by Larry Richman
March 9, 2008 9:08 AM

Saturday was the first full day of the 2008 SXSW Film Festival and filled with wall-to-wall action for this reporter. My day began at the Austin Convention Center press room where I spent a couple of hours interviewing and just generally having a good time with Dance of the Dead director Gregg Bishop and lead actors Greyson Chadwick and Jared Kusnitz (whose film Otis had its World Premiere just a few hours earlier). You'll see some photos along with that interview soon.

My moviegoing then kicked into high gear as I headed to the Alamo Ritz for the World Premiere of A Necessary Death, which I'd previewed a week earlier. After that came a trip to the Alamo South Lamar, a larger venue than the Ritz and a bit slicker, but still retaining the funky flair that the Alamo is known for. There I saw my first documentary of the festival, American Teen, in which filmmaker Nanette Burstein chronicles a year in the life of a group of high school kids from Warsaw, Indiana.

The next event on my list was one of the most highly anticipated of the festival -- the World Premiere of Explicit Ills. The directorial debut from fellow Philadelphian Mark Webber was sold out and did not disappoint. In fact, it blew me away (NOTE: Explicit Ills went on to win the SXSW Film Festival awards for Best Cinematography and Best Narrative Feature). My day ended with a special treat -- a "secret" screening of a film not on the SXSW official schedule. Readers of this blog know of my fondness for All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, one of my Top Picks of the past two years of festival-going. Director Jonathan Levine's followup feature, The Wackness, just premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was immediately acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. I wasn't able to catch it at the time. Fortunately, The Wackness was presented in a special midnight screening on Saturday night and I was privileged to have been invited to attend. It was quite an unexpected surprise and a terrific way to end the day.

Reviews will be posted momentarily, along with pictures of the Q&As which followed A Necessary Death, Explicit Ills, and The Wackness.