EXCLUSIVE: Two years removed from his debut film Shithouse winning top prize at SXSW the year that fest became the first one canceled by the Covid pandemic, writer/director Cooper Raiff will finally get his moment to take a bow in Austin.
Apple, which acquired Raiff’s Sundance Audience Award winning followup Cha Cha Real Smooth for $15 million, has set that film as one of five titles that the streamer will send to SXSW. Cha Cha Real Smooth will get a SXSW screening Friday, March 18 followed by a conversation with the cast and filmmakers. The cast didn’t have the ability to do that in January when Sundance went virtual because of the Omicron spike. Cha Cha Real Smooth won the Sundance Audience Award.
“It’s so exciting to be able to add two wonderful new titles to the lineup for the 2022 Film Festival, as part of the outstanding selection of wide-ranging work that Apple TV+ is bringing to SXSW this year,” said Janet Pierson, VP, Director of Film, SXSW. “Not only did we fall in love with Cha Cha Real Smooth at Sundance, we jumped at the chance to finally host SXSW 2020 Grand Prize Award-winning filmmaker Cooper Raiff for his first in-person festival premiere (ever) with this new film. The Big Conn is a riveting, fascinating limited series we know our audience will embrace.”
Apple has also added a SXSW global premieres of Big Conn, the 4-part docu on Eric C. Conn and his theft of over $500 million from Social Security coffers, a series by the makers of McMillion$; and Apple is also bringing the previously announced SXSW premieres WeCrashed, the 8-episode series from Lee Eisenberg and Drew Crevello about WeWork that stars Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway; the four-part Magic Johnson documentary They Call Me Magic, and the Elizabeth Moss and Wagner Moura-starrer Shining Girls.
