Grad Film at SXSW 2021

The 2021 SXSW Film Festival has announced its official selections, featuring some incredible NYU Grad Film alumni projects.

Screening in the Narrative Shorts category is Alum Max Walker-Silverman’s Chuj Boys of Summer, in which, speaking only his native language, a Guatemalan teenager begins his new life in rural Colorado. The short was Walker-Silverman’s Thesis film and was shot by fellow alum Alfonso Herrera Salcedo. Also in the category is alum Molly Gillis’ Thesis film Plaisir, which follows a lonely American who faces unrequited love on a farm commune in the south of France. It was shot by current student Mélanie Akoka.

Alum Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Summer Animals will screen in Texas Shorts: Living out of a motel, 15-year-old Tommy makes a drastic decision in order for her siblings to escape the heat before the summer’s over. Summer Animals is DPd by alum Lasse Ulvedal Tolboll, and the festival will mark it’s World Premiere. 

The Episodic Premieres will feature alum Anja Marquardt’s episode of The Girlfriend Experience. The third installment of the series is set in the London tech scene. Iris, a neuroscience major, begins to explore the transactional world of The Girlfriend Experience and quickly learns that client sessions provide her with a compelling edge in the tech world.

SXSW will open with the world premiere of alum Michael D. Ratner’s latest feature: Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil. The film is a powerful YouTube Originals documentary event, exploring every aspect that led to Lovato’s nearly fatal overdose in 2018, and her awakenings in the aftermath. 

View the full SXSW Lineup.