SXSW 2022: Five discoveries from this year’s film festival

SXSW just wrapped up its first in-person edition in two years with another solid lineup of eclectic films from across the globe. If you weren’t able to attend this year’s SXSW Film Festival (either virtually or in-person), here are five titles from the fest worth keeping an eye out for in the coming months.

Our picks range from the prize-winning Bad Axe, a moving documentary about an Asian-American family struggling to keep their restaurant open in a small Michigan town during the pandemic to Slash Back, a rousing horror-comedy-sci-fi hybrid about a group of Inuk teenage girls battling alien invaders in the Arctic.

Bad Axe

This heartfelt documentary from filmmaker David Siev is a moving and intimate look at Siev’s Asian-American family in the small Michigan town of Bad Axe during the pandemic. With restaurants forced to close in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, David’s family (including his father who escaped the Cambodian Killing Fields) have to adapt their long-standing family restaurant and everyday life in the face of a deadly pandemic, while dealing with the likes of aggressive anti-maskers and threats of racism and violence.

A riveting and personal look at the effects of racism during the Trump era, Bad Axe is also a vital snapshot of a country in crisis. Bad Axe won the SXSW Audience Award for the Documentary Feature Competition as well as the Special Jury Recognition for Exceptional Intimacy in Storytelling from the Documentary Feature Competition jury, so it’s clear that Siev’s film is resonating with audiences and critics.

I Get Knocked Down

25 years (!) after the release of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” the song is as ubiquitous as ever (you may have caught it in Intuit’s recent Superbowl ad). I Get Knocked Down is a thought-provoking and fascinating documentary focused on the stratospheric success of the anarchist collective Chumbawamba in the late ’90s and what it means to be an activist as you approach your 60s, as told through the band’s singer Dunstan Bruce (Bruce co-directed the film with Sophie Robinson).

Featuring interviews with Bruce’s former bandmates, journalists, and a near-mythical encounter with Crass’ Penny Rimbaud (who absolves the band for their sin of “selling out”), I Get Knocked Down is a vital reminder about the need to speak truth to power, regardless of your age. Read our interview with Dunstan Bruce and co-director Sophie Robinson here.

Slash Back

A gang of Inuk teenage girls from the remote Arctic town of Pangnirtung in Nunavut battle with alien invaders in Slash Back, a wildly entertaining sci-fi-horror-comedy hybrid from director Nyla Innuksuk. With a vibrant cast including Tasiana Shirley, Alexis Wolfe, Chelsea Prusky, Frankie Vincent-Wolfe, and Nalajoss Ellsworth, Slash Back is a thrilling new genre film set amidst the stunning scenery of Nunavut.

Like a cross between Attack the Block, Reservation Dogs, and The Thing, Slash Back is the sort of crowd-pleaser that makes you want to pump your fist in the air as the girls from ‘Peng kick some major alien tail. With a clever script from Innuksuk, a thumping soundtrack by The Halluci Nation (including a contribution from Tanya Tagaq), and some impressive practical effects, Slash Back is a rousing film from a corner of the world we rarely see portrayed on the big screen.

Slash Back opens in theatres this summer.

The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic

The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic is a revelation. The Finnish thriller from director Teemu Nikkiès follows Jakko (Petri Poikolainen), a blind man in a wheelchair who is stuck in his home unless he has a caregiver to bring him out. His solace comes from his relationship with Sirpa, a woman he speaks with daily on the phone but has never met in person. A diehard film fan, Jakko is surrounded by DVDs he can no longer watch now that his sight has deteriorated. Always eager to pontificate on the merits of the films of genre legends like John Carpenter and James Cameron, Jakko possesses a sealed copy of Cameron’s Titanic, a film he proudly has never seen and keeps sealed just to prove to visitors that he has never stooped to view it (a move many film fanatics and collectors might appreciate).

When Sirpa relays some distressing news on one of their calls, Jakko decides to travel to see her for the first time. With none of his usual caregivers available, he heads out on the complicated journey on his own. At the mercy of strangers around him for help on the train, Jakko encounters a man with his own nefarious plans for him, leading to a terrifying encounter and the recognition that the world can be a harsh and uncaring place.

Director Teemu Nikkiès brings audiences into Jakko’s view by obscuring the margins of the frame, emphasizing Jakko’s blindness and situation in a claustrophobic and involving way. Poikolainen, a blind actor with MS, delivers an unforgettable performance made up of equal parts rage and tenderness in this haunting and empathetic thriller.

The Cellar

Starring Elisha Cuthbert and Eoin Macken, writer-director Brendan Muldowney’s The Cellar is a riveting nail-biter perfectly suited for a late-night screening. Filmed on location in Roscommon, Ireland, the film follows a couple who move into a shambling country home to the horror of their teenage daughter. When her daughter mysteriously vanishes in the cellar of the house, Keira Woods (Cuthbert) has to go head-on to battle an evil force within the house to set her daughter free in this eerie and out-there horror film with shades of The Ring and The Amityville Horror.

While the first half of the film is a fairly conventional haunted house story, things really take off in the final act, with a grandiose supernatural element that truly elevates The Cellar into something special (and very dark).

The Cellar will be in theaters and will be streaming on Shudder as of April 15.