The 2024 SXSW Film Festival kicked off March 8 in Austin with the opening-night world premiere screening of Doug Liman’s Road House remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor McGregor. It started nine days of debuts including for movies starring Rooney Mara, Isabelle Huppert, Gael García Bernal, Kristen Stewart and more. The Anne Hathaway romantic dramedy The Idea of You from SXSW stalwart Michael Showalter closed the fest on Saturday.
Keep checking back below as Deadline reviews the best and buzziest movies of the festival. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.
3 Body Problem ‘3 Body Problem’
Section: TV Premiere
Director: Derek Tsang
Cast: Jovan Adepo, John Bradley, Rosalind Chao, Liam Cunningham, Eiza González, Jess Hong, Marlo Kelly, Alex Sharp, Sea Shimooka, Zine Tseng, Saamer Usmani, Benedict Wong, Jonathan Pryce
Deadline’s takeaway: 3 Body Problem’s biggest existential threats are just how redundant it all seems, and how every...
Keep checking back below as Deadline reviews the best and buzziest movies of the festival. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.
3 Body Problem ‘3 Body Problem’
Section: TV Premiere
Director: Derek Tsang
Cast: Jovan Adepo, John Bradley, Rosalind Chao, Liam Cunningham, Eiza González, Jess Hong, Marlo Kelly, Alex Sharp, Sea Shimooka, Zine Tseng, Saamer Usmani, Benedict Wong, Jonathan Pryce
Deadline’s takeaway: 3 Body Problem’s biggest existential threats are just how redundant it all seems, and how every...
- 3/17/2024
- by Valerie Complex, Damon Wise and Dominic Patten
- Deadline Film + TV
"Grand Theft Auto V" is one of the biggest video games of all time, which in turn paved the way for a huge player base in "Grand Theft Auto Online." For a couple of out-of-work actors, it provided them a space to do the thing they missed the most during the pandemic: acting. While "GTA" is a place to commit crimes in a carefree, digital environment, a couple of guys named Sam and Mark turned it into the most unlikely venue to play host to some of William Shakespeare's work.
"Grand Theft Hamlet" is a new documentary that chronicles Sam and Mark's journey from merely playing "GTA" to hatching a plan to put on a production of "Hamlet" staged entirely in the game. The film recently premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and I am here to tell you that it's unlike any other movie you've ever seen before.
"Grand Theft Hamlet" is a new documentary that chronicles Sam and Mark's journey from merely playing "GTA" to hatching a plan to put on a production of "Hamlet" staged entirely in the game. The film recently premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and I am here to tell you that it's unlike any other movie you've ever seen before.
- 3/15/2024
- by Ryan Scott
- Slash Film
While there are still several days of buzzy film premieres remaining at SXSW 2024, all of the films playing in competition have screened for audiences and critics. The film festival’s jury announced the winners of the festival’s major awards on Thursday, giving out prizes for narrative feature, documentary feature, and a variety of short, episodic, and Xr categories.
The narrative feature competition was won by “Bob Trevino Likes It,” Tracie Laymon’s dramedy that stars Barbie Ferreira as a young woman who seeks to heal wounds from her relationship with her abusive father by befriending an unrelated man with the exact same name (John Leguizamo).
The top documentary prize went to Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls’ groundbreaking documentary “Grand Theft Hamlet,” which followed a group of actors staging a production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” inside “Grand Theft Auto Online” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Keep reading for a complete list...
The narrative feature competition was won by “Bob Trevino Likes It,” Tracie Laymon’s dramedy that stars Barbie Ferreira as a young woman who seeks to heal wounds from her relationship with her abusive father by befriending an unrelated man with the exact same name (John Leguizamo).
The top documentary prize went to Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls’ groundbreaking documentary “Grand Theft Hamlet,” which followed a group of actors staging a production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” inside “Grand Theft Auto Online” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Keep reading for a complete list...
- 3/14/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Tracie Laymon’s Bob Trevino Likes It has won the SXSW narrative feature competition while Grand Theft Hamlet has taken home the documentary feature prize.
Laymon’s comedy drama, about a young woman who forms an unlikely bond with a man bearing the same name as her estranged father, was awarded by the jury for feeling “at once familiar and yet surprising” in a ”refreshingly real and wrenchingly bittersweet” watch. John Leguizamo and Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira star.
The special jury award for performance went to Maria Rodríguez Soto in Liliana Torres’s Spanish family drama Mamifera while Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu...
Laymon’s comedy drama, about a young woman who forms an unlikely bond with a man bearing the same name as her estranged father, was awarded by the jury for feeling “at once familiar and yet surprising” in a ”refreshingly real and wrenchingly bittersweet” watch. John Leguizamo and Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira star.
The special jury award for performance went to Maria Rodríguez Soto in Liliana Torres’s Spanish family drama Mamifera while Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu...
- 3/14/2024
- ScreenDaily
The SXSW 2024 festival wrapped after nine days of TV and Film premieres with The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, closing out the festival. The fest ran from March 8-16.
The SXSW Film & TV Festival Narrative Feature Competition, Documentary Feature Competition, Design Awards, and Special Awards announced the winners on Wednesday, March 13 at the Paramount Theatre with Bob Trevino Likes It, directed by Tracie Layman, winning the Narrative Feature Competition. Grand Theft Hamlet, Directed by Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane won in the Documentary Feature Competition category.
Fresh from his Oscars performance of “I’m Just Ken,” Barbie star, Ryan Gosling, made an appearance at the world premiere of David Leitch’s, The Fall Guy on Tuesday, March 12. The ensemble cast included Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, and Stephanie Hsu among others, who attended the premiere.
Ryan Gosling stars as Colt, a stuntman who, after a near-career-ending accident,...
The SXSW Film & TV Festival Narrative Feature Competition, Documentary Feature Competition, Design Awards, and Special Awards announced the winners on Wednesday, March 13 at the Paramount Theatre with Bob Trevino Likes It, directed by Tracie Layman, winning the Narrative Feature Competition. Grand Theft Hamlet, Directed by Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane won in the Documentary Feature Competition category.
Fresh from his Oscars performance of “I’m Just Ken,” Barbie star, Ryan Gosling, made an appearance at the world premiere of David Leitch’s, The Fall Guy on Tuesday, March 12. The ensemble cast included Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, and Stephanie Hsu among others, who attended the premiere.
Ryan Gosling stars as Colt, a stuntman who, after a near-career-ending accident,...
- 3/14/2024
- by Robert Lang
- Deadline Film + TV
The South by Southwest Film & TV Festival has announced the 2024 Jury and Special Award winners.
This year’s narrative feature competition winner was “Bob Trevino Likes It,” which was directed and written by Tracie Laymon and stars Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo. Meanwhile, “Grand Theft Hamlet” topped the documentary feature competition.
“What an extraordinary week of film and TV premieres we’ve had here at SXSW, and there is more to come through Saturday,” said Claudette Godfrey, VP, Film & TV. “Our theaters have been bursting with incredible and vocal audiences celebrating the exceptional and diverse work in our lineup, and we’re so excited to celebrate this year’s jury and special award winners!”
The Audience Award voting will conclude on Saturday, March 16, and winners will be announced that week.
See the complete list of winners below.
Feature Film Grand Jury Awards
Narrative Feature Competition
Winner: “Bob Trevino Likes It”
Director/Screenwriter: Tracie Laymon,...
This year’s narrative feature competition winner was “Bob Trevino Likes It,” which was directed and written by Tracie Laymon and stars Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo. Meanwhile, “Grand Theft Hamlet” topped the documentary feature competition.
“What an extraordinary week of film and TV premieres we’ve had here at SXSW, and there is more to come through Saturday,” said Claudette Godfrey, VP, Film & TV. “Our theaters have been bursting with incredible and vocal audiences celebrating the exceptional and diverse work in our lineup, and we’re so excited to celebrate this year’s jury and special award winners!”
The Audience Award voting will conclude on Saturday, March 16, and winners will be announced that week.
See the complete list of winners below.
Feature Film Grand Jury Awards
Narrative Feature Competition
Winner: “Bob Trevino Likes It”
Director/Screenwriter: Tracie Laymon,...
- 3/14/2024
- by Michaela Zee
- Variety Film + TV
For all of the artistic challenges posed by filming an entire documentary inside a video game, you’d think that it would at least be a lighter logistical lift for filmmakers. There’s no need to acquire permits, haul heavy equipment to remote locations, or wrangle large film crews. But when Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls decided to stage a production of “Hamlet” inside of “Grand Theft Auto Online” during the final months of the Covid-19 pandemic and make a documentary about the experience, they quickly found that making art inside of the game was more complicated than it looks. The biggest challenge? Convincing online strangers playing the famously violent game not to shoot them while they rehearsed and filmed.
“It’s as challenging as it would have been when Shakespeare was putting on a new production at the Globe,” Grylls told IndieWire in a recent conversation. “He didn’t...
“It’s as challenging as it would have been when Shakespeare was putting on a new production at the Globe,” Grylls told IndieWire in a recent conversation. “He didn’t...
- 3/13/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
For the most recent precedent for Grand Theft Hamlet, you’d probably have to go back nearly 20 years, to a 2006 episode of South Park. Titled “Make Love, Not Warcraft,” it found Cartman marshaling his friends to take on a super-advanced rogue player with a posse of killer crabs who has taken to killing everyone in his path in the Tolkienesque greenfields of Azeroth. This virtual psychopath sends shivers down the spines of the programmers at WoW’s corporate HQ.
After Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls’ documentary debuted earlier this week at SXSW, however, it is only a matter of time before directors see the multitude of possibilities to be mined from the gaming world, not least because the technical advances made in recent years mean that even the most basic console games can blow up to fill a cinema-size screen quite comfortably.
After Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls’ documentary debuted earlier this week at SXSW, however, it is only a matter of time before directors see the multitude of possibilities to be mined from the gaming world, not least because the technical advances made in recent years mean that even the most basic console games can blow up to fill a cinema-size screen quite comfortably.
- 3/12/2024
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
To be or not to be. That was the question facing so many artists at the height of the Covid pandemic (let’s call it January 2021), when the crisis seemed as if it might continue forever, and the absence of an audience threatened to chip away at the creative spirit itself. Suddenly unemployed and unable to support his family after landing the biggest role of his life (the titular wizard in the London production of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”), British actor Sam Crane couldn’t help but wonder — to quote a certain Danish prince — “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.” Crane may not have shared Hamlet’s attraction to suicide, but he certainly entertained the idea of laying his career to rest before he was...
- 3/11/2024
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Documentary Grand Theft Hamlet may have been born out of the ennui bred by Covid lockdown in 2021, but it’s anything but boring.
Innovative, highly amusing and often touching, this collaborative project, competing in the documentary feature strand at SXSW, takes place entirely within the open game world of Grant Theft Auto Online. In this sprawling virtual space, temporarily out-of-work U.K.-based actors Sam Crane (who has played Harry Potter in the London production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and his friend Mark Oosterveen decide to mount a production of Hamlet, a first for both the theater and gaming worlds.
Luckily, Crane’s partner Pinny Grylls is also a filmmaker. She takes on the directing and editing, using the cellphone cameras avatars can use in the game to film from other angles and provide close-ups. The couple juggle caring for their small children with putting on the...
Innovative, highly amusing and often touching, this collaborative project, competing in the documentary feature strand at SXSW, takes place entirely within the open game world of Grant Theft Auto Online. In this sprawling virtual space, temporarily out-of-work U.K.-based actors Sam Crane (who has played Harry Potter in the London production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and his friend Mark Oosterveen decide to mount a production of Hamlet, a first for both the theater and gaming worlds.
Luckily, Crane’s partner Pinny Grylls is also a filmmaker. She takes on the directing and editing, using the cellphone cameras avatars can use in the game to film from other angles and provide close-ups. The couple juggle caring for their small children with putting on the...
- 3/10/2024
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This article appears in the SXSW 2024 issue of Den of Geek magazine. Check out all of our SXSW coverage here.
Grand Theft Hamlet is about as absurd a mash-up as its title would have you believe. It’s a documentary about Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, two actors left jobless at the height of the pandemic who decide to put on a live-streamed production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online.
Partway through the film, which was shot entirely in-game, as Sam is rehearsing the play’s famous “To be or not to be” speech on the beaches of Los Santos, a masked player walks up and calls him a bitch over chat, utterly unmoved by the iconic soliloquy. Other rehearsals are interrupted by helicopters and shootouts, all fitting encapsulations of the stark juxtaposition at the heart of the documentary. But GTA and Shakespeare may not be...
Grand Theft Hamlet is about as absurd a mash-up as its title would have you believe. It’s a documentary about Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, two actors left jobless at the height of the pandemic who decide to put on a live-streamed production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online.
Partway through the film, which was shot entirely in-game, as Sam is rehearsing the play’s famous “To be or not to be” speech on the beaches of Los Santos, a masked player walks up and calls him a bitch over chat, utterly unmoved by the iconic soliloquy. Other rehearsals are interrupted by helicopters and shootouts, all fitting encapsulations of the stark juxtaposition at the heart of the documentary. But GTA and Shakespeare may not be...
- 3/10/2024
- by John Saavedra
- Den of Geek
Exclusive: Altitude Media Group has boarded a documentary shot entirely inside the Grand Theft Auto video game world.
Grand Theft Hamlet will follow the story of out-of-work theater actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who had the idea to stage a full production of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ within Grand Theft Auto 5 during the dull days of the third Covid-19 lockdown in the UK three years ago.
Indie studio Altitude has taken worldwide rights after striking a deal for the “hilarious and profoundly moving” film, which Crane and Pinny Grylls wrote and directed. The doc gets its worldwide premiere at SXSW on Sunday (March 10) and will get a European premiere at Cph:dox.
“We are extremely proud and excited to be partnering with Pinny, Sam and the whole team on Grand Theft Hamlet and cannot wait for audiences to experience this singular and masterful piece of machinima filmmaking,” said Altitude Film Sales Managing Director Mike Runagall.
Grand Theft Hamlet will follow the story of out-of-work theater actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who had the idea to stage a full production of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ within Grand Theft Auto 5 during the dull days of the third Covid-19 lockdown in the UK three years ago.
Indie studio Altitude has taken worldwide rights after striking a deal for the “hilarious and profoundly moving” film, which Crane and Pinny Grylls wrote and directed. The doc gets its worldwide premiere at SXSW on Sunday (March 10) and will get a European premiere at Cph:dox.
“We are extremely proud and excited to be partnering with Pinny, Sam and the whole team on Grand Theft Hamlet and cannot wait for audiences to experience this singular and masterful piece of machinima filmmaking,” said Altitude Film Sales Managing Director Mike Runagall.
- 3/8/2024
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
South by Southwest is a festival like none other. Spread across the bustling streets of Downtown Austin, the convergence event truly has something for everyone.
South by Southwest, better known as SxSw, is a tech conference meets music festival meets film festival. With hundreds of films, bands, startups, and established brands all over the city, the energy is unrivaled.
This year is no different as thousands prepare to arrive at the Texas capitol this week.
I will be lucky enough to attend this year’s festival for a whole week and the film lineup is one of the strongest in years. SxSw is a great combination of established, anticipated films mixed with independent films with massive potential to be the next big thing.
In the past some of the competition films that have premiered at the festival have been Short Term 12, Peanut Butter Falcon, Tiny Furniture. Krisha, and more.
South by Southwest, better known as SxSw, is a tech conference meets music festival meets film festival. With hundreds of films, bands, startups, and established brands all over the city, the energy is unrivaled.
This year is no different as thousands prepare to arrive at the Texas capitol this week.
I will be lucky enough to attend this year’s festival for a whole week and the film lineup is one of the strongest in years. SxSw is a great combination of established, anticipated films mixed with independent films with massive potential to be the next big thing.
In the past some of the competition films that have premiered at the festival have been Short Term 12, Peanut Butter Falcon, Tiny Furniture. Krisha, and more.
- 3/2/2024
- by Nathan McVay
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
March fest announces multiple competition sections.
SXSW announced on Wednesday that Netflix series 3 Body Problem from Game Of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss is the festival’s opening night TV premiere, while Universal’s action comedy The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is the centrepiece screening.
Top brass at the Austin, Texas, festival (March 8-16) also unveiled feature and short competitions and Midnighters and Global sections, as well as select titles from other categories and Xr Experience for the 31st edition.
Headliners selections include world premieres of Pamela Adlon’s Babes starring Ilana Glazer,...
SXSW announced on Wednesday that Netflix series 3 Body Problem from Game Of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss is the festival’s opening night TV premiere, while Universal’s action comedy The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is the centrepiece screening.
Top brass at the Austin, Texas, festival (March 8-16) also unveiled feature and short competitions and Midnighters and Global sections, as well as select titles from other categories and Xr Experience for the 31st edition.
Headliners selections include world premieres of Pamela Adlon’s Babes starring Ilana Glazer,...
- 1/10/2024
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
A video of a man playing the spoons along to Faithless's 'Insomnia' has gone viral. The clip - which was uploaded to YouTube earlier this month - has already accumulated over 282,000 views. User Pinny Grylls says that she spotted the man in the London Bridge area during her lunch break at work. The grey-haired, bearded man was also reportedly playing along to a number of other '90s dance hits while sat in the (more)...
- 11/23/2012
- by By Alison Rowley
- Digital Spy
Birds Eye View welcomed a healthy amount of both men and women to its International Women's Day Gala event. Now in its tenth year of operation, Bev was set up by Rachel Millward and Pinny Grylls (the former still stands as festival director and spoke about her pride in leading an event that strives to seek a balanced perspective upon our screens). Since 2002, Bev has gained a global profile and launched three specialised training labs bringing six commercial feature films into partnered development and commissioned live scores to hot genre-of-the-moment silent film, in celebration of renowned Hollywood movie presence Mary Pickford.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 3/13/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
From attention-grabbing promos to thoughtful documentaries, a new crop of directors is creating innovative and daring pictures that are cheap to make, easy to share, and finding an audience as never before. Here, we speak to those responsible for some of the best
Are we in the middle of a short‑film revolution? Not long ago, if you wanted to catch short work by exciting new film-makers, you had to travel to a festival, hunt down a compilation on DVD, catch a charitable showing on TV or, if you were uncommonly lucky, before the main feature at the cinema. Now all you have to do, assuming you have internet access and a passing familiarity with video-hosting websites, is switch on your computer.
The curious thing about short films is that, regardless of audience and financial incentive, people have continued to make them with great enthusiasm. This is in part because...
Are we in the middle of a short‑film revolution? Not long ago, if you wanted to catch short work by exciting new film-makers, you had to travel to a festival, hunt down a compilation on DVD, catch a charitable showing on TV or, if you were uncommonly lucky, before the main feature at the cinema. Now all you have to do, assuming you have internet access and a passing familiarity with video-hosting websites, is switch on your computer.
The curious thing about short films is that, regardless of audience and financial incentive, people have continued to make them with great enthusiasm. This is in part because...
- 12/19/2010
- by Killian Fox
- The Guardian - Film News
TORONTO -- The Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival on Wednesday unveiled its lineup, led on opening night by festival award winners Jesse Rosensweet's "Paradise" (Canada) and British filmmaker Pinny Grylls' "Peter and Ben".
The festival, organized by Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Center film school, includes Patrik Eklund's "Situation Frank" (Sweden), Luis Cook's "The Pearce Sisters" (U.K.), Valentin Potier's "Tony Zear" (France) and Nicolas Provost's "Gravity" (Belgium).
The 14th installment will feature 268 shorts from 31 countries, with sidebars for Japanese animated films, fictional Thai films and a spotlight on the Argentinean film school Universidad del Cine -- Argentina.
The CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival is set for June 10-15 in Toronto.
The festival, organized by Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Center film school, includes Patrik Eklund's "Situation Frank" (Sweden), Luis Cook's "The Pearce Sisters" (U.K.), Valentin Potier's "Tony Zear" (France) and Nicolas Provost's "Gravity" (Belgium).
The 14th installment will feature 268 shorts from 31 countries, with sidebars for Japanese animated films, fictional Thai films and a spotlight on the Argentinean film school Universidad del Cine -- Argentina.
The CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival is set for June 10-15 in Toronto.
- 5/21/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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