SXSW 2016: Features Lineup Announced

After a sneak peek announcement of a selection of titles early last month, SXSW has just released their initial list of features, with additional announcements to come shortly. 47 of the 104 features and episodics announced so far are documentaries. Following is the list of documentary features, broken down by section:

Headliners:
Big name, big talent.

TONY ROBBINS: I AM NOT YOUR GURU
Joe Berlinger
Granted unprecedented access, Joe Berlinger 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.

Documentary Feature Competition:
Ten world premieres selected from 1013 submissions.

ACCIDENTAL COURTESY: DARYL DAVIS, RACE & AMERICA
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.

ALIVE AND KICKING
Susan Glatzer
Glatzer 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.

BEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS (pictured)
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.

GOODNIGHT BROOKLYN – THE STORY OF DEATH BY AUDIO
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.

THE LIBERATORS
Cassie Hay
A tiny Texas town. $350 million worth of medieval treasure. The discovery is just the beginning.

ORANGE SUNSHINE
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.

OVARIAN PSYCOS
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.

THE SEER
Laura Dunn
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.

THE SPACE IN BETWEEN – MARINA ABRAMOVIC AND BRAZIL
Marco Del Fiol
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?

TOWER
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

Documentary Spotlight:
Non-competitive nonfiction section.

ASPERGER’S ARE US
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.

THE BANDIT
Jesse Moss
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.

BEWARE THE SLENDERMAN
Irene Taylor Brodsky
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.

CHICKEN PEOPLE (pictured)
Nicole Lucas Haimes
In a high stakes world where a single broken feather can mean a shattered dream, Haimes follows the trials and tribulations of those who breed exotic birds in the world of competitive poultry.

THE DWARVENAUT
Josh Bishop
A dreamlike documentary chronicling Brooklyn-based artist Stefan Pokorny’s lifelong quest to inspire humanity through the one medium he knows best: Dungeons & Dragons.

FANTASTIC LIES
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.

HIT IT HARD
Gabe Spitzer and 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.

THE HOLLYWOOD SHORTIES
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.

THE INCOMPARABLE ROSE HARTMAN
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.

INSATIABLE: THE HOMARO CANTU STORY
Brett A. Schwartz
Chef and inventor Homaro Cantu helped put Chicago on the culinary map and wanted to change the world. Schwartz takes you on a dizzying and thrilling ride with Cantu, in a story that moves from redemption and inspiration to tragedy and back again.

LEARNING TO SEE
Jake Oelman
One man’s transformational journey to find the Amazon’s strangest creatures.

MR GAGA
Tomer Heymann
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.

SEVEN SONGS FOR A LONG LIFE
Amy Hardie
The intimate story behind our changing relationship with death – with great songs!

SILICON COWBOYS
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

THE SLIPPERS
Morgan White
Pulling back the Wizard’s curtain to reveal the unbelievable story of Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers from THE WIZARD OF OZ, their impact on popular culture, and the now multi-million dollar a year industry of Hollywood memorabilia collecting.

STARVING THE BEAST: THE BATTLE TO DISRUPT AND REFORM AMERICA’S PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES
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.

THANK YOU DEL: THE DEL CLOSE MARATHON
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.

Visions:
The festival’s risk-taking, innovative section.

I AM BELFAST
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.

IN PURSUIT OF SILENCE
Patrick Shen
A meditative film that explores our relationship with silence, sound, and the impact of noise on our lives.

MY BEAUTIFUL BROKEN BRAIN
Sophie Robinson and 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.

UNDER THE SUN (pictured)
Vitaly Mansky
“My father says that Korea is the most beautiful country,” says schoolgirl Zin-mi. Despite continuous interference by government handlers, Mansky reveals a never-before-seen glimpse of one family’s life in North Korea.

24 Beats Per Second:
The fest’s music and musician focused section.

THE AMERICAN EPIC SESSIONS
Bernard MacMahon
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
Quincy ‘QD3’ Jones, III
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.

ARTIST & REPERTOIRE
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.

BANG! THE BERT BERNS STORY
Brett Berns and 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.

GARY NUMAN: ANDROID IN LA LA LAND
Steve Read and 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. A celebration of a music-making pioneer and the love story that helped him turn his life around.

HONKY TONK HEAVEN: LEGEND OF THE BROKEN SPOKE
Sam Wainwright Douglas and 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.

I GO BACK HOME – JIMMY SCOTT
Yoon-ha Chang
Meet 54-year-old Ralf Kemper, a successful German music producer, who takes on the journey to produce a record with the almost-forgotten jazz icon Jimmy Scott.

MISS SHARON JONES!
Barbara Kopple
Dreams never expire, but sometimes they are deferred. Kopple 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
Keith Maitland
From Willie Nelson to Wilco, Ray Charles to Radiohead, Maitland offers the ultimate backstage pass to 40 years of incredible music from the longest-running music show in television history.

SOUNDBREAKING – STORIES FROM THE CUTTING EDGE OF RECORDED MUSIC (pictured)
Jeff Dupre and 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.

THE SMART STUDIOS STORY
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.

WE ARE X
Stephen Kijak
X Japan led a hard rock cultural revolution in Japan during the late 80’s. Twenty years after their tragedy-fueled collapse, Kijak tells the story of the most influential band in the world that you’ve never heard of… yet.

SX Global:
An international showcase.

DEAD SLOW AHEAD
Mauro Herce
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.

GHOSTLAND (pictured)
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.

YARN
Una Lorenzen, Thordur Jonsson, and Heather Millard
International artists and knitters take a simple skein of yarn to create their extraordinary ideas and stories.