'Kid-Thing'

• SXSW Film

  Daily reviews and interviews

• Hurts So Good

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• From the Eyes of the Abused

  BY BELINDA ACOSTA

• 'Wonder Women!: The Untold Story of American Superheroines'

  BY ROBERT FAIRES

• 'The Do-Deca-Pentathlon'

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• 'Kid-Thing'

  BY ASHLEY MORENO

• 'Brooklyn Castle'

  BY NORA ANKRUM

• 'Bad Brains: Band in DC'

  BY JOSH ROSENBLATT

• 'Small Apartments'

  BY JAMES RENOVITCH

• 'V/H/S'

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

• 'The Source'

  BY NORA ANKRUM

• 'Chasing Ice'

  BY NORA ANKRUM

• 'Sunset Strip'

  BY MARC SAVLOV

• 'Under African Skies'

  BY JOSH ROSENBLATT

• 'Funeral Kings'

  BY NORA ANKRUM

• 'Documentary Shorts 1'

  BY LEAH CHURNER

• 'Documentary Shorts 2'

  BY LEAH CHURNER

• 'Modus Anomali'

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

• 'Crazy Eyes'

  BY JAMES RENOVITCH

• 'Scarlet Road'

  BY KATE X MESSER

• 'Lost and Sound'

  BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER

Kid-Thing
Festival Favorites
D: David Zellner; with Sydney Aguirre, Susan Tyrrell, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner

Local filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner's first feature since 2008's Goliath breaks several conventions. It opens with a demolition derby, but it isn't a comedy. It stars a child, but no one "comes of age." It follows a punk kid who steals candy from the gas station, but scrap any ideas about a freckle-faced boy in a baseball cap – the punk in question is a little blond girl named Annie (Aguirre). And the film features a lazy, indifferent father (Nathan Zellner), but he isn't a total jerk. (At times, he's even half likable.) When Annie stumbles upon a woman trapped in a well, her dad can't be bothered to get out of bed, leaving Annie to decide what to do in a world without conscience. With a strong soundtrack by Austin's the Octopus Project and beautiful shots of otherwise common places, Kid-Thing organically personalizes an old fable by surrendering the narrative to its protagonist.

Friday, March 16, 1:30pm, Paramount; Saturday, March 17, 5pm, SXSatellite: Alamo Slaughter