SXSW 2022 — 5 Standout Documentaries

Over the course of nine days, the 2022 SXSW Film Festival screened 101 features including 76 World Premieres, 4 International Premieres, 4 North American Premieres, 2 U.S. Premieres, 14 Texas Premieres, plus 111 Short Films including 24 Music Videos, 12 Episodic Premieres, 6 Episodic Pilots, 30 XR Experience projects (formerly Virtual Cinema), and 19 Title Design Competition entries.

For me, this year the standouts were the documentaries. With a wide range of subjects and interests, many of the films that premiered at SXSW 2022 will soon be available on several streaming outlets. Full disclosure: I tend to favor documentaries that tell the stories of heroes’ journeys.

Here are 5 documentaries guaranteed to enlighten and inspire:

Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down

The extraordinary story of former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords: her relentless fight to recover following an assassination attempt in 2011, and her new life as one of the most effective activists in the battle against gun violence. Featuring extensive vérité filming of Gabby and her husband, astronaut-turned-Senator Mark Kelly; interviews with Barack Obama and other friends and colleagues; and exclusive access to stunning videos taken in the weeks following her near-death, this film is the story of a rising star transformed by gun violence, and a close-up portrait of the marriage that sustains her.

We Feed The People

What great timing as renowned chef José Andrés and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen’s step up to feed Ukrainian refugees. The film highlights the incredible mission and evolution over 12 years, from being a scrappy group of grassroots volunteers to becoming one of the most highly regarded humanitarian aid organizations in the disaster relief sector.

Sheryl

Anyone who was in Austin and witnessed the ups and downs of musical icon Sheryl Crow’s tumultuous relationship with cyclist Lance Armstrong will be intrigued by this documentary. I was completely fascinated by her struggles, her courage and her honesty. The film is an intimate story of song and sacrifice by Crow as she navigates an iconic yet arduous musical career battling sexism, ageism, depression, cancer, and the price of fame.

Told through present-day interviews with Crow, behind-the-
scenes vérité on the road and in her studio, never before seen archival footage spanning 20 years of touring, and a handful of interviews with close allies Keith Richards, Laura Dern, Joe Walsh, Emmylou Harris, Brandi Carlile, and others, this is Crow’s life. Her early gift of music and songwriting set her on an
unapologetic path of perfection — a path which ultimately became both a blessing and a curse to overcome.

What We Leave Behind

El Paso filmmaker Iliana Sosa’s feature documentary debut was the winner of two awards, The Louis Black “Lone Star” Award, a juried prize created to honor SXSW co-founder and director Louis Black, and the Fandor New Voices Award. The awards are well-deserved and this is an absolutely beautiful film.
At the age of 89, Sosa’s abuelo, Julián, takes one last bus ride to El Paso, Texas, to visit his daughters and their children—a lengthy trip he’s made without fail every month for decades. After returning to rural Mexico, he quietly starts building a house in the empty lot next to his home. In the absence of his physical visits, can this new house bridge the distance between his loved ones?

Sosa films her grandfather’s work, gently sifting through Julián’s previously unspoken memories and revealing both the pragmatism and poetry of his life. What We Leave Behind unfolds as a love letter to her grandfather, as well as an intimate
exploration of her own relationship with him and his homeland.

Bad Axe

Winner of the both the Audience Documentary Feature Film Award and the Special Jury Recognition for Exceptional Intimacy in Storytelling Award, Bad Axe tells the story of an Asian-American family fighting to survive in Trump’s America. After leaving NYC for his rural hometown of Bad Axe, Michigan at the start of the pandemic, the filmmaker documents his family’s struggles to keep their restaurant open. As fears of the virus grow, deep generational scars dating back to the Cambodian Killing Fields unearth between the family’s patriarch, Chun, and his
daughter, Jaclyn. When the BLM movement takes center stage in America, the family members use their voice to speak out in a hometown where Trumpism runs deep. What unfolds is a real-time portrait of 2020 through the lens of this multicultural family’s fight to keep their American dream alive in the face of a pandemic, Neo-Nazis, and the trauma of having survived a genocide.