Those who choose films for that city’s loose-jointed, alternative-minded South by Southwest festival, known for understated fare like “Low Self-Esteem Girl” and “Melvin Goes to Dinner,” are thinking about, of all things, competitive sports.

Among about 120 features to be shown at the Austin festival — whose film portion runs for nine days, beginning on March 12 — are “Pelada,” a documentary that takes a deep look at the life of pick-up soccer players; “Hood to Coast,” another documentary about the world’s biggest relay race; and two sports-oriented documentaries from ESPN.

One of those, “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson,” examines a bowling alley brawl that landed Mr. Iverson, then a top high school basketball player, in jail. The other, “One Night in Vegas,” revisits a 1996 boxing match in which Mike Tyson struggled for a comeback, with support from his friend Tupac Shakur.
“There is a little sports motif going on,” acknowledged Janet Pierson, the producer of the festival’s film portion. But in other ways the lineup remains true to the spirit of a festival that has generally taken pride in finding films that are not sleek enough for Sundance.

One of the more raucous offerings this year is “Kick-Ass,” an opening-night film which, in Ms. Pierson’s description, “no other festival would be playing.” Directed by Matthew Vaughn (“Stardust”) and scheduled to be released on April 16 by Lionsgate, it is the story of a high school superhero without superpowers.

In the same vein Jorma Taccone’s “MacGruber,” a film about an action hero with 16 Purple Hearts that is based on a recurring “Saturday Night Live” skit, will play the festival before its April 23 release by Universal Pictures and Rogue Pictures.
Ms. Pierson said the festival had about 4,000 submissions this year, a record, and up from around 3,600 last year. About 800 were narrative features, about 700 were feature-length documentaries, and the rest were shorts.

The eight films that qualified for the narrative feature competition are “Brotherhood,” directed by Will Canon; “Dance With the One,” by Mike Dolan; “Earthling,” by Clay Liford; “Helena From the Wedding,” by Joseph Infantolino; “The Myth of the American Sleepover,” by David Robert Mitchell; “Phillip the Fossil,” by Garth Donovan; “Some Days Are Better Than Others,” by Matt McCormick; and “Tiny Furniture,” by Lena Dunham.

Known as a launching pad for comedies like “Knocked Up” and “I Love You, Man,” the festival this year includes a documentary, “American: the Bill Hicks Story,” about a comedian who became a cult figure among the Austin crowd before his death from pancreatic cancer in 1994.

Ms. Pierson said festivalgoers have sometimes mistakenly assumed that South by Southwest would be heavy with music-oriented films because of its associated annual musical gathering.

At least a dozen music-driven movies are on this year’s schedule. They include “The Runaways,” in which Kristen Stewart plays Joan Jett; “Lemmy,” a documentary about the Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister; and “For Once in My Life,” a documentary about a band whose members have a range of mental and physical disabilities.

original post by:By MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: February 3, 2010
at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/movies/04sxsw.html?ref=movies