If you're reading this then we're guessing you didn't get to go to SXSW this year. If so, you have our sympathies - we didn't either. Bah!
But even if you have been lucky enough to attend the world-famous Texan festival of interactivity, music and film in the past, you probably didn't have time to enjoy many of the movies anyway. And you doubtless thought: "Never mind. If it's any good I'll probably get another chance to see it in a few months."
Sadly, though, the stranglehold big distributors have on mainstream cinemas means that's often not the case - even for the best indie movies. Which is why YouTube rival Vimeo stepped up exactly one year ago to launch a direct distribution platform, Vimeo On Demand, to give a thinking armchair audience worldwide an alternative to the 300 sequel down the multiplex.
Today Vimeo's celebrating the anniversary of the service by launching a completely redesigned experience. One element is the introduction of themed groups of titles, called collections, and the one that caught our eyes was 'Vimeo SXSW Favorites'.
This Vimeo-curated list includes staff favourites from SXSW Film Festivals of years past. From dark comedies to documentaries of fascinating subcultures, these films run a brilliant gamut of substance and style, including: $cellebrity; A Teacher; Beauty Is Embarrassing; Broadway Idiot; Hunky Dory; It’s Such a Beautiful Day; Medora; Some Girls; Sound City; Spark; and The Source Family.
You have to pay to watch them of course, but it's a darn sight cheaper than a night at the Hyatt during Austin's most expensive week. And if you want the full SXSW experience, then why not first spend 24 hours without sleep, drink a lot of beer out of plastic glasses and pound the streets for several hours before sitting down and enjoying the movie?
