06:19. | |
I would say he was the first to become, as he says | :06:20. | :06:29. | |
in the film, kind of the first synth-rock superstar. | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
The documentary follows Numan at a moment of transition | :06:34. | :06:37. | |
as he's moving his family from England to Los Angeles | :06:38. | :06:41. | |
and trying to rekindle his career with a new album. | :06:42. | :06:44. | |
The one I'm doing now has been six years. | :06:45. | :06:46. | |
My career is as strong as it has ever been. | :06:47. | :06:49. | |
We learn that the musician has Asperger syndrome and is often | :06:50. | :06:52. | |
And at some point you lose your grip and then you find yourself | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
in the middle of nowhere, a bit beaten up and totally lost. | :06:58. | :07:06. | |
His mannerisms, his personality, comes across clearly, | :07:07. | :07:12. | |
that he is really very nervous about the new album. | :07:13. | :07:15. | |
He is nervous about moving to the States, is it going to work | :07:16. | :07:18. | |
This documentary is generous to its subject. | :07:19. | :07:21. | |
It's an affectionate, relatively uncritical portrait that | :07:22. | :07:24. | |
will no doubt bring Numan fans much satisfaction. | :07:25. | :07:26. | |
Gary Numan has suffered for his art and the same goes for another film | :07:27. | :07:32. | |
It covers a Japanese pop group which has been plagued | :07:33. | :07:44. | |
by troubles the last few years, all of which has been overseen | :07:45. | :07:47. | |
I had a chance to sit down with Yoshiki. | :07:48. | :08:00. | |
Yoshiki and his childhood friend and lead vocalist started X Japan | :08:01. | :08:03. | |
They forged a music culture called visual kei that borrowed | :08:04. | :08:09. | |
from the glam rock scene emerging in the West and mixed up | :08:10. | :08:12. | |
The film shows that when it comes to Yoshiki, who is also classically | :08:13. | :08:17. | |
trained as a pianist, personal tragedy was at the centre | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
of his entrance to rock music and the birth of X Japan. | :08:22. | :08:25. | |
When he was ten, his father committed suicide. | :08:26. | :08:32. | |
I was so depressed, so angry but rock was perfect, | :08:33. | :08:35. | |
the perfect music to just throw all my emotion and sadness into. | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
But I didn't stop playing classical music either, | :08:40. | :08:42. | |
so now I play both, classical and rock. | :08:43. | :08:46. | |
What hardship has the band gone through over the years? | :08:47. | :08:53. | |
The vocalist, Toshi, got brainwashed and then our band broke up. | :08:54. | :08:59. | |
Our guitar player Hidei passed away and our bass player Taiji | :09:00. | :09:02. | |
The film depicts death and pain as a villain in your life but do | :09:03. | :09:08. | |
you think it has also fuelled your creativity? | :09:09. | :09:17. | |
I'm not sure, the new place where you are just sad, | :09:18. | :09:20. | |
So I started writing lyrics and composing melodies. | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
I don't know if I would have survived otherwise. | :09:27. | :09:35. | |
The band reunited in 2008 and has been touring since 2009. | :09:36. | :09:38. | |
Critics have found this film rewarding although there have been | :09:39. | :09:42. | |
complaints that it's superficial, but the live footage is seen | :09:43. | :09:44. | |
As you heard, Richard Linklater, who is perhaps the biggest name | :09:45. | :09:56. | |
in Texas film had a new picture released at the festival. | :09:57. | :10:00. | |
He made an impact recently with his ingeniously structured | :10:01. | :10:04. | |
Oscar-nominated coming-of-age drama Boyhood. | :10:05. | :10:06. | |
His latest picture is, to some extent, a sequel | :10:07. | :10:08. | |
Do you guys know anything about a party here tonight? | :10:09. | :10:18. | |
The director's picture Dazed and Confused focused on Texas teens | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
It was a well-received coming-of-age comedy and to its fans is one | :10:23. | :10:39. | |
of the best high school comedies ever made. | :10:40. | :10:41. | |
His new picture, Everybody Wants Some, moves on to paint a portrait | :10:42. | :10:44. | |
You're really good at dialogue and social observation | :10:45. | :10:49. | |
This comes across at times as a frat boy movie. | :10:50. | :10:52. | |
Did you try to get social observation very consciously into it | :10:53. | :11:00. | |
or were you operating on a different level? | :11:01. | :11:01. | |
I think I had so many years to think about this movie. | :11:02. | :11:05. | |
I started wanting to make it around 2002, so I couldn't help but see it | :11:06. | :11:09. | |
as a social or anthropological critique of young men | :11:10. | :11:11. | |
It's fun, they're the party and I am embracing their behaviour | :11:12. | :11:20. | |
but at the same time, I am sort of critiquing it | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
because I look back and it's amazing how driven | :11:25. | :11:26. | |
by entitlement and swagger these young men are. | :11:27. | :11:28. | |
No 2, no girls upstairs in the bedrooms. | :11:29. | :11:36. | |
Early reviews have been very positive, but one review said | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
Can you understand where that reviewer is coming from? | :11:41. | :11:44. | |
There is definitely a lot, but, too much? | :11:45. | :11:51. | |
At least the guys have some wit and humour to them. | :11:52. | :12:01. | |
I see some of that is a critique, but I don't know about too much. | :12:02. | :12:08. | |
It's not balanced out, it's very male. | :12:09. | :12:10. | |
It's very much a Texas film, set in Texas and, I think, | :12:11. | :12:18. | |
you shot it entirely within the state. | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
What is it in terms of its content that will make it appealing | :12:23. | :12:25. | |
to audiences who don't live in Texas, or who aren't | :12:26. | :12:27. | |
Either over time or geography there is a point in everyone's life | :12:28. | :12:43. | |
where they leave home and head out to the next adventure in their life, | :12:44. | :12:46. | |
and developmentally they are in a new stage. | :12:47. | :12:48. | |
And also the social situations you find yourself in. | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
You're the new kid thrown in with others, | :12:55. | :12:56. | |
whether it is your first date or a job, or... | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
One day in Austin history will live in infamy. | :13:01. | :13:20. | |
August 1st, 1966, when a sniper climbed to the top of the University | :13:21. | :13:23. | |
of Texas tower behind me and started firing at random individuals below. | :13:24. | :13:26. | |
16 people died and three dozen were wounded. | :13:27. | :13:28. | |
It was the first mass college shooting of its kind in the US. | :13:29. | :13:31. | |
One South By Southwest documentary artfully recreates what happened | :13:32. | :13:36. | |
on that day, partly through the use of animation. | :13:37. | :13:39. | |
There is a sniper on the university tower firing at will. | :13:40. | :13:48. | |
For those old enough to remember the shootings in Austin | :13:49. | :13:50. | |
on August 1st, 1966, it was horrifying. | :13:51. | :13:53. | |
A 25-year-old engineering student at the top of the tower engaging | :13:54. | :13:55. | |
This event really sliced a giant wound into the psyche of this town. | :13:56. | :14:10. | |
You have to remember that the shooting happened three | :14:11. | :14:12. | |
years after the JFK assassination, so the entire world had | :14:13. | :14:15. | |
To have this happen on the heels of that really changed the way | :14:16. | :14:21. | |
16 people were killed, so the connection points went deep | :14:22. | :14:45. | |
The film blends animation with live-action. | :14:46. | :14:53. | |
Using animation to simulate a mass killing may sound odd. | :14:54. | :14:55. | |
The words come from young people recounting the oral history | :14:56. | :14:58. | |
One student who was there that day really embraces | :14:59. | :15:06. | |
what the director did using animation. | :15:07. | :15:07. | |
It was so much better than acting or anything else would have been, | :15:08. | :15:16. | |
because they had the fluidity to get the idea across much | :15:17. | :15:18. | |
It would have been wooden with actors and actresses | :15:19. | :15:22. | |
The purpose was to get oral history, and the animation made | :15:23. | :15:29. | |
You could have put it together using live actors in a docudrama. | :15:30. | :15:34. | |
What do you think animation brought to the final result? | :15:35. | :15:38. | |
When I first pitched the animation to several producers | :15:39. | :15:48. | |
I was rebuffed because they said, "No, this is such a personal story, | :15:49. | :15:51. | |
and animation will keep audiences at arms length". | :15:52. | :15:53. | |
I have worked with animation, and I know the opposite is true. | :15:54. | :16:00. | |
There is a kind of intimacy you can't get without the tremendous | :16:01. | :16:08. | |
production costs of live action and that I knew I wouldn't be | :16:09. | :16:11. | |
A controversial law came into being saying that students | :16:12. | :16:19. | |
The fact that someone next to you on this campus | :16:20. | :16:35. | |
could have a gun in a backpack, that's absurd. | :16:36. | :16:37. | |
I do hope Texans see this movie and it makes them feel something | :16:38. | :16:40. | |
But Tower is not so much an overt political film as a look at how | :16:41. | :16:46. | |
One of the most remarkable characters is Claire Wilson, | :16:47. | :16:51. | |
who was 18 years old and pregnant at the time. | :16:52. | :16:53. | |
Not only was she shot, but she also lost her baby. | :16:54. | :16:56. | |
And her boyfriend, who was right next to her, died in the mayhem. | :16:57. | :17:01. | |
Yet she has forgiven Charles Whitman, the sniper | :17:02. | :17:03. | |
I guess I just believe that people constantly are making choices, | :17:04. | :17:16. | |
and he made some really horrible choices that hurt all of us. | :17:17. | :17:19. | |
I think we all have the capacity for great evil in us, | :17:20. | :17:28. | |
but we just keep making choices to not act out that evil. | :17:29. | :17:33. | |
Tower certainly engaged audiences at the festival and won | :17:34. | :17:37. | |
Although it's a film showing gun slaughter it's unlikely to shift | :17:38. | :17:42. | |
entrenched opinion on gun ownership in Texas. | :17:43. | :17:46. | |
But it does show, without doubt, the true heartbreak that | :17:47. | :17:49. | |
We did not know who was being killed. | :17:50. | :17:59. | |
There is a fair amount of biking in Austin, | :18:00. | :18:02. | |
and one of the films shown at the festival focused | :18:03. | :18:18. | |
There is a fair amount of biking in Austin, | :18:19. | :18:21. | |
and one of the films shown at the festival focused on a group | :18:22. | :18:24. | |
of female cyclists whose mission is to reclaim the streets. | :18:25. | :18:26. | |
They are also trying to dismantle a number of stereotypes. | :18:27. | :18:29. | |
The Ovarian Psychos sprung up in East Los Angeles in 2011, | :18:30. | :18:31. | |
A group of Latinos who were eager to reclaim streets that | :18:32. | :18:36. | |
could sometimes be dangerous for women. | :18:37. | :18:40. | |
The film-makers were very interested in how they presented themselves in | :18:41. | :18:44. | |
particular. They have a very powerful look, | :18:45. | :18:53. | |
they wear their politics on the body, they wear | :18:54. | :18:55. | |
bandannas over their faces, Everything about them | :18:56. | :18:58. | |
was so clever, so political The films two first-time feature | :18:59. | :19:01. | |
directors spent two years making the documentary focusing | :19:02. | :19:09. | |
on the Ovarian Psychos. They wanted to debunk | :19:10. | :19:11. | |
a number of stereotypes. In the film we cover | :19:12. | :19:15. | |
that they have been called a gang, that people have really focused | :19:16. | :19:19. | |
on the fact that they are brown women from East LA, in this | :19:20. | :19:26. | |
stereotypical language. I am not one of them but I can | :19:27. | :19:29. | |
imagine that would be very frustrating, especially | :19:30. | :19:32. | |
when the work they are doing It was a dream to have a collective | :19:33. | :19:34. | |
of women from our neighbourhood. They wear bandanna masks, | :19:35. | :19:42. | |
fiercely emblazoned with an image of the uterus and fallopian tubes, | :19:43. | :19:46. | |
partly to embrace their femininity, but also as an attention-getting | :19:47. | :19:49. | |
move to make people aware of their true commitment | :19:50. | :19:53. | |
to community healing, It's like a Trojan horse or a tool | :19:54. | :19:55. | |
to get people interested. But the Ovarian Psychos themselves, | :19:56. | :20:04. | |
what they do is much more personal and internal, and about | :20:05. | :20:19. | |
healing and sisterhood All of us have some kind | :20:20. | :20:20. | |
of trauma in our lives. For women, bicycling | :20:21. | :20:24. | |
can be a political act. In the US or Europe in the early | :20:25. | :20:31. | |
20th century a woman riding a bike They have faced a backlash, | :20:32. | :20:35. | |
as women engaging in all the fields considered the domain | :20:36. | :20:40. | |
of men always have. Women experience street harassment | :20:41. | :20:46. | |
so often. Yes, it's a political act to get | :20:47. | :20:53. | |
together as a group of women For the filmmakers, earning | :20:54. | :20:59. | |
the trust of the Ovarian Psychos I'm a white filmmaker, | :21:00. | :21:02. | |
making a film about an organisation of women with colour, and it was not | :21:03. | :21:07. | |
without complications. We had to have many conversations | :21:08. | :21:11. | |
off camera in order to build Texas is a state where 37% | :21:12. | :21:14. | |
of the population is Hispanic. But films about the lives | :21:15. | :21:25. | |
of Hispanics or Latinos don't feature that prominently in | :21:26. | :21:27. | |
South By Southwest's film line-up. Even then, it's about the experience | :21:28. | :21:33. | |
of Latinos living in another state. In the US media landscape that often | :21:34. | :21:43. | |
exploits conflict among women, such as on Real Housewives | :21:44. | :21:52. | |
and other programmes, the Psychos and their filmmakers | :21:53. | :21:55. | |
give what many find is a welcome portrait of female | :21:56. | :21:58. | |
solidarity and support. You can always reach us | :21:59. | :22:00. | |
online at our website. From everyone here in Austin | :22:01. | :22:09. | |
in Texas, it's goodbye as we leave you with a clip from the Gary Numan | :22:10. | :22:20. | |
documentary shown here at SXSW. I hope you are enjoying the weekend, | :22:21. | :23:18. | |
there is a lot of righty out | :23:19. | :23:19. |