San Luis Obispo has long been a place where art passes through and leaves something behind. From the ’70s through the early 2000s, the city became a stop for touring musicians and emerging acts, from early punk bands like Black Flag to future indie favorites like Matt Costa and Delta Spirit. While Cal Poly concerts drew exciting new performers, local staple Boo Boo Records stocked its shelves with edgy, undiscovered albums.
It’s strange to call a hauntingly dark film moving, but Damian McCarthy’s Hokum manages to be just that.
Every major film festival has a story about the first time a now-revered director appeared there.
The 43rd edition of the Miami Film Festival featured high-concept thrillers, intimate romantic dramas, and human rights narratives that both celebrated and uplifted character-driven cinema.
Programming film festivals isn’t just about selecting productions for exhibition. It’s a means of advocating for bold new works of cinema that audiences can discover.
After her novel Beloved debuted in 1987, Toni Morrison expressed the profound need for the story to exist.
If South by Southwest is all about the movies, The Cinema Center is where everyone goes to celebrate them. The festival, which ran from March 12–18 in downtown Austin, saw the premieres of over 50 films, and lively celebrations followed.
At SXSW, Sender arrived as exactly the kind of indie the festival has long championed: strange, intimate, and quietly ambitious.
At a time of fear and uncertainty, The Saviors leans into that unease, and then pushes it further.
The South by Southwest Film & TV Festival returned to Austin from March 13–21, bringing with it a bold slate of premieres that reflect the anxieties, absurdities, and unexpected joys of the current moment. From genre-bending thrillers to sharp industry satire, this year’s standout debuts don’t just entertain, they process.