Comedian Patton Oswalt recently commented that Austin, Texas, is one of those rare cities in this country that exists within a very special little bubble. A bubble in which you have two choices — get out while you’re young or live here your entire life — because going to live anywhere else after living in Austin is pure culture shock. Austin truly is one of those handful of cities around the nation that, despite being a major metropolitan area, has a personality distinctly its own, absolutely independent from the state around it.

There’s a saying, borrowed from the historic but long gone Armadillo World Headquarters, that this is the place where hippies and rednecks can get together in the same room, have a beer and listen to some great music. It’s also the only place in the country where you can get away with calling each other hippies and rednecks. The lines between both are blurred around here. One look at Willie Nelson, the patron saint of Austin, and you begin to get an idea of what we’re about.

Austin is that small island of blue in a sea of red on those electoral maps. It’s where Bar-B-Q is a noun rather than a verb. It’s where Janis Joplin first performed for $2 a night and all the beer she could drink. It’s where Robert Rodriguez sold his body to science to finance El Mariachi. It’s Richard Linklater’s Slacker, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

And it is home to one of the largest, most revered and most imitated music and film festivals in the country, South by Southwest (SXSW). With more than 100,000 attendees, it is nine days of pure, cinematic, musical insanity that clogs the roads, fills the bars to capacity and books every hotel room in the city long before the lineup is even announced. It’s big business, it’s a hell of a lot of fun, and frankly, it becomes what pretty much everyone talks about for weeks on end.

You see, there’s no audience in the world like an Austin audience. Over the years I’ve watched films with a number of filmmakers who are always taken aback by how much people in this town want to love their film. We don’t walk out talking about box office or gossip about the film’s production or stars. We walk out talking about the film, just as we walk in wanting to love it. As a result, we attract a number of filmmakers who want to experience their film with that very audience. And many of them choose to try to do that during SXSW.

And this year, I’m all over it like a cheap cliché.

I’m beginning to get e-mails about what I shouldn’t miss, scheduling interviews with festival folk and talent, and gearing up for a week with very little sleep. I’m getting ready to kiss my wife goodbye, despite the fact I’m not leaving town. I’ll be taking in as much as humanly possible while still being able to return to my computer every night. So if you’ve got a tip, or a film you think that needs to be added to my buzz list, email Me and give me the skinny.

Until then, I think I’ll be getting just a little more sleep than usual. I’m gonna need all the rest I can get.

C. Robert Cargill – - – Email Me
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Austin-based Cargill, who not only loves but owns The Cutting Edge, writes on movies and DVD two times a week.

This is part of Film.com’s coverage of the 2007 South by Southwest Music and Film Festival. For more SXSW coverage, film reviews, and festival goings-on, visit our Indie Film page.