SXSW

Austin so far has seemed to me an assault on the senses. Restricted to a nexus of the downtown area I find every corner bar filled with passionate, frenetic, loud music; the streets lined with merry festivalgoers and hangers-on; the corridors of the convention centre filled with the earnest chatterings of intelligent, well-meaning innovators. The delicious, enticing smell of Texan barbecue lingers in the air, beer flows freely from a million taps and there's a YouTube sensation about to be born at every crossroads. Yes folks, welcome to South by Southwest.

Smouldering Matt, together again! How I miss this guy.

Every minute is precious, every choice pivotal – there's a pervasive feeling of 'don't waste your time, man, you should be doing something BIG to change the world RIGHT NOW'! Armed with a Film and Interactive pass (you can also purchase a Music pass) I spent much of the first few days bemusedly trying to navigate the festival set-up and struggling to decide which of the impressive line-up of speakers to go and see between my movies. Oh, and the majority of my time was spent standing in one queue or another, either for tickets, for passes which could possibly gain me the ability to jump a queue later in the day, or for more terrible coffee. (SXSW could primarily be seen as an extended lesson in queuing and disappointment.) But between all the queuing I did get to attend some inspirational sessions, many of which I left burning with the aforementioned desire to change the world, change my direction in life and do good for humankind. Big stuff.

There are several different focuses for the Interactive element of the festival. At any one time there are more than 10 sessions to choose from, so the strands of programming are diverse and disparate. Many choose filmmaking or music as their topic as they relate to the other streams of SXSW. Lots are about innovation, be it social, cultural, technical or governmental. Many talks centred around the current issue of privacy, primarily online or in the digital sphere. Some were simply keynote speeches by invited guests about their careers, or some specific book or project they were plugging. Here are some of the most notable talks I went to.

The New Digital Age, Jared Cohen, Director of Google Ideas; Steven Levy, Sr Writer, Wired; Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google. Intriguing discussion about the power of smartphones and digital technology to affect real change in developing countries. Lots of fascinating case studies and very strongly-held opinions by these guys. For example people in Syria can use their smartphones to navigate safe routes home. But then if people are captured the first thing requested of them is their mobile phone password so that their contacts and information can be used. Also the potential for misuse of this technology, and how Google is working on ways of encrypting people's phones and data so that it cannot be misused. It felt at times a little like Google advertorial but still raised some issues I'd never thought about before.

Tilda Swinton in conversation. Absolutely inspirational. She's such an intelligent, thoughtful and inspiring person. Firstly she talked about her childhood as an army child, brought up on military bases in Germany in particular. The first time she 'went to the US' was to a US army base in Germany, where dollars were the local currency and it was as if you weren't in Germany at all. This brought back memories for me of visiting my uncle on army bases in Germany, as it felt like a pocket of England/US rather than 'abroad'. Tilda talked about how this affected her sense of home and family. Then her early career, in particular with Derek Jarman, ("the carrier of the flame for his generation, in a long line of outsider artists that goes back to William Blake",) whose films I remember being blown away by back in my days at the NFT. She also answered questions from the audience thoughtfully and eloquently. I love her theories on creativity and truth. Some good quotes:

“Cinema is putting yourself into someone else's shoes and seeing the world through their eyes. It's no more complicated and no less powerful than that.”

“The culture is ours. It is being built by us. We don't need to make deals with it or negotiate with it. You just plant your feet in your firmly in the ground and make it yours. Sure, bend your knees, there will be tough winds ahead, but don't feel you have to move, just do what you have to do. You put a flake of your skin onto the culture, and then another one and then another one until the culture is you-shaped.”

I left this talk dizzy-headed and full of a desire to forge my own creative path in life. Thank you, Tilda.

Lena Dunham keynote. This was inspirational in a very different way to Tilda's talk. Lena is the creator of Girls and a filmmaker whose style and vision I admire, so it was great to hear her talk about her career, its early pitfalls, her neuroses and insecurities, her collaborations and ultimately her success. Quotes:

“We are all looking for the authentic in each other and perfection is not a part of that.”

"All of us are freak shows and our lives are utterly weird, and that makes our stories completely universal."

Promise of a Pencil. This guy, Adam Braun, quit his high flying job in the city to build schools in developing countries. His story was fascinating. Good quotes:

“Big dreams start with small, unreasonable acts.”

“If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough.” Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, first female African president.

The Future of digital storytelling. This session with Yoni Bloch, an Israeli singer/songwriter/geek was mindblowing. He demonstrated how he created a 'choose your own adventure' music video for his band which he then extrapolated into the million different ways you could use this in storytelling, music, filmmaking, education, everything. So hard to explain but check out his work here.

Chelsea Clinton keynote. The daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton has some formidable parents and it was great to see her hold her own in this keynote talk. She manages a lot of the healthcare and other elements of the Clinton foundation and her talk was about how digital technology can help in this field, in particular in developing countries where the technology is not always cutting edge, but that innovation with older technology, such as sms, can make a massive difference. Nothing particularly controversial but still interesting and she told some funny anecdotes about her childhood, such as how she was made to debate against her father at age 6 with her mother as moderator. No wonder nothing daunts her!

Chelsea Clinton

Then of course there were the movies. Famed for being a hotbed of discovery for Indie American narrative films, SXSW has launched the careers of some magnificent storytellers, so I was excited to see who I would discover here this year. By and large I have to say that I found the film program underwhelming, and the euphoria I feel when exiting a groundbreaking, innovative, inspirational film was more scarce during this film festival than any I have attended before. Perhaps it was my poor decision-making – I had very little time to read and research the program beforehand – but talking to some of my fellow festivalgoers in queues towards the end of the festival, I feel I was not alone. That said, there were a few films I would recommend, and here they are:

The Heart Machine. A delightful story about a skype relationship which felt very 'now' and explored trust and love in a refreshing way.

Pulp. A joyful portrait of one of my favourite bands, as well as a nostalgic look at the working class North of England.

A film about life, death and supermarkets

Silicon Valley pilot and first episode. Mike Judge/HBO's new comedy about tech workers in Silicone Valley hits several nails firmly on the head. Also this was the funniest Q&A I've ever attended, clearly the actors all have an improv background.

Cesar Chavez. A dramatisation of the life of the Mexican American workers rights campaigner, whose name adorns streets in nearly every US city I've visited but whose story I did not know. What an incredible man, and the love for him and his cause in the audience was palpable. Chants of 'Si, se puede' during the warm, genuine standing ovation. (I guess there's no such thing as a new idea, Obama!)

Take me to the River. A documentary about some of the biggest music stars of the Mississippi delta. I'm currently reading Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi and will be travelling down the great river later, so this was a timely film.

Stage Fright. A comedy horror (Glee meets Scream) where a series of gruesome murders are carried out in a kids summer musicals camp. This screened at the Alamo Drafthouse, (the Ritz) which fast became my favourite festival venue, as you could order food and drinks which were then brought out during the film. But not in some swanky Gold Class kind of way, just like a diner. Great burgers and they do a mean Old Fashioned to rival that of the Midnight Special in Enmore. Seriously.

The Great Invisible, a doco about the oil spill off Louisiana.

Seeds of Time, a doco about one man's crusade to preserve all the seeds in the world in a vault in the middle of Norway.

Hellion, a beautiful film by an Austin filmmaker, telling the story of a troubled father-son relationship, with fantastic performances by the children in particular and it thankfully resisted becoming 'soap-opera'-y or twee. This film has really stayed with me actually, more than I expected.

Documentary shorts, a program of fab shorts including one on an artist whose work I saw in the Seattle Art Museum, Kehinde Wiley, which documented his process creating a solo show. Really fascinating. Read about him.

God Help the Girl, written by Stuart from Belle and Sebastian – cute modern Glasgow-set musical which I had to leave 30 mins early to catch...

The Winding Stream. Fave film of the festival, a 12-years-in-the-making documentary about the Carter and Cash families, featuring all their wonderful music and which gave me even more admiration for the supremely talented Carter family and a longing to visit their ongoing Saturday night song nights.

Of course I saw heaps more than that, but these were the best of the crop. A mention should probably go to Aussie films I saw, The Infinite Man, The Mule – great that they were selected. And Kiwi vampire mock-doco What we Do in the Shadows was also fun.

The festival was a little overshadowed by a tragic accident which happened half way through. A man driving under the influence broke through one fo the many barriers which are used in Austin to block off the streets (the festival literally takes over the streets downtown) at about half past midnight, ploughing into a crowd outside a bar called Mowhawk and killing 2 people, injuring many others. Such a sad, sad thing to happen and obviously one that the festival could do nothing to prevent. Definitely made me stop to pause about the fragility of life once again, and the importance of celebrating, through music and film, the lives of ordinary people.

The view of 6th Street, the beating heart of SxSW, from our hotel

Phew! What a jam-packed festival. And I haven't even mentioned the Trade Show, Flatstock poster expo, bands I accidentally stumbled upon, amazing Peruvian food trick grub or sneaking out of town for Texan BBQ! Oh well, I cannae write about everything. I now have a couple more days to mooch about in Austin before I head to Dallas and onwards to the rest of my travels. The first two and a half months of my trip have been quite hectic and filled with friends, family and adventures. I'm expecting the next few weeks to be a little quieter, as I'm primarily on my own until I get to Mexico City, so hopefully I will have more time for some of the contemplation and stock-taking I have been seeking from this year off. (Yeah, wish me luck with that.)

My SXSW buddies. Missing you guys already!