SXSW film lineup announced: docs on X Japan, Tony Robbins, Marina Abramovic, and 'Bandit' Burt Reynolds

More than three dozen non-fiction films will be showcased, including work by Barbara Kopple, Joe Berlinger and Stephen Kijak

South By Southwest has announced a festival lineup rich in documentaries, including world premieres and one doc that rocked Sundance.

​Among the nonfiction films on the schedule is the world premiere of TOWER, directed by Keith Maitland, an examination of the devastating school shooting which took place on the University of Texas campus in Austin in 1966. 

"Combining archival footage with rotoscopic animation in a dynamic, never-before-seen way, TOWER reveals the action-packed untold stories of the witnesses, heroes and survivors of America’s first mass school shooting, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others," SXSW said in its online catalogue.

An image from "Tower," a documentary by Keith Maitland which will premiere at SXSW. Image courtesy SXSW

Another disturbing news event is the basis for the documentary Beware the Slenderman, directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky. It explores the tale of a pair of 12-year-old girls who were inspired by a mysterious internet boogeyman, "Slenderman," to plot the murder of a friend. ​

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Stephen Kijak's documentary We Are X, which caused a sensation among Japanese rock fans last week at the Sundance Film Festival, will be screened at SXSW as well. It revolves around Yoshiki, the mysterious figure behind Japan's biggest rock group, X Japan​.

While X Japan is not well known in the U.S., the devotion of the band's international fanbase should not be underestimated. 

"I don't think I've ever seen anything like it other than possibly the crazy days of the Stones and the Beatles," We Are X producer John Battsek told Nonfictionfilm.com. 

"It's very Japanese, it's very gothic. It's operatic," Kijak told NFF of his film. "It's got plot points that I don't think you've ever seen in a  traditional rock documentary -- weird layers of tragedy that are so much more melodramatic I think than I've seen anywhere else."

SXSW will play host to the world premiere of Joe Berlinger's latest documentary, Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru. The festival says the film "captures internationally renowned life and business strategist and best-selling author, Tony Robbins, in a revelatory cinéma vérité film that goes behind the scenes of his mega once-a-year seminar 'Date With Destiny.'"

The full slate of documentaries to be screened at SXSW [descriptions provided by the festival]:

Documentary Feature Competition: 

Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America
Director: Matt Ornstein
Daryl Davis has an unusual hobby. As a musician he has played with legends like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, but in his spare time he likes to meet and befriend members of the Ku Klux Klan. Join Daryl on his personal quest to understand racism. (World Premiere)

Alive and Kicking
Director/Screenwriter: Susan Glatzer
Alive and Kicking gives the audience an intimate, insider’s view into the culture of the current swing dance world while shedding light on issues facing modern American society. (World Premiere)

Best and Most Beautiful Things
Director: Garrett Zevgetis
In a celebration of outcasts everywhere, a precocious young blind woman disappears into quirky obsessions and isolation. With humor and bold curiosity, she chases love and freedom in the most unexpected of places: a provocative fringe community. (World Premiere)

Goodnight Brooklyn - The Story of Death By Audio
Director: Matthew Conboy
Death By Audio, an underground art and music venue, is forced to close in 2014. The film focuses on the struggles of maintaining a community in the face of Brooklyn property development, hostile construction workers and a one billion-dollar company. (World Premiere)

The Liberators
Director: Cassie Hay
A tiny Texas town. $350 million worth of medieval treasure. The discovery is just the beginning. (World Premiere)

Orange Sunshine
Director/Screenwriter: William A. Kirkley
The never-before-told story of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love – a spiritual group of surfers and hippies in California who became the largest suppliers of LSD and Hash in the world during the 60s and 70s. (World Premiere)

Ovarian Psycos
Directors: Joanna Sokolowski, Kate Trumbull-LaValle
In East Los Angeles, three young misfit women find solace in an unapologetic, feminist bicycle crew. They call themselves the Ovarian Psycos Bicycle Brigade. (World Premiere)

The Seer
Director: Laura Dunn
The Seer is a cinematic portrait of farmer and writer Wendell Berry. Through his eyes, we see both the changing landscapes of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture and the redemptive beauty in taking the unworn path. (World Premiere)

The Space in Between - Marina Abramovic and Brazil (Brazil)
Director: Marco Del Fiol, Screenwriters: Marco Del Fiol, Marina Abramovic, Fabiana Werneck Barcinski
In search of personal healing and artistic inspiration, Marina Abramovic travels through Brazil experiencing sacred rituals and exploring the limits between art and spirituality. How far will she go to create another work of art? (World Premiere)

TOWER
Director: Keith Maitland
An animated and action-packed look at America’s first mass school shooting, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others. (World Premiere) 

Headliners section:

Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru
Director: Joe Berlinger
Granted unprecedented access, Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru captures renowned life and business strategist Tony Robbins behind the scenes of his mega seminar Date with Destiny, pulling back the curtain on this life-altering and controversial event. (World Premiere)

Documentary Spotlight section:

Asperger's Are Us
Director: Alex Lehmann
In this coming of age documentary, four friends on the autism spectrum whom have bonded through humor and performed as the comedy troupe Asperger’s Are Us will prepare for one final, ambitious show before going their separate ways. (World Premiere)

The Bandit
Director: Jesse Moss
The Bandit is a film about 70s superstar Burt Reynolds, his best friend, roommate and stunt-double Hal Needham, and the making of their unlikely smash-hit Smokey & The Bandit. (World Premiere)

Beware the Slenderman
Director: Irene Taylor Brodsky
Beware the Slenderman tells the story of a Boogeyman lurking on the internet and two 12-year-old girls who would kill for him. A horrifyingly modern tragedy, this film explores children’s accountability in the online age. (World Premiere)

Chicken People
Director: Nicole Lucas Haimes
In a high stakes world where a single broken feather can mean a shattered dream, Chicken People follows the trials and tribulations of those who breed exotic birds in the world of competitive poultry. (World Premiere)

The Dwarvenaut
Director: Josh Bishop
The Dwarvenaut is a dreamlike documentary chronicling Brooklyn-based artist Stefan Pokorny's lifelong quest to inspire humanity through the one medium he knows best: Dungeons & Dragons. (World Premiere)

Fantastic Lies
Director: Marina Zenovich
Ten years after the Duke Lacrosse case exploded into the national media, we revisit the case which divided America and explore how it affected the lives of those involved. (World Premiere)

Hit it Hard
Directors: Gabe Spitzer, David Terry Fine
Hitting it hard is the only way John Daly knows. It's how he plays golf. It's how he lives life. After 25 years of extreme highs and devastating lows, this film explores why Daly has remained one of America's most beloved athletes. (World Premiere)

The Hollywood Shorties
Director/Screenwriter: Ryan Steven Green
In 1980s Los Angeles, a professional dwarf basketball team composed of recognizable-but-typecast actors finds itself the unwitting vanguard of a revolution to represent little people as something other than objects of curiosity. (World Premiere)

The Incomparable Rose Hartman
Director: Otis Mass
With a career spanning decades Photographer Rose Hartman is known for her iconic photos from Studio 54 and the fashion world, her boisterous personality and ever presence capturing the New York social scene. (World Premiere)

Insatiable: The Homaro Cantu Story
Director: Brett A. Schwartz
Chef and inventor Homaro Cantu helped put Chicago on the culinary map and wanted to change the world. Insatiable takes you on a dizzying and thrilling ride with Cantu, in a story that moves from redemption and inspiration to tragedy and back again. (World Premiere)

Learning To See
Director: Jake Oelman
One man's transformational journey to find the Amazon's strangest creatures. (World Premiere)

Mr. Gaga (Israel)
Director/Screenwriter: Tomer Heymann
Mr. Gaga tells the story of Ohad Naharin, renowned choreographer and artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company, an artistic genius who redefined the language of modern dance. (North American Premiere)

Seven Songs for a Long Life (UK)
Director: Amy Hardie
The intimate story behind our changing relationship with death – with great songs! (North American Premiere)

Silicon Cowboys
Director: Jason Cohen, Screenwriters: Steven Leckart, Jason Cohen
Three friends dream up a portable computer at a Texas diner in 1981, and soon battle IBM, the world's most powerful tech company, for PC supremacy. Compaq Computer's improbable journey altered the future of computing and shaped the world we now know. (World Premiere)

The Slippers (Canada)
Director: Morgan White, Screenwriters: Derek Lageunesse, Morgan White
The Slippers pulls back the Wizards curtain the unbelievable story of Dorothy's Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz, and their impact on popular culture, and the now multi-million dollar a year industry of Hollywood memorabilia collecting. (World Premiere)

Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities
Director/Screenwriter: Steve Mims
The story of money, power and politics and the well organized, yet little noticed, efforts to radically disrupt and reform America’s public universities. (World Premiere)

Thank You Del: The Story of the Del Close Marathon
Director: Todd Bieber
Fifteen years after Del Close’s death, thousands of comedians (both famous and unknown) gather to celebrate modern comedy's most important person that no one knows. (World Premiere)

24 Beats Per Second section: 

The American Epic Sessions
Director: Bernard MacMahon, Screenwriters: Bernard MacMahon, Allison McGourty, Duke Erikson
On the 90th anniversary of the first electrical sound recordings, twenty of today’s greatest artists test their skills against the lost recording machine that first gave America her voice.

The Art of Organized Noize
Director: Quincy 'QD3' Jones, III Screenwriter: Joshua A. Krause
Organized Noize shaped the landscape of Hip Hop music with a distinct sound created in the confines of a dungeon. They're responsible for the careers of Outkast, CeeLo, Goodie Mob and the Dungeon Family. This is the story of the Art of Organized. (World Premiere)

Artist & Repertoire (UK)
Director: Matthew Jones
A pulsating documentary charting the extraordinary life and career of underground DJ icon, music producer and global trip hop mogul, James Lavelle. Starring DJ Shadow, 3D of Massive Attack, Futura, Ian Brown, Grandmaster Flash and Josh Homme. (World Premiere)

BANG! The Bert Berns Story
Directors: Brett Berns, Bob Sarles
Music meets the Mob in this biographical documentary about the meteoric career and tragic life of Bert Berns, the most important '60s songwriter that you never heard of. His hits include Twist & Shout, Hang On Sloopy, and Piece Of My Heart. (World Premiere)

Gary Numan: Android In La La Land (UK)
Directors: Steve Read, Rob Alexander
The Godfather of electronic music is on a one-way trip to crack America, returning to the studio for the first time in nearly a decade. Android is a celebration of a music-making pioneer and the love story that helped him turn his life around. (World Premiere)

Honky Tonk Heaven: Legend of the Broken Spoke
Directors: Sam Wainwright Douglas, Brenda Greene Mitchell
The Broken Spoke has hosted country greats like George Strait, Willie Nelson, Ernest Tubb, Bob Wills, George Jones and Roy Acuff. A profile of “the last of the true Texas dance halls” and the tenacious family keeping it alive amid rapid urban growth. (World Premiere)

I Go Back Home - Jimmy Scott (Germany/USA)
Director: Yoon-ha Chang
In I go back home - Jimmy Scott we meet 54 year old Ralf Kemper, a successful German music producer. He takes on the journey to produce a record with the almost forgotten jazz icon Jimmy Scott. (World Premiere)

Miss Sharon Jones!
Director: Barbara Kopple
Dreams never expire, but sometimes they are deferred. Miss Sharon Jones! tracks the talented and gregarious soul singer of the Grammy-nominated R&B band Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings during the most challenging year of her life.

A Song For You: The Austin City Limits Story
Director: Keith Maitland
From Willie Nelson to Wilco, Ray Charles to Radiohead, A Song For You: The Austin City Limits Story offers the ultimate backstage pass to 40 years of incredible music from the longest running music show in television history. (World Premiere)

Soundbreaking - Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music
Directors: Jeff Dupre, Maro Chermayeff
An eight-part series that explores the nexus of cutting-edge technology and human artistry that has created the soundtrack of our lives. (World Premiere)

The Smart Studios Story
Director: Wendy Schneider
From the outside Smart Studios looked like just another Midwestern warehouse left behind by the economic decline of the 1980s. No one could have guessed what was going on inside – and how it would soon change the sound of music forever. (World Premiere)
​
We Are X (UK/USA)
Director: Stephen Kijak
X Japan led a hard rock cultural revolution in Japan during the late 80’s. Twenty years after their tragedy-fueled collapse, We Are Xtells the story of the most influential band in the world that you've never heard of...yet. 

Visions section:

I Am Belfast (UK)
Director/Screenwriter: Mark Cousins
A visual, poetic depiction of Belfast and its citizens, told with love and passion by someone who has left the city many years ago but is still fascinated by it. (North American Premiere)

In Pursuit of Silence
Director: Patrick Shen
In Pursuit of Silence is a meditative film that explores our relationship with silence, sound, and the impact of noise on our lives. (North American Premiere)
​
My Beautiful Broken Brain (UK)
Directors: Sophie Robinson, Lotje Sodderland
Her brain is broken. Her mind is limitless. A film about a young woman's cerebral hemorrhage with outcomes no one could have predicted. (North American Premiere)

​Under the Sun (Czech Republic/Germany/Korea/Democratic People's Republic of Latvia, Russian Federation)
Director: Vitaly Mansky
“My father says that Korea is the most beautiful country," says schoolgirl Zin-mi. Despite continuous interference by government handlers, Under The Sun reveals a never-before-seen glimpse of one family's life in North Korea. (North American Premiere)


SXGlobal section:

Dead Slow Ahead (Spain)
Director: Mauro Herce, Screenwriters: Mauro Herce, Manuel Muñoz
A freighter crosses the ocean. The hypnotic rhythm of its gears reveals the continuous movement of machinery devouring its workers: the last gestures of the old sailors' trade disappearing under the mechanic pace of 21st century. (U.S. Premiere)
​
Ghostland (Germany)
Director: Simon Stadler
For the first time the Ju/Hoansi Bushmen travel through the Kalahari and then right into the heart of Europe. What starts as a look at their fascinating culture becomes an even more fascinating look on our Western lifestyle. (North American Premiere)

​YARN (Iceland)
Directors: Una Lorenzen, Thordur Jonsson, Heather Millard, Screenwriters: Krishan Arora, Barbara Kingsolver
International artists and knitters take a simple skein of yarn to create their extraordinary ideas and stories. (World Premiere)