SXSW on Amazon—French electronica, Dark Web subcultures, and two great shorts

Enlarge / Fire up Amazon Prime in a browser, and here's the landing page for the platform's partnership with SXSW. (credit: South by Southwest)

When Austin, Texas, Mayor Steve Adler took to the podium on March 6 and effectively prevented South by Southwest from happening with a new city health order, the longtime film and music festival simply became the first of what would be many COVID-19-related live-event cancellations. Given the late-breaking nature of this one-SXSW was scheduled to start the week after, on March 13-organizers suddenly had to scramble. And when it came to the film portion, SXSW officially settled on transitioning to an entirely digital experience.

Partnering with entities like Mailchimp (shorts-only) and Amazon (any film willing), any project selected for the festival was invited to become available digitally for a limited time so all that hard work could still find an audience this spring. The resulting Amazon initiative started this past week and runs through Wednesday, May 6, no Prime subscription required.

Ultimately... the selection feels a little lacking. Major studio films like Judd Apatow's The King of Staten Island declined in favor of forging their own path (that one will go straight to VOD this summer with a theatrical run out of the question), and smaller but compelling movies like the arcade-documentary Insert Coin have kept the rights to their debuts for now in the hopes that a festival season will still exist later in 2020 (since a good debut there can help facilitate lucrative distribution deals and theatrical runs if all goes according to plan). As more film festivals face this reality-Tribeca is already digital, Canada's Fantasia Festival just announced its intention to do the same-hopefully the industry warms up to the idea.

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