News

Exclusive: Myriad Pictures has acquired the U.S. rights to the adventure-comedy Las Tres Sisters (previously known as Sisters) with plans to release it in theaters in the first quarter of 2025.

The film stars Cristo Fernández, Marta Méndez Cross, Valeria Maldonado and Virginia Novello. Fernández also executive produces through his Espectro Mx Films production banner.

Las Tres Sisters follows three sisters who reunite after years of estrangement to complete their beloved grandmother’s pilgrimage through rural Mexico. When Maria (Cross), the eldest, discovers that she has breast cancer, she cooks up a plan to bring her sisters Lucia (Maldonado) and Sofia (Novello) along with her in the search for a miracle. With an old map, no hiking experience and their lives unraveling around them, the trio encounter hilarious and touching experiences on the “camino,...

In the new short film “More Than Four Hours,” young algebra teacher Bill Whiting (Zach Cregger) is very nervous about his first day of school. On the morning of, his wife (Schuyler Fisk) tells him to take a Xanax to calm his nerves, but when he arrives at school, he realizes that he has accidentally taken Viagra instead.

Amidst his frayed nerves, he must now contend with the problem in his pants as he faces a class of scary, judgmental students for the first time. It also stars Wilfredo Ruiz Jr. (“Street Stories”) and Andrew Edison (“Bindlestiffs”). Watch “More Than Four Hours” above.

Read More: ‘Wrecked’ Trailer: TBS Launches Comedy Series ‘Lost’ Spoof, Toplined By Rhys Darby — Watch

“More Than Four Hours” is written and directed by Bryan Poyser. His previous credits include “Love & Air Sex,” about a brokenhearted man who travels to Austin to win his girlfriend back during the weekend of the Air Sex World Championships, which premiered at the 2013 South by Southwest Film Festival, and “Lovers of Hate,” starring Chris Doubek and Alex Karpovsky as two brothers who fall for the same woman, which premiered at Sundance in 2010.

Star Zach Cregger is best known as a member of the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’Know, who had a IFC TV series from 2007 through 2012. He also had recurring roles on sitcoms like “Friends With Benefits,” “Guys With Kids,” and “About a Boy.” He also wrote, directed, and starred in “Miss March” opposite Whitest Kids U’Know member Trevor Moore. Cregger can currently be seen in the TBS half-hour comedy “Wrecked.”

“More Than Four Hours” first premiered at Fantastic Fest last September.

Read More: ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Directors Creating a Weed-Themed TV Comedy for Showtime

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Related stories'Captain America: Civil War' Directors Creating a Weed-Themed TV Comedy for ShowtimeTribeca Film Acquires Bryan Poyser's 'Love & Air Sex,' Previously Titled 'The Bounceback,' Plans 10-Day Air Sex CompetitionSXSW Panel: Indie Career Advice from Filmmakers Candler, Poyser and Zobel...

Read More: Watch: Mark Duplass' SXSW Keynote Reveals Tips for Indie Success In the Something From Nothing -- The No-Budget Way workshop held at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival this week, veteran indie filmmakers came together to discuss and demonstrate how to create a no-to-low-budget feature. The interactive workshop began with filmmaker Bryan Poyser ("Dear Pillow", "Lovers of Hate") introducing an exercise that is required for his film students at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas State University in San Marcos where he teaches screenwriting and directing. Poyser's third feature,"Love & Air Sex," which premiered at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival as "The Bounceback," was released by Tribeca Films and is available on VOD. Poyser was joined in the exercise by Independent Spirit Award-nominated producer Megan Gilbride, who has produced several of Poyser's films, and is developing his next film, "San...

Here's the latest Austin film news (and a very funny video at the end, so keep reading).

Filmmaker Magazine has released its 2014 edition of "25 new Faces of Independent Film." The list includes Austin filmmaker Annie Silverstein, whose short Skunk won the Cannes Cinefondation award this year, and former Houstonite/filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe, whose documentary Evolution of a Criminal played SXSW and Dallas Iff.The Central Texas-shot horror movie Found Footage 3D wrapped shooting recently, and Austin Chronicle contributor Richard Whittaker wrote about his visit to the indie film's set. This will be the feature-film debut for writer/director Steven DeGennaro. Producers include Kim Henkel, who wrote The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and film critic/former Austinite Scott Weinberg.Austin comedy Love & Air Sex (formerly The Bounceback) is trying something different to boost online sales. If you go to BitTorrent, you can download -- no, not the whole film illegally,...

Part-time Texan Justin Arnold credits his role as Levi in the indie drama 5 Time Champion as the reason why he had the opportunity to audition for former Austin Film Society staffer Bryan Poyser's latest movie Love & Air Sex, formerly called The Bounceback (Don's review), which opens a weeklong run tonight at Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter during the movie's nationwide roadshow.  

Poyser enjoyed 5 Time Champion, winner of the Texas Filmmaker Award at the 2011 Dallas International Film Festival, Arnold said. This and the friendship between Poyser and the movie's director, Berndt Mader, led to Arnold being cast in Poyser's comedy short The Fickle. 

"Bryan, he's the man," Arnold said. 

But that doesn't mean Arnold wasn't put through a rigorous audition process for Love & Air Sex. 

"(Poyser) put me on the hot seat for about two hours," he said. 

Arnold plays Tim in the Austin-shot comedy that premiered at SXSW 2013. It follows a...

What better way to ring in Valentine’s Day than with a movie that involves air sex? Yes, air sex. Think air guitar, but pretending to have sex with an invisible partner instead of playing an invisible guitar. “Love & Air Sex,” formerly titled “The Bounceback,” hones in on a guy named Stan (Michael Stahl-David). When Stan finds out that his ex, Cathy (Ashley Bell), is planning to visit Kara (Sara Paxton) in Austin, he hops a flight to Texas so that perhaps he just might bump into her there. Making his effort even less discreet, Kara and her ex, Stan’s good buddy Jeff (Zach Cregger), are in the middle of [ Read More ]

The post Love & Air Sex Available on iTunes and VOD Today appeared first on Shockya.com.

To celebrate the theatrical release and upcoming roadshow of the SXSW comedy "Love & Air Sex" (f/k/a "The Bounceback"), the filmmakers have teamed with Indiewire to help you realize your dreams of becoming an Air Sex Champion -- or at least get some quick cash for your hump-and-grind skills. The film opens theatrically in select theaters February 7th, kicking off their cross-country Air Sex Road Show, and is now available to watch on iTunes and on demand. Read More: The Hilarious Sara Paxton on Going the Distance for 'Love & Air Sex' To kick off the theatrical release and cross-country Air Sex Road Show tour of the movie, the filmmakers are ponying up $1,000 of their hard-earned Kickstarter loot towards one lucky winner’s Air Sex ambitions. What is Air Sex, you say? Watch this: Then, enter the ‘Love & Air Sex Tape Contest’: Upload a video of your routine to...

[Editor's Note: This interview originally ran during the 2013 SXSW Film Festival, where "Love & Air Sex" -- then titled "The Bounceback" -- world premiered. It opens in select theaters this Friday and is available to view on VOD.] You'd be hard pressed to find a more balls to the wall comedic performance at SXSW this year than Sara Paxton's scene-stealing turn in the breakup/makeup romantic comedy "Love & Air Sex." In Bryan Poyser's Austin love letter, Paxton plays Kara, a heavy-metal loving wild child nursing a nasty breakup, who's called upon to come to the aid of her best friend Cathy (Ashley Bell), after Cathy's ex shows up in Austin intent on wooing his old flame back. Best known for her work on the teen and horror film circuits in movies like "Aquamarine," "The Last House on the Left" and "The Innkeepers," Paxton proves in "Love & Air Sex" that screwball comedy is where she truly excels. It's no wonder a character in the movie refers to her as a Goldie Hawn-type.

Also Known as The Bounceback. Watch the trailer for Tribeca Film's Love & Air Sex, starring Ashley Bell, Zach Cregger, Sasra Paxton, Michael Stahl-David, Addison Timlin, Marshall Allman and Justin Arnold, When brokenhearted Stan (Stahl-David) flies to Austin for the weekend in hopes of "accidentally" running into his ex-girlfriend Cathy (Bell), he arrives to find their best friends Jeff (Cregger, "The Whitest Kids U'Know")and Kara (Paxton) in the middle of their own vicious breakup. Before too long, battle lines are drawn – and with the Air Sex World Championships in town, anything can go down.

Tribeca Film has acquired Bryan Poyser's "Love & Air Sex," previously titled "The Bounceback," which premiered last March at the SXSW Film Festival. The company plans to release the film on February 4 on VOD followed by a theatrical release on February 7. The Austin-based SXSW hit will kick-off a special event: a 10-City Air Sex Road Show Competition. According to a release from the company, Air Sex is "basically Air Guitar meets karaoke, plus perversion-miming to music. Contestants get on stage and act out a wild sexual scenario to a song of their choosing, completely alone and (usually) completely clothed. Yes, it's a thing." The Road Show commences in New York on the same date as the theatrical release, February 7th, and will feature some of the key actors in the film. Read Indiewire's review from SXSW here.

The distributor has picked up Magic In The Moonlight from Gravier Productions, marking its seventh collaboration with the prolific Allen following awards contender Blue Jasmine. Separately, Lionsgate and Tribeca Film announced new acquisitions.

Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Jacki Weaver, Marcia Gay Harden, Hamish Linklater, Simon McBurney and Eileen Atkins star in the rom-com, set in the south of France in the 1920s when an Englishman is brought in to unmask a possible swindle.

Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum and Edward Walson produced Magic In The Moonlight.

Lionsgate has acquired North American rights to Step One Of Many Entertainment’s comedy My Man Is A Loser starring John Stamos, Michael Rapaport, Bryan Callen and Tika Sumpter. The film will receive a theatrical and VOD day-and-date release this year.Tribeca Film will release Bryan Poyser’s Love & Air Sex (aka The Bounceback) in February in a theatrical and VOD day-and-date pattern. The film premiered at SXSW 2013 and will also go...

Welcome to Holiday Favorites, a series in which Slackerwood contributors and our friends talk about the movies we watch during the holiday season, holiday-related or otherwise.

Just as I thought we were entering an It's a Wonderful Life trend of holiday favorites this year, Austin cinematographer and filmmaker Pj Raval surprises me with a selection I couldn't have predicted. Raval's most recent film is the documentary Before You Know It (Don's review). He's worked as Dp on Austin movies such as The Bounceback and Fourplay, and on the Academy Award-nominated documentary Trouble the Water, among many other films. And you might have seen one of the delightfully family-unfriendly music videos he's shot for local artist Christeene.

Raval's pick is a comedy I saw at SXSW 2007 and loved -- Smiley Face (my review) -- but never thought of as a holiday possibility. Until now. Here's what he has to say about...

The following is a guest post from filmmaker Bryan Poyser, who is currently crowdfunding the road show for his most recent film, The Bounceback. Bryan’s A.S.A. (Air Sexes As) name is “Lunchmeat.” I am currently in the midst of what must be the longest month and a half of my life. On October 4, we launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a “Road Show” for my film The Bounceback, which will wrap up this Sunday, Nov. 17th. I’ve barely been sleeping, I’ve had depressive lows and giddy highs, nearly all of my pride has been swallowed and yet […]...

The following is a guest post from filmmaker Bryan Poyser, who is currently crowdfunding the road show for his most recent film, The Bounceback. Bryan’s A.S.A. (Air Sexes As) name is “Lunchmeat.” I am currently in the midst of what must be the longest month and a half of my life. On October 4, we launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a “Road Show” for my film The Bounceback, which will wrap up this Sunday, Nov. 17th. I’ve barely been sleeping, I’ve had depressive lows and giddy highs, nearly all of my pride has been swallowed and yet […]...

One of the made-in-Austin films having its premiere at this year's Austin Film Festival is Dear Sidewalk, a romantic comedy about a mail carrier (Joseph Mazzello, Jurassic Park, Justified) who falls for an older divorcee (Michelle Forbes, True Blood, The Killing).  Also featured in the cast is one Ashley Spillers, who has acted in many buzzworthy local films of late (The Bounceback, Pit Stop, Loves Her Gun) and even appears in the viral short Hell No.

The former Austinite also stars in the horror-comedy Saturday Morning Massacre (aka Saturday Morning Mystery if you are buying it at Wal-Mart), which screens at the Housecore Horror Film Festival on, appropriately enough, Saturday morning.

Before Austin Film Festival started up, Spillers took part in this email interview for us.

Slackerwood: How did you come to be involved in Dear Sidewalk?

Ashley Spillers: Well, I auditioned! Beth Sepko was casting and she called...

Ready, Set, Fund is a column about crowdfunding and related fundraising endeavors for Austin and Texas independent film projects.

Two local movies that were well received at their SXSW 2013 premieres are now crowdfunding for distribution: The Bounceback and Before You Know It. Local filmmaker Bryan Poyser has a Kickstarter funding campaign through Sunday, November 17, for his romantic comedy (with air sex!) The Bounceback -- check out Don's review as well as Elizabeth's interview with Poyser.

Pj Raval -- director of photography for The Bounceback -- is also seeking funding for his feature-length documentary Before You Know It through October 30. This insightful and thought-provoking film reveals the discrimination, neglect and exclusion faced by lesbian, gay and bisexual senior citizens. Raval tells the story through several inspirational individuals who have found the strength to form communities where they and others can be comfortable and accepted.

Check out the pitch video for the Before You Know It campaign,...

Here's the latest Austin film news.

Austin filmmaker Emily Hagins's fourth feature film, Grow Up, Tony Phillips won't be released on VOD and DVD until October 2014, according an update on the movie's Kickstarter campaign page. The independently produced comedy, starring Aj Bowen (A Horrible Way to Die) and Tony Vespe (Hagins's My Sucky Teen Romance) as the eponymous character, tells the story of a Halloween-loving teenager who refuses to grow up. It was shot in and around Central Texas and premiered at SXSW this year (Elizabeth's review, my interview). Former Afs staffer Bryan Poyser's (Elizabeth's interview) latest feature film The Bounceback (Don's review) -- which also premiered at SXSW -- won a best writing award at the 18th Annual Genart Film Festival last week, which celebrates emerging filmmakers in North America, IndieWire reports. Poyser co-wrote and directed the romantic comedy, starring Sara Paxton (The Innkeepers), about a group...

Robert Pattinson Mission: Blacklist gets new director - Jesper Ganslandt - and may start shooting in fall 2013 Production on Mission: Blacklist, to star Robert Pattinson, seemed to have stalled for a while. Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire quietly dropped out a couple of months ago, but now Deadline.com (“exclusively”) heralds that Jesper Ganslandt "has been tapped" to take the helm of the project about U.S. military interrogator Eric Maddox, whose work is credited for the eventual capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. (Note: This bit of "exclusive" news about Robert Pattinson’s eagerly anticipated project has been floating around the Internet since late June.) Jesper Ganslandt’s previous narrative-feature credits, all in his native Sweden, are the family drama Blondie (2012), the psychological thriller The Ape (2009), and the coming-of-age drama Falkenberg Farewell (2006). This last title, a somewhat overlong but ultimately quite moving story, was Sweden’s submission for that year’s...

Robert Pattinson Mission: Blacklist movie: Filming in August? Mission: Blacklist is not the upcoming fifth installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise starring Tom Cruise. For the time being, that’s concisely called Mission: Impossible 5. So, what’s Mission: Blacklist? Well, as every ardent Robert Pattinson fan will tell you, that’s a Pattinson movie project initially announced in early May 2012. Pattinson is attached to this Embankment Films-financed (or to-be-financed) production based on Eric Maddox and Davin Seay’s book Mission: Black List #1 - The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein - As Told by the Soldier Who Masterminded His Capture. The title of Maddox and Seay’s book says it all. But just in case, here’s the brief Mission: Blacklist synopsis found on the Embankment Films website: Unlike other Interrogators fresh out of training, Eric Maddox (Robert Pattinson) has a brilliant and beautiful mind. He has...

Programming a short film before a feature can be a hit or miss at times, and I enjoy selections that complement one another. A solid well-crafted short can warm up an audience and set the tone for the feature presentation ... as demonstrated at the Dallas International Film Festival this week with a pair of Austin films.

The short film S/ash by Austin filmmaker Clay Liford -- pictured above with executive producer Farah White and Ashland Viscosi -- is the best foreplay that I could imagine to experience before The Bounceback, the latest movie from writer/director Bryan Poyser and co-writers Steven Walters and David DeGrow Shotwell. Neither film is for the prudish, but if you enjoy titillating humor and some impropriety then you're in for a special treat.

read more...

Comedy can come from honesty, and that's The Bounceback's greatest strength. While much of the film is over the top with its antics, there's a crushing truth to the scenarios within that may hit you unexpectedly. Breakups are rarely clean and they often leave a smear across various friendships because of that. As hard as Bryan Poyser's film may make you laugh, it will also make you notice how much we can mess things up for ourselves if we aren't careful. Another great strength is that this film does very contemporary things with how we build and work out relationships. A girl doesn't have to give you her name. She just has to call her phone from yours once and give you the Ok...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

When a popular young actress lands the lead in a horror remake, the death knell is usually sounding, as popularity is supposed to precede the land of remakes. But this project is a little different. A lot of eyebrows were raised when Ryan Murphy . he of Glee and American Horror Story fame . said he would be producing a modern take on the little-known 1976 flick The Town That Dreaded Sundown, but most of Murphy.s work affects the eyebrows anyway, whether through confusion or frustration or jubilation . mostly all at the same time. Deadline reports 22-year-old Addison Timlin has signed on for the lead role in the MGM horror effort, making it her second thriller this year, as the Dean Koontz adaptation Odd Thomas will be out in April. She.s also in Bryan Poyser.s recent comedy The Bounceback, and in Fisher Stevens. star-studded crime comedy Stand Up Guys, with...

This year's Dallas International Film Festival (Diff) kicks off tomorrow night and runs through April 14. Many familiar faces and movies have made their way there from Sundance and SXSW, not to mention Austin Film Festival. In addition, the film festival will debut movies with local and state connections, some as part of the Texas Competition, a juried competition of films either shot in or relating to the Lone Star State.

Austinite Jeff Nichols' movie Mud screens on Friday, April 5, as part of the Premiere Series at Diff -- read my review from Sundance. This engaging and mystical tale features Austin native Matthew McConaughey and Tye Sheridan from Eckhart, Texas, with music by local composer David Wingo and sound by Austin's Stuck On On.

Here are all the other films we found with Austin and Texas connections -- let us know if we're missing anything.

The Bounceback (Don's review) (screening...

Pat Healy is a long time character actor who has made countless guest appearances on a variety of Television shows, as well as appeared in smaller roles in big budget films. Over the past couple of years, Healy has been popping up in a lot more indie films and connoisseurs of independent cinema are beginning to recognize him for the extremely talented and versatile actor that he is. Healy charmed audiences in The Innkeepers, shocked them in Compliance and might just do a bit of both in Cheap Thrills. Healy’s new film Cheap Thrills was the first to receive distribution at this year’s SXSW festival.

FEARnet met up with Pat Healy to discuss exactly what genre Cheap Thrills falls in to, what the scope of distribution is likely to be, and the backlash of playing the villain so well, as he did in Compliance.

For those unfamiliar, the...

Here's the latest in Austin and Texas film news. 

After seven years in distribution limbo, Jonathan Levine's 2006 Austin-shot feature All The Boys Love Mandy Lane will have a simultaneous North American theatrical and VOD release through The Weinstein Company's Radius-twc label, Deadline reports. Austin native Amber Heard stars in the horror flick about a high-school weekend party gone terribly wrong. The movie has been available only outside of the U.S. to date, apart from festival screenings.Deadline continues the Texas coverage with news that Drafthouse Films, in partnership with Snoot Entertainment, acquired the U.S. rights to Cheap Thrills at SXSW 2013. The dark comedy, starring Sara Paxton (The Bounceback) and Pat Healy, tells the story of a recently fired father facing eviction who agrees to a wealthy couple's escalating series of challenges in exchange for cash payments. Cheap Thrills had its world premiere at the festival and won its Midnighters Audience Award.

The 20th Annual South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin is coming to an end, which makes this as good a time as any to look back at this year's festival and see how it fared compared to other festivals. For us, the festival really acted like catch-up from the Sundance Film Festival, which we skipped this year, so lots of the movies we saw from Jeff Nicholl's Mud to Shane Carruth's Upstream Color to David Gordon Green's Prince Avalanche and Richard Linklater's Before Midnight were movies that had already been seen and raved about out of other film festivals. Still, there were plenty of high profile world premieres of movies looking for distribution including Bryan Poyser's The Bounceback , Joe Swanberg's Drinking Buddies , Eric Heisserer's Hours , Daniel Mazer's I...

The Bounceback could have been just another clichéd romantic comedy about angst-filled twentysomethings looking for love. (Okay, let's be honest: they're looking for sex.) But thanks to Austin filmmaker Bryan Poyser's considerable talents -- he graced us with Dear Pillow and Lovers of Hate -- the film is a wryly observant take on relationships and popular culture and a cut above most movies in its genre.

Shot in Austin and awash in River City landmarks and youthful culture, The Bounceback centers on New York City medical student Cathy (Ashley Bell) and her ex-boyfriend Stan (Michael Stahl-David), a wannabe actor currently delivering pizzas in Los Angeles. Both are former Austinites, and when lonely Stan learns that Cathy will visit her friend Kara (Sara Paxton) in Austin for a weekend, he hastily books a flight to Austin also, hoping to cross paths with his ex while partying with his friend (and...

You'd be hard pressed to find a more balls-to-the-wall comedic performance at SXSW this year than Sara Paxton's scene-stealing turn in the breakup/makeup romantic comedy "The Bounceback." In Bryan Poyser's Austin love letter, Paxton plays Kara, a heavy-metal loving wild child nursing a nasty breakup, who's called upon to come to the aid of her best friend Cathy (Ashley Bell), after Cathy's ex shows up in Austin intent on wooing his old flame back. Best known for her work on the teen and horror film circuits in movies like "Aquamarine," "The Last House on the Left" and "The Innkeepers," Paxton proves in "The Bounceback" that screwball comedy is where she truly excels. It's no wonder a character in the movie refers to her as a Goldie Hawn-type. She's that funny. Indiewire sat down the Paxton in Austin (she's also here with another, albeit darker comedy, "Cheap Thrills...

Even though she's been acting since the age of eight, most moviegoers only began to discover actress Sara Paxton in the mid-'00s when she starred on the show "Darcy's Wild Life" and in 'tween comedies like Aquamarine and Sydney White . She then transitioned into horror with roles in movies like Shark Night 3D and The Last House on the Left , but appearing in Ti West's lower budget 2010 flick The Innkeepers really put Paxton on the map as someone who could do great character work without relying on big gimmicks. Maybe that's why Paxton is back at South by Southwest for the second time, having previously been here two years ago with The Innkeepers . This time, she's in two movies that have been getting attention, Bryan Poyser's comedy The Bounceback and E.L....

About halfway through the Sustaining a Career in Indie Film panel the filmmakers began talking about labs – Sundance, Ifp, The Hamptons – and 80 percent of the audience began scribbling down notes. It seemed to be a session for real beginners, the people that haven’t quit three or more jobs to take on little film gigs that come up, or sat in a corporate office because they needed health insurance. Regardless, there were tidbits of helpful information from three indie filmmakers – Bryan Poyser (whose "The Bounceback" has been well-received here), Kat Candler ("Hellion") and Craig Zobel ("Compliance," producer, "Prince Avalanche") – who still don’t have health insurance or a retirement fund. Pay rent or make a film? Poyser: I’ve managed to barely pay it for the last 20 years. But it’s been a mix of things: When I was attending University of Texas I accidently started a film festival, and...

The first three days of the South by Southwest Film Festival hit like gangbusters with the world premieres of a number of movies as well as a couple of returning favorites from other festivals. On Day 1, I finally caught Shane Carruth's Upstream Color , which premiered at Sundance as well as two premieres by returning SXSW filmmakers, Bryan Poyser's The Bounceback and Joe Swanberg's Drinking Buddies . On Day 1, I also saw TriStar Pictures' horror remake Evil Dead , which ComingSoon.net's other reviewer Joshua Starnes already reviewed and felt it was lackluster and derivative. Personally, I loved it and felt that it really delivered on the gore and scares that I'd expect from a movie called "Evil Dead." Maybe it's a bit extreme and gratuitous, definitely not for the...

South by Southwest is four days in and we've been trying to see as many movies as humanly possible, but we've also had some time to sit down with a few native Austin filmmakers who decided to shoot their very different films in and around their hometown. Bryan Poyser is returning to South by Southwest with The Bounceback while Hannah Fidell is at the festival with her second movie, the drama A Teacher . Poyser's film is the follow-up to 2010's Lovers of Hate , this one starring Michael Stahl-David ( Cloverfield ) and Ashley Bell ( The Last Exorcism ) as Stan and Cathy, a couple who have split up and gone to separate coasts. When Stan learns that Cathy is traveling down to Austin to visit her friend Kara (Sara Paxton), he decides to go down there as well, spending time with...

Air sex. Yes, air sex. It’s a real thing and the SXSW entry “The Bounceback’s” got it. But the Austin-based movie is also about more than that. It features Ashley Bell, Michael Stahl-David, Sara Paxton and Zach Cregger as Cathy, Stan, Kara and Jeff, a steadfast quartet of friends whose relationship breaks down after Cathy heads to New York for med school and Stan goes to Los Angeles to become a writer. When Stan finds out Cathy is heading home to visit Kara, he immediately books a flight to Texas in hopes of rekindling their romance. Meanwhile, the connection between Kara and Jeff has dissolved, too, but, unlike Stan, Jeff [ Read More ]

The post SXSW Interview 2013: Cast And Director Of The Bounceback appeared first on Shockya.com.

Austin-based filmmaker Bryan Poyser's first two features, "Dear Pillow" and "Lovers of Hate," explored relationship problems by dealing in unconventionally frank ways with sex. Working on a microbudget scale, the movies had little in common with larger and considerably tamer comedy-dramas about similar issues. "The Bounceback," a step up in scale for the director, bears a closer resemblance to a studio-produced romcom, and suffers to some degree by comparison to his rowdier, unpredictable earlier works. However, compared to the current mainstream standards for the genre, the movie is a smart, refreshing cut above that channels the intelligence found in Poyser's other movies into a more common mold.  It's also a blatant love letter to his hometown, shot at major cultural hotspots of Austin's downtown scene such as the Alamo Drafthouse, which really does host Air Sex Tournaments like the one featured in the movie. The formulaic plot gets an...

Bryan Poyser has been a fixture of Austin’s film scene for a decade, even as it’s remained in flux. As a director, he made his feature debut with 2004′s Dear Pillow, in which a teen struggling with sex gets mentored by a fiftysomething ex-porn director. 2010′s follow-up Lovers Of Hate (half shot in Austin) was a perversely comic sexual rondelay in which a demented ex skulks in the mansion where his former partner and her new lover are taking a vacation, spying on both while trying to keep his presence a secret. Poyser’s third feature, The Bounceback, is his first …...

It never hurts to set your indie movie in the city of the film festival you’re hoping to enter. But that’s not the reason director/cowriter Bryan Poyser chose Austin for the setting of his latest movie, The Bounceback, which premieres March 9 at the SXSW Film Festival. Poyser has been a pillar of the Austin filmmaking community for nearly 20 years, shooting several of his movies in and around the Texas state capital.

The Bounceback is another savage comedy for Poyser, who’s been nominated for two Spirit Awards for Dear Pillow (2004) and Lovers of Hate (2010) — both also filmed in Austin.

Bryan Poyser has been making movies in Austin for almost 20 years now -- three features and a half-dozen shorts. During that time he also graduated from the University of Texas, co-founded a film festival, moved to Boulder, Colorado for a year and then came back, worked several awful corporate jobs, spent five years as the Director of Artist Services at the Austin Film Society, got nominated (and lost) two Independent Spirit Awards, had an unfortunate real estate adventure, ran a half-marathon, found a passion for karaoke, and married an incredible woman. So, he's kept plenty busy in between projects. What it's about: "The Bounceback" is an outrageous comedy about love and revenge in Austin, Texas. What it's really about: "It's a sweaty, grungy, sexy, beer-soaked, romantic, music-fueled tribute to the only city I've ever called home - Austin, Texas. And there's Air Sex. If you don't know what that is,...

NBC's Assistance has cast Zach Cregger of Guys With Kids alongside Krysten Ritter in the single-camera comedy pilot. Deadline reports that the show coming from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions and and Universal TV, is written by Leslye Headland. Follows Ritter's Nora who's described as an idealistic working girl assistant, being pulled between Cregger's character who's her her colleague, and her fiancé played by Peter Cambor, and has a demanding boss to deal with. Aside from Guys with Kids, Cregger's credits include 2008's College comedy, followed by Miss March, which he directed alongside Trevor Moore, and also co-created TV's The Whitest Kids U'Know series with Moore. He's up next in The Bounceback with The Last Exorcism's star Ashley Bell, as well as Shark Night's Sara Paxton, Michael Stahl-David and Addison Timlin.

NBC's Assistance has cast Zach Cregger of Guys With Kids alongside Krysten Ritter in the single-camera comedy pilot. Deadline reports that the show coming from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions and and Universal TV, is written by Leslye Headland. Follows Ritter's Nora who's described as an idealistic working girl assistant, being pulled between Cregger's character who's her her colleague, and her fiancé played by Peter Cambor, and has a demanding boss to deal with. Aside from Guys with Kids, Cregger's credits include 2008's College comedy, followed by Miss March, which he directed alongside Trevor Moore, and also co-created TV's The Whitest Kids U'Know series with Moore. He's up next in The Bounceback with The Last Exorcism's star Ashley Bell, as well as Shark Night's Sara Paxton, Michael Stahl-David and Addison Timlin.

Exclusive: Guys With Kids‘ Zach Cregger is set to co-star opposite Krysten Ritter in NBC‘s single-camera comedy pilot Assistance, from Gary Sanchez Prods. and Universal TV. Written by Leslye Headland, Assistance centers on Nora (Ritter), an idealistic “working girl” assistant who is pulled between her colleague (Cregger) and her real-life fiance (Peter Cambor) while trying to manage a demanding boss. Cregger’s casting is in second position to Guys With Kids. Both projects are with NBC/Universal TV. I hear that was important to Cregger who wanted to remain loyal to his current series and didn’t entertain interest from pilots on other nets. Cregger, repped by Wme and Principato-Young, is starring in the Lionsgate film Gay Dude as well as the indie The Bounceback, which premiers at the SXSW film festival. He is a founding member and creator of the sketch group The Whitest Kidsu’know. Frances Fisher...

Austin-based audio and visual post-production company Stuck On On worked on six films set to screen at SXSW 2013:

Matthew McConaughey-fronted Mud (Debbie's review)Local filmmakers Richard Linklater's Before Midnight (Debbie's review)Emily Hagins' feature Grow Up, Tony PhillipsFormer Afs Artist Services Director Bryan Poyser's The Bounceback (Elizabeth's interview)Pj Raval's documentary Before You Know ItKatie Graham and Andrew Matthews' Austin-shot movie Zero Charisma

The record-setting year marks the award-winning company's five-year anniversary, when founders Lyman Hardy, Parke Gregg and Allison Turrell (along with a silent partner) opened its doors in the Eastside with the mission to support and solidify Texas film's street cred. Before Stuck On On was a company, it was an experience Hardy had with a dining-room chandelier that refused to turn off. 

And Turrell was stuck on post production after studying video art as a graduate student. She...

Austin-based actress Heather Kafka shows up in features Pit Stop, The Bounceback, Loves Her Gun, When Angels Sing, and short Black Metal which are all screening at SXSW next month. Let's just say that if you see a film with local ties during the festival, there's about a 75% chance that Kafka will be in it. You might have seen her previously in locally made movies like Lovers of Hate, Saturday Morning Massacre, Slacker 2011 (pictured above) ... and she's the woman trying to buy from the Carl's Jr. kiosk in Idiocracy.

Kafka took some time to talk to us (via email) about working in the friendly Austin film community and taking on roles that her grandma shouldn't see.

Slackerwood: You appear in a number of the films showing at SXSW this year. How did you become involved with these film projects?

Heather Kafka: Sometimes I'm lucky. When I came back...

Bryan Poyser isn't exactly a new face on the Austin film scene, but we realized that we hadn't yet interviewed him on this site (although he has been mentioned in a Holiday Favorites post)! Thankfully we were able to rectify this, as he answered my questions via email about his latest film, The Bounceback (pictured at top). This comedy follows two former couples as they fight (and make up?) amongst Austin's nightlife. The film will have its world premiere at SXSW on Saturday, March 9 at 2 pm (screening info).

Poyser's other film work includes Dear Pillow and Lovers of Hate. He's been nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards for these films. The writer/director formerly worked as Director of Artist Services at the Austin Film Society, and now serves on the Afs Board of Directors.

Slackerwood: How are you feeling about the upcoming premiere of The Bounceback (at the Paramount during...

The feature-film selections for the 2013 SXSW Film Festival were announced last week and boy, are there a lot of movies with Austin connections on the program -- so many that we had to split this article in two! We'll start with the narrative feature films, and the second half will highlight the documentaries and "festival favorites." These lists don't include the short films or the midnight movies, which will be announced later today.

Headliners:

When Angels Sing -- Austin director Tim McCanlies' new film is based on a novel by Turk Pipkin (who also appears in the movie), wherein the main character has a troubled relationship with Christmas. Sometimes-Austinite Connie Britton stars as the wife, and the cast also includes Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Heather Kafka (who appears in four SXSW feature films this year), and the Red Headed Stranger himself! Elizabeth Avellan of Troublemaker Studios is one of the producers on this film,...

South by Southwest (SXSW) is just one of many film festivals, we here at Sound On Sight cover yearly. The fest, which takes place every spring in Austin, Texas, began in 1987, and has continued to grow in size every year. The fest announced the first wave of films back in early January, and the lineup included some highly anticipated films such as The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Evil Dead, Downloaded and Spring Breakers. Now the full lineup has been announced, and it just might be one of the best lineups the festival has ever programmed.

SXSW takes place March 8-16 in Austin Texas. Here are just some of the films we are excited about.

Narrative Feature Competition – This year’s 8 films were selected from 1,191 submissions. Each film is a World Premiere.

Awful Nice

Director/Screenwriter: Todd Sklar, Screenwriter: Alex Rennie

Estranged brothers Jim and Dave must travel to Branson together when...

Some of the best films of the 2012/2013 calender year from Richard Linklater, Harmony Korine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Andrew Bujalski, Jeff Nichols, David Gordon Green, Shane Carruth and Joshua Oppenheimer are among the headliner names for the 2013 edition of the South by Southwest Film Festival. With a little over 100 plus film line-up (a whopping 2000+ titles were submitted), almost 70 are world premieres: there is the highly anticipated sophomore film (that has been on our radar since it first went into production) with M. Blash’s (The Wait), Joe Swanberg who makes SXSW his second home will premiere Drinking Buddies, veteran indie filmmaker John Sayles saddles in with Go For Sisters, and rounding out the Narrative Spotlight section we’ve got The Bounceback from Bryan Poyser, Loves Her Gun from Geoff Marslett along with titles we thought might break into Park City, but found an Austin home instead with Jacob Vaughan’s Milo and...

  The 2013 SXSW Fim Festival has just announced a great majority of this year's lineup, raising our anticipation meter up to a level nearing "Get Us There Right Now!" Big premieres include The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Evil Dead and Spring Breakers, while the remainder of the lineup features a mix of familiar names (Joe Swanberg, John Sayles, Joss Whedon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and bizarre, you-only-see-this-at-sxsw movie descriptions, like this one for Milo: "A man discovers that his chronic stomach problems are due to the fact that he has a demon baby living in his colon." Yeah, that's gotta suck. Other films we're already looking forward to include Bryan Poyser's The Bounceback, Dan Mazer's I Give...

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The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival has announced the features lineup for this year's festival, running from March 8-16. In addition to the previously announced opening night film "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" and Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers," the festival announced its entire 109-feature lineup, including 69 world premieres. New titles include "The Bounceback," a Narrative Spotlight entry from "Lovers of Hate" director Bryan Poyser, and "Go For Sisters," an Edward James Olmos vehicle directed by indie veteran John Sayles. Other festival highlights include Fede Alvarez's "Evil Dead" remake; "VHS"'s Joe Swanberg's "Drinking Buddies" starring Olivia Wilde, Anna Kendrick, and Jake Johnson; "Maladies" starring James Franco and Catherine Keener; Alex Winter's "Downloaded" a documentary about the rise and fall of Napster; and...

Ready, Set, Fund is a column about crowdfunding and related fundraising endeavors for Austin and Texas independent film projects.

At first glance it might seem rather odd to feature English music icon Phil Collins in this month's column, but Collins has quite a personal connection to Texas history. Due to his interest in the Battle of the Alamo of 1836, his personal collection of artifacts related to the Alamo numbers in the hundreds, and he's narrated at a sound and light show about the Alamo. While on a publicity tour across Texas to promote his new book, The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector's Journey, Collins was interviewed by Texas Filmmakers Production Fund recipient filmmaker Ben Powell about his obscure collection as well as his retirement from music.

Phil Collins and the Wild Frontier, which is currently funding on Kickstarter through Sunday, January 20, focuses on Collins' attempt "to redefine his public persona.

A Sunday afternoon on the set of The Bounceback reconnected me to all that is enchanting about filmmaking -- the passion, the camaraderie, the dedication. Thanks to talented writer and director -- and former Austin Film Society Director of Artistic Services -- Bryan Poyser, a strong dose of irreverence pervaded the day as a bonus.

Some 50 actors and crew had already put in a good five hours when I showed up at Alamo Drafthouse Ritz on Sunday for my VIP set visit, but spirits were nonetheless high. I parked at base camp where the catering, craft services and honeywagon made it look like any major motion picture and belied the indie nature of this enterprise.

After hugs with Bryan (second from left in above photo), who seemed as proud and tired as a new father, the affable Assistant Director C.J. Neels ushered me to my perch. From the back of the theater,...