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SXSW Interview: Judith Keenan, ‘JPod’
Director: Judith Keenan
Film: “JPod”
Cateogry: Narrative Shorts (World Premiere)
Sites: Official | SXSW
Screening: 9:30 p.m. Saturday, March 10; Alamo Downtown
Film synopsis from SXSW.com: Adapted from Douglas Coupland’s novel of the same name, “JPod” centers on Ethan’s stunted but sincere efforts to win the amorous attentions of ‘the new girl’ Kaitin Boyce, an unwilling recruit to the survival cult of video game programmers, themselves thrown together in gray cubby-holed work-spaces by virtue of last-name bureaucratic alphabetized efficiency.
Is this your first time at SXSW? If not, what has your experience been like in previous years?
SXSW 2007 is the very first year I’ve attended the festival personally, although I have been an enormous fan since 1994. At that time, I was one of the three original founders of SonicNet, which eventually became MTV Online. Tim Nye, Donald Newman and later Nick Butterworth and Sam Brumbaugh would attend SXSW Music to try to get musicians, bands, labels and other music biz types hyped about getting online. Can you imagine that? LOL — just a short, what, DOZEN years ago! They always came back to our office in Manhattan ranting and raving, and quite rightly. We signed a lot of labels to the network because of SXSW. Ironic that when I do finally attend, it’s not for the Music Fest, not for Interactive (man, I musta launched dozens and dozens of companies online between ’94 and ’01) but for Film, the medium in which I am, in fact, quite the newbie.
What are your impressions of the festival compared to others of its kind around the country, and of Austin as a film town, in general?
Austin as a film town has been most excellent to me. Way back in 1994, I had just moved from Toronto to New York. I had just launched my own little PR agency, and was representing an author by the name of Douglas Cooper. He was a first time author, literary fiction, smallish publishing house. Long story short, we decided to make a short film to promote him and his book. No one had done that before.
It was the feature article in your paper, the Austin American-Statesman, covering the fact that we made that film based on his book, that launched his national tour and so catapulted him to so so much press coverage that we had to reprint the books twice, he toured a dozen U.S. cities, even signed a deal with (at the time) Time Warner Pathfinder and because the first-ever non-linear fiction writer published on the web and got signed to a second book deal. And that whole experience later became, what do ya know, voila, tah dah, BookShorts! So I’d say Austin is an excellent town for grabbing hold of new ideas and not being afraid to take the steps to kick ‘em out to the wider world.
What do you hope to take away from your time at the festival?
Man, if what happened twice now, with two of my previous companies, could happen again with BookShorts this time around, and I actually get to BE there to do it, that would be pretty great. That the BookShort we made based on Douglas Coupland’s novel of the same name piques enough interest from filmmakers, authors and distributors, especially new media distributors, that the idea catches on, that would be most excellent.
Why should audiences be excited to see your film?
Audiences should be excited to see “JPod” because (at least we think) it captures the spirit of Douglas Coupland’s biting humour, his insightful take on pop culture and ultimately the stuff he makes you ponder. Our screenwriter Bruce Pirrie said it best — in our JPod adaptation is about the relationship between Ethan and Kaitlin, about the fact that “everything” in their pod-world is in the way of the relationship, in the way of people actually communicating, of having a deep profound relationship with each other, including themselves.
Are there any other films screening that you hope to see?
The cool thing about being into short films is that you get to see a lot of ‘em in one sitting! I hope to see a lot of ‘em.
Any restaurants, parties, tourist locations you want to get to while in town? If you live in Austin, where do you suggest out-of-towners visit while in town?
It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to visit Austin — I drove my 1964 Chevy Impala from New York City to Austin and back, just because that’s what those cars were made for, but that was back in the late ’90s. It’ll be fun to see how the city has changed since then.
When you think of Texas and the movies, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
A laid-back intensity and freedom to explore.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: SXSW Directors Interviews
Comments
By Judith Keenan
March 13, 2007 12:32 PM | Link to this
Hey there Matthew, Just a follow up to your interview — the JPod screening was excellent, and all things point to SXSW being exactly the fantastic experience I hoped it would be! Check out the review on Wired’s Listening Post blog for just one of the squibs so far. Great films, appreciative audiences, lots and lots of new braintrust. You guys rock.
Judith