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With most festivals moving full steam ahead, such as the recently wrapped Rotterdam and Sundance, the next two major ones on the calendar are Berlinale, which just unveiled its lineup, and South by Southwest, which has also dropped theirs.

Set to take place March 16-20, the 2021 Film Festival program has 75 features including 57 World Premieres, 3 International Premieres, 4 North American Premieres, 1 U.S. Premieres, 8 Texas Premieres and 53 films from first-time filmmakers + 84 Short Films including Music Videos, 5 Episodic Premieres, 6 Episodic Pilots, 20 Virtual Cinema projects, 14 Title Design entries, plus 30 Special Events.

“It’s been a year unlike any we’ve experienced, first marked by the cancellation of SXSW 2020,” said Janet Pierson, Director of Film. “We feel privileged to have been able to pivot to SXSW Online and present a fantastic treasure trove of programming, including a pared down and wonderful selection of films that we know will delight, entertain and move our attendees. SXSW...

Documentary music films about the careers of singer-songwriter Charli Xcx and late rock legend Tom Petty will headline this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, as the Austin fest has unveiled its full 2021 slate.

Charli Xcx’s “Alone Together” will be the closing night film about how she made an album over the course of 40 days in quarantine, while “Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free” will be the centerpiece film that uncovers new 16mm footage of Petty at work on his 1994 album “Wildflowers.” Rounding out the headliners for SXSW is the previously announced opening night film, “Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil,” a YouTube Originals documentary about the aftermath of the actress and singer’s near-fatal overdose in 2018.

This year’s SXSW, now in its 28th year, is virtual and online after 2020’s festival was one of the first major events to be canceled as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Update Saturday Terrence Malick did indeed take part in today’s SXSW panel on his latest film Song to Song. See the photographic evidence above. Check back soon for a full report from Deadline’s Brian Brooks. Previous, Friday It's hardly news that Terrence Malick was a no-show for the world premiere of his latest film, Song to Song, which opened up the film festival part of the SXSW Conference Friday evening at the Paramount Theatre in Austin. Fans of the famously elusive…...

The Key West Film Festival announced today its second annual Critics Focus program, to be curated by David Fear, Senior Film/TV Editor of Rolling Stone and Amy Nicholson, Chief Film Critic of MTV. Attending critics will serve as the jury for the first annual Key West Film Festival Critic’s Prize.

Read More: Key West Film Festival Announces Brett Ratner Scholarship, Indiewire’s Eric Kohn to Curate Critics Focus

As part of the Critics Focus program, Fear has curated Kenneth Lonergan’s latest film “Manchester by the Sea” and will feature a conversation by David and Nicholson after the film. Nicholson will curate the other Centerpiece film, to be announced next month.

Other participating film critics and journalists attending the festival this year include Eric Kohn, Chief Critic of IndieWire, who serves on the festival’s advisory board; Ann Hornaday, Chief Film Critic of The Washington Post; Steve Dollar,...

One day back in September of 2006, I met three people that would drastically alter the direction of my life: Eugene Hernandez, Brian Brooks and James Israel. At the time, they made up pretty much the entire staff of indieWIRE (as it was then written), and they had been looking for a local writer to help them cover the Toronto International Film Festival. Based on the recommendation of a friend of a friend (thanks, Brad Horvath and Basil Tsiokos!), they chose me — and I can't really fathom what my life would be like now if they hadn't. The following year they hired me on permanently, setting my initial task as going to Cannes to cover the festival, no less (which will always remain the exceptionally glamorous reason I got my first passport). I've been employed in some capacity ever since, which makes saying goodbye pretty daunting. Read More: For Your Consideration...

Four of the most sought-after world-class dance companies delighted a sold-out audience at the Historic Catskill Point on October 10, 2015, as Dancers Responding to AIDS presented Hudson Valley Dance Festival. The evening featured captivating performances by Brian Brooks Moving Company, The Chase Brock Experience, Jessica Lang Dance and Martha Graham Dance Company. Performed on the banks of the Hudson River, Hudson Valley Dance Festival hvdance raised 125,555 for Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway CaresEquity Fights AIDS.

The Tribeca Film Festival is following the lead of SXSW and Sundance; even the venerable Toronto International Film Festival is going television. And now the Denver Film Society is partnering on a TV Festival, SeriesFest. The inaugural edition will be held June 18-21.  Read: Film Festivals Need TV and TV Needs Film Festivals  SeriesFest: Season One will present new pilots competing for jury prizes and an audience award, as well as celebrating TV history, bringing in TV stars and industry heavyweights for panels and Q &As.   And after more than two years at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Brian Brooks is leaving his staff role as Managing Editor of FilmLinc.com (he'll continue to contribute editorially as well as at Deadline) to co-produce SeriesFest, working closely with CEO Randi Kleiner. ...

Update, Monday Actuals, 4 Pm: All of the top 10 films, except for Fox’s Taken 3, came in lower than their weekend projections yesterday morning due to the Super Bowl, with Warner Bros./Village Roadshow missing its target record as the largest grossing title over Super Bowl weekend. Disney’s Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best Of Both Worlds Concert holds onto to that title ($31.117M) with American Sniper ranking second with a $30.66M Fss. Said one rival distribution chief, “It’s hard to nail down these predictions down to the penny when there is something so extraordinary like the Super Bowl in the market. No one saw this as being the highest-rated Super Bowl ever. Next weekend will be easier to project.” Warner Bros. was initially anticipating a 70% drop on Super Bowl Sunday for American Sniper from its Saturday B.O. of $16.5M but yesterday charted lower with a 74% decline for $4.4M.

Final Update, Sunday Am: Warner Bros. is reporting that American Sniper will raise its domestic cume to $200.1M through Sunday after a massive $64.4M weekened at 3,705 theaters, the third-highest weekend ever in January, behind Sniper’s opening last weekend, and Avatar’s third Fss of $68.5M.

That figure, should it hold into tomorrow, marks a mere 28-percent slip – the best second-week hold for a wide release ever for a film that debuted with more than $85M. Previous to this, the best big debuts to hold an audience were 2004’s Shrek 2 (down 33 percent in its second frame) and 2002’s Spider-Man (down 38 percent). American Sniper is marching toward $300M, a mark only six Warner Bros. films have passed.

“Many exhibitors are hearing from their theater managers that the infrequent moviegoers who go only two to three times a year, are coming out to see this movie,” said Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman.

6th Update, Tuesday, 3 Pm: Rentrak Theatrical filed the weekend’s actuals with Warner Bros.’ American Sniper counting a four-week cume through yesterday of $110.4M. Talk about the spoils of war: American Sniper propelled the 2015 box office, in its first 19 days, 3.6% percent over the same frame last year with $667M. It stands to reason that this would be the highest-grossing four-day Mlk weekend of all-time with $248.5M after American Sniper broke a slew of records, read Eastwood’s career-high bow, best three-day opening ever during January and February. Previous Mlk record was 2009 with $231.5M when Sony comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop zoomed up a four-day bow of $39.2M. American Sniper had the biggest theater average of the four-day weekend with $30,100, followed by Sony Classic’s Still Alice, which chalked up $20,685 PTA or $248K in 12 venues.

The consensus is that American Sniper is going to hold for another two weekends. Wide releases...

As Joe Neumaier reports, "Oprah Winfrey’s new movie 'Selma' centers on a key moment in the civil rights movement of the 1960s but also holds a mirror to the struggle in the age of Ferguson and Garner. 'You look out your window and see people protesting, and then look at ‘Selma,’ and it looks similar,' Winfrey tells the Daily News as protesters still fill the streets to protest police killings of unarmed black men. 'It’s a wonderful thing that people are protesting,' she adds. 'When they say, ‘Enough is enough’ and ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ that’s what (Martin Luther) King said (in Selma).'” New York Daily News -Break- Updated: Experts' Oscars predictions in 22 categories In advance of Friday's opening of "Mr. Turner," Brian Brooks talks to Spc co-president Michael Barker who reveals, "We became involved ... years ago. ...

Updated Wednesday morning, with a few knots untangled, below.

August Strindberg and Ingmar Bergman both came in for some bruising comments Tuesday night courtesy of Liv Ullmann, the actress-turned-writer and director with intimate knowledge of both artists’ genius and foibles.

“Being Scandinavian, of course, Strindberg has always been familiar to me,” she told an audience gathered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, where she was interviewed in advance of the Friday opening of her own adaptation of Miss Julie.

The film stars Jessica Chastain in the title role, a nobleman’s daughter who spends a fateful midsummer’s eve in a charged flirtation with her father’s valet, Jean, (Colin Farrell), sometimes in the presence of his fiancée, the cook (Samantha Morton). The play’s 1888 premiere scandalized audiences with its frank depiction of a dance of sex and power between people of different classes.

“But I never wished to play Miss Julie,...

Update, Wednesday 8 Am: Warner Bros./New Line’s R-rated sequel Horrible Bosses 2 nabbed an early bonus last night with $1 million at Tuesday night previews. The comedy about a trio of wacky business guys who kidnap their investor’s son will be playing at 3,321 locations today and expand to 3,375 on Friday. That figure outstrips the $365K chunk of cash Horrible Bosses stole from late night previews in July 2011.

Previous, Tuesday 1:18 Pm: Penguins will try to carve into a Katniss’ Thanksgiving feast this weekend at the box office but, despite a lower-than-expected debut from the penultimate Hunger Games entry last week, look for the Suzanne Collins adaptation to retain the holiday crown over Madagascar‘s latest entry.

Mockingjay, like Catching Fire last year, has the benefit of Thanksgiving traffic. However, Catching Fire was coming off a franchise record bow and spurred an all-time record for any film, opener or second-framer,...

While it didn’t quite catch fire, Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part I had enough of an appetite to eat up the weekend box office, providing an anemic year with its biggest debut yet at about $124m, though the pic may have left scraps on the table.

By almost any measure, the penultimate installment of the Y.A. juggernaut was a solid victor in the derby; the Jennifer Lawrence behemoth claimed the year’s biggest opening by more than 20% over its closest rival, last summer’s Transformers 4. Its A- CinemaScore suggests it could have enough legs to join Guardians of the Galaxy as the year’s only movie to crack $300m.

But hyper marketing comes freighted with hyper expectations, and Mockingjay fell short of analysts’ projections, whose low-end forecasts began around $140m. More troubling for distributor Lionsgate Films are the inevitable comparisons the film has drawn with its ancestors, the...

Update Sunday, 8:17 a.m.: Conventional wisdom holds that you don’t release sequels two decades apart, particularly in a lightning-bottle genre like comedy. But wisdom has never held much sway in the Dumb and Dumber franchise, which returned after a two-decade dormancy to engage in a nip-and-tuck battle with Big Hero 6 that underscored the muscle of raunch this year at the box office.

Dumb and Dumber To looked to take the derby this weekend from a BH6 in its sophomore frame, though Hero’s repeat-viewing younger audiences could still propel it to a follow-up victory when actuals are reported Monday. Still, Universal turned its $30M Ddt into a contender with a “deja-view” strategy that worked the last time Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels got together: gross-out audience, out-gross competitors.

And the studio played up the nostalgia, returning the stars to their bowl cuts, gapped teeth and slack-jawed...

Final Update Monday, 1:08Pm: As expected, Big Hero 6 cruised to the top of the box office weekend. Not so expected: Chris Nolan’s saga Interstellar fell short of $50M. Distrib Paramount insisted that the sci-fi genre and film’s record IMAX run would keep Sunday drops to a minimum and help the weekend become one of only four ever feature two moviesing open north of $50M. But it fell short.

Not an issue for BH6, which landed right within estimates and, given the dearth of family fare and its strong exits, should have a solid run into Thanksgiving. It’s exits are terrific, it’s got an A CinemaScore, and kids are notorious repeat viewers,.

But a standard Sunday fall for Interstellar kept the film from the $50M mark, or even Paramount’s Sunday estimates. Still, for a nearly three-hour film that’s scored solid exits and is...

Final Update Monday, 1:42 p.m.: Halloween offered slim pickings for the new kids on the box office block combing for treats this weekend, though several holdovers did a surprisingly good job at protecting their stash. Bill Murray, Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck, in particular, exercised a solid grip in October’s final weekend.

That weekend went to Ouija, the $5M Blumhouse Prods. chiller that became the first horror film of the year to land at No. 1 — and one of the few fright flicks ever to do it twice. While The Purge: Anarchy and Annabelle gave the genre a much-needed adrenaline shot, neither took the top spot. With a dearth of newcomers on Halloween (which usually carves at least 15% from weekend revenues), the board game adaptation became the de facto choice for audiences determined to get out of the house for something other than Halloween festivities. Its drop of...

Final Update, Monday, 2:12 Pm: The fall season is off to a good start, thanks to Fox’s The Maze Runner which opened nicely to $32.5M for the three-day weekend. The next installment of the film, The Maze Runner 2: Scorch Trials, is already set to bow September 18, 2015. While Fox has created another franchise for the industry, Liam Neeson and Universal weren’t so lucky with A Walk Among The Tombstones. The picture didn’t appeal to the female audience — that same demo which helped Non-Stop open to $28.8M earlier this year for the actor. Tombstones ends this weekend with $12.7M. This Is Where I Leave You opened to mediocre numbers after having a less than expected Sunday. It will take in only $11.5M for Warner Bros.

Speaking of franchises, Sony and Denzel Washington hope to launch one next weekend with The Equalizer and those of us who have seen it believe it will happen.

8th Update, Tuesday, 4:42 Pm: Box office final tallies are in and the summer is off 14.6% from last year. Leading the next weekend will be the two August tentpoles — Guardians of the Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which once again, Paramount has a higher gross than others have for it ($11.7M vs. $11.9M). Regardless, it’s such a minimal amount, that we’re keeping with the $166.3M cume for its summer tally. Congrats to Disney/Marvel for having the top film of the season and of the year to date with a newly-established and fun franchise with Guardians. Can’t wait to see the next one.

Related: Box Office End of Summer, Some Profitable Hits in Overall Blah Season

Next weekend, there is only one picture in wide release next weekend, The Identical from Freestyle Releasing so expect a quiet weekend after Labor Day, which is typical. The Identical,...