Like its well-fed folks, the film fest is swelling

AUSTIN, Texas -- You see them uplinking everywhere: bloggers, techies and assorted Internet enthusiasts (don’t call them geeks) hunched over laptops, tapping away at iPhones and wielding digital video recorders with the kind of abandon more commonly associated with Japanese tourism than film festival revelry.

To be sure, connectivity is everything at the South By Southwest Film Conference & Festival, which opened Friday in the tech-savvy state capital -- Texas’ quintessential college town and its alternative hipster mecca.

Judging from the number of high-profile studio films in this year’s lineup and listening to movie industry executives here, South By Southwest’s film conference finally is coming out from under its reputation as poor cousin to its revered sister music fest. That’s in large part because SXSW (as the festival is colloquially known) learned long ago to stop worrying and love the blog.

“We understand the power of the Internet,” said SXSW producer Matt Dentler. “We embrace blog culture as much as we would the mainstream press, and we have from the beginning. We get it.”

They were so determined to attract “digital creatives” and showcase new technologies, organizers opted to create a third companion event, the SXSW Interactive Conference and Festival, which also opened Friday and runs through today.

It’s a deeply felt conviction but also a business model that other premier events including the Sundance Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival are beginning to study closely.

John Cooper, the Sundance Film Festival’s director of programming, admitted that he came to SXSW to do reconnaissance. “Sundance is where industry meets film,” he said at a party on Austin’s main club drag, 6th Street. “Here, it’s where Internet meets film. I’m here to try to learn how to try to reach that audience. It’s amazing. It’s like they imported all the interactive people from Williamsburg, Silver Lake and San Francisco’s SoMa district.”

Added Michael Pilla, IndieFlix’s vice president of distribution and business development: “It’s all about convergence. Here, you’re exposed to a world of new ideas.”

Hollywood comes to town

Last year, the Judd Apatow-directed, R-rated goofball romance “Knocked Up” premiered at the festival, and executives at the film’s distributor Universal partly credit SXSW with creating an early viral buzz about the film that helped translate into a domestic box-office gross of nearly $150 million.

Hoping to capture some of that interactive lightning in a bottle for a second consecutive year, Apatow returned to SXSW last night with another romantic comedy he produced, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” starring Jason Segel as an underemployed musician struggling to get over being dumped by his television star girlfriend (Kristen Bell).

In addition to the kind of gritty DIY films that have become a staple of SXSW, you’ve got the world premiere of “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.” While it’s difficult to imagine this lowbrow sequel to New Line’s cultishly popular stoner comedy “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” factoring into, say, the Telluride Film Festival, which is known for its hard-core cineaste aesthetic, Dentler feels that the inclusion of such studio fare represents evolution for SXSW.

“This year we’ve definitely done more red carpets and had more hands-on studio involvement than ever before,” he said. “When we have a big studio film premiere, all the talent is coming. Six, seven years ago that would never be the case. They’d give us the film and say, ‘Oh, yeah, do a special screening.’ Now the studios see SXSW as a press-slash-fan-culture opportunity.”

Lone Star state of mind

Appropriately enough, a suite of Texas-set films also features prominently in the festival lineup. With his debut feature, “Cook County,” writer-director (and University of Texas grad) David Pomes depicts how methamphetamine addiction brings devastation -- paranoia and poverty, inter-familial resentments and child neglect -- to an East Texas family.

“Boys Don’t Cry” writer-director Kimberly Peirce’s “Stop-Loss” follows a decorated Iraq war hero (Ryan Phillippe) who returns from the battlefield intent to resume civilian life in his small Texas hometown. When the military orders him to return to active duty against his wishes, however, his convictions about honor, friendship and family are shaken.

And director David Modigliani’s feature documentary “Crawford” examines how George W. Bush moved to the tiny Texas town in 1999, just months before making a run for the presidency, as a means of establishing a “man of the people” mythos to try to capture the popular vote.

It helps to understand that SXSW is a Texas thing above all else.

According to Chris Hyams, the Austin-based founder and chief executive of B-Side Entertainment -- a company that specializes in providing alternative forms of film exhibition and distribution -- the fortunes of the Texas film industry and SXSW are inextricably linked.

He points out that the influence of such local filmmakers as Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, the film program at the University of Texas and Austin’s 14 annual film festivals have helped legitimize SXSW, while reciprocally, the festival has focused attention on their hometown.

“Austin’s a great town for film fans,” Hyams said.

With its predilection for stick-to-your-ribs cuisine, the city isn’t necessarily great for their waistlines, however.

Over the weekend, Dentler was wearing a nylon Nike track suit procured by Peter Goldwyn, vice president of acquisitions at Samuel Goldwyn Films, and Tom Quinn, director of acquisitions for Magnolia Pictures.

“It’s an inside joke. They made a deal with Nike to supply these this year to help guests deal with all the Tex-Mex and the barbecue,” Dentler said. “It’s pretty hilarious, actually. They’re still going to movies, doing their jobs. But they eat a lot of barbecue. With the elastic waists, they won’t have to open the top button of their pants.”

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chris.lee@latimes.com