04/02/2022 - European films are dotted throughout the US festival, which returns in March as an in-person event (with an online component) with a programme of 99 features, 76 of which are world premieres

Irish actress Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ directorial debut, It Is in Us All [+see also:
film review
interview: Antonia Campbell-Hughes
film profile], is the standout European film set to screen in the Narrative Feature Competition at SXSW (the 29th edition of which will unspool from 11-20 March), where it will be world-premiered. The movie, starring Cosmo Jarvis, Claes Bang and Campbell-Hughes herself, tells the story of a formidable man forced to confront his self-destructive instincts after being involved in a violent car crash. Campbell-Hughes also wrote the project, which is part of Screen Ireland’s POV programme, aimed at enabling distinctive Irish voices with a passion to tell stories on the big screen.

Also in the Narrative Feature Competition is Vasilisa Kuzmina’s Nika, which tells the story of a 27-year-old former child prodigy struggling with her past, present and future. Other European features at the event include the international premiere of Reggie Yates’ UK hit Pirates [+see also:
film review
film profile], which is set in the UK’s garage scene on New Year’s Eve 1999, and the world premiere of Jeff Baena’s Italian-US co-production Spin Me Round, about the manager (Alison Brie) of an Italian restaurant chain in America who wins the “trip of a lifetime” to Italy.

The Midnighters section includes Kirill Sokolov’s No Looking Back [+see also:
interview: Kirill Sokolov
film profile] (Russia), which sees three generations of warring women facing off, and the US premiere of Brendan Muldowney’s The Cellar [+see also:
film review
interview: Brendan Muldowney
film profile] (Belgium/Ireland), set in a haunted house (see the news).

Augusto Sandino’s Colombian-Czech-Norwegian production A Vanishing Fog [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Augusto Sandino
film profile], which unfolds in the endangered Paramo of Sumapaz, will play in the Visions section. Also playing in this strand is Teemu Nikki’s award-winning Finish action-thriller The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Teemu Nikki and Jani Pösö
interview: Teemu Nikki, Jani Pösö an…
film profile].

Music has always been part and parcel of SXSW, and this year is no different: in the 24 Beats Per Second strand is the world premiere of Ana Sofia Fonseca’s documentary Cesária Évora (Cabo Verde/Portugal); Tim Mackenzie-Smith’s Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande [+see also:
film review
film profile] (UK); Sophie Robinson and Dunstan Bruce’s I Get Knocked Down (UK), about Bruce’s attempts to refine the anarchistic mojo he has as the front man of Chumbawamba; and In the Court of the Crimson King (UK), about the band King Crimson.

Global Presented by MUBI will introduce the world premiere of Faeze Azizkhani’s The Locust (Iran/Germany) as well as Women Do Cry [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova
film profile] (Bulgaria/France) by Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova.

Finally, playing in the Narrative Shorts Competition are Manolis Mavris’ Brutalia, Days of Labour (Belgium/Greece), Leo Berne’s Censor of Dreams (France), Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor’s For Love (UK) and Sean Lionadh’s Too Rough (UK).