Movies look to SXSW for a breakout gig

Soon after its 1987 founding, South by Southwest emerged as one of the nation's top showcases for off-the-beaten-track music. Now the festival has turned into a very different kind of launchpad -- for the often raunchy youth-appeal comedies that have become one of Hollywood's biggest profit centers.

Over the last few years, Universal has premiered its sex romps "Knocked Up" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" at the annual Austin-based gathering, while Sony traveled to Texas to introduce "21," a gambling drama than went on to become a surprisingly popular box-office hit.

To open this year's festival on Friday, Paramount will premiere its bromantic comedy “I Love You, Man.” Warner Bros. is taking its dark mall cop comedy “Observe and Report” and Universal will bring in a rough cut of its Sam Raimi horror movie “Drag Me to Hell" and screen three scenes from Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy "Brüno."

"I've been to different festivals, Cannes or Venice or places like that, and it's always quote-unquote prestige movies," says Donald De Line, a producer of both "Observe and Report" and "I Love You, Man." "This idea of a place that really embraces comedy is really fresh and a really needed thing."

Among North American festivals, Sundance excels at sparking interest in independently financed titles, particularly offbeat comedies such as "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Napoleon Dynamite." Telluride is better known for presenting award-caliber endeavors, including "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Capote." Toronto gravitates toward bigger-budgeted crowd-pleasers, including George Clooney's "Michael Clayton" and Jodie Foster's "The Brave One."

South by Southwest, which added its film programming component in 1994, has a slightly different identity: movies that young people can't resist.

Thanks to its concentration of both film lovers (Austin's creative community includes filmmakers Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater and Mike Judge) and an abundance of college-age kids (the University of Texas is based there), South by Southwest also can support a number of ambitious art films.

Web-savvy SXSW

IFC Films, the distributor of "Che" and "Gomorrah," will introduce in this year's South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival (running March 13-21) five low-budget works that will premiere simultaneously at the festival and through IFC's video-on-demand services. Snag Films, a free online streaming site dedicated to nonfiction films, concurrently will introduce on its website and at South by Southwest the immigration documentary “The Least of These.”

One of the IFC releases generating the most attention from the fervent cinéastes is "Alexander the Last," from writer-director Joe Swanberg, who is in many ways the star pupil of South by Southwest's micro-budget filmmakers.

All five of Swanberg's features have had their world premiere at the festival. This year he returns to Austin with “Alexander The Last,” an ensemble drama about a young married couple grappling with love and temptation. It's Swanberg's first film to feature professional actors (including "Teeth's" Jess Wexler) and has "The Squid and the Whale's" Noah Baumbach as a producer.

"In 2005, when my first movie was there, I really had to explain to people what South by Southwest was," says Swanberg.

"I remember being really excited, telling people we were going to premiere at South by Southwest and having people say, 'Isn't that a music festival? I didn't know they showed movies.' And that's not the case at all anymore."

A hive for buzz

Says Arianna Bocco, IFC's vice president for acquisitions and production: "There are definitely a lot of hard-core movie fans there. And there are a lot of early adopters -- people who will talk and blog and Twitter about movies they have seen and say, 'You have to go see this movie.' "