Adam's Apple, DreamQuil, Forbidden Fruits, Hokum, I Love Boosters, Manhood, Mile End Kicks, Over Your Dead Body, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, SXSW 2026, The Comeback, The Sun Never Sets, Their Town, We Are The Shaggs
Filmmaker is heading to the 40th edition of SXSW, where myself and several talented contributors will be on the ground filing interviews and dispatches from various corners of Austin’s city limits. This year’s lineup is massive—with 119 feature films alone—and we happily assume the daunting role of covering buzzy world premieres and hidden gems alike.
Speaking of world premieres, there’s an expected emphasis on genre fare among this year’s crop. Irish low-budget maverick Damian McCarthy scales up with Hokum, a folk-tinged rental house horror that provokes chills through its trailer alone. This releases via Neon just two and a half weeks after its SXSW debut, but festivalgoers would be wise to get in on the ground floor here. The same could be said for Over Your Dead Body, The Lonely Island member Jorma Taccone’s first directorial effort since the beloved mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016). This time he focuses on a couple (Jason Segel and Samara Weaving) whose relationship has curdled to the point where a remote cabin vacation harbors mutual plots to murder the other. Weaving also returns in Radio Silence’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, which picks up where her bloodied bride character left off in the gonzo first installment from 2019.
It’s worth mentioning that two films at the festival will grace the pages of Filmmaker’s forthcoming print issue. There’s I Love Boosters, Boots Riley’s follow-up to Sorry to Bother You (2018) and similarly SXSW-premiering episodic effort I’m a Virgo (2023). The synopsis on the festival’s website reads: “A crew of professional shoplifters take aim at a cutthroat fashion maven. It’s like community service.” As with Riley’s previous film, the means of production threaten to be seized here, and star Keke Palmer feels perfectly tuned into the rapper-turned-filmmaker’s absurdist funny bone. And a most appropriate companion to the festival’s longstanding concert showcase is Chandler Levack’s Montreal music scene–set Mile End Kicks, which screens at the festival post its TIFF world premiere last fall. A conversation between Levack and fellow Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari, wherein they discuss a
Source: filmmakermagazine.com