SXSW Film Alumni Releases – May 2021

Say goodbye to Spring showers and hello to May alumni releases including the tale of a sound engineer and an aspiring musician in Sound of Violence; the tangled, comical journey of a modern day romance, Rare Beasts; season three of The Girlfriend Experience; and more.

Read about May's releases and where to watch below. Subscribe to Film Community Newsletters to stay up to date with Film news and more from SXSW.

Drunk Bus

World Premiere, Narrative Feature, 2020

Michael (Charlie Tahan, OZARK) is a recent graduate whose post-college plan is derailed when his girlfriend leaves him for a job in New York City. When the bus service hires a security guard to watch over the night shift, Michael comes face to tattooed face with Pineapple, a 300-pound punk rock Samoan.

In Theatres, Drive-ins, Virtual Cinema and TVOD May 21.

The Girlfriend Experience

World Premiere, Episodic, 2021

The Girlfriend Experience Season 3 is set amidst the London tech scene and focuses on Iris, a neuroscience major. As she begins to explore the transactional world of The Girlfriend Experience, Iris quickly learns that her client sessions provide her with a compelling edge in the tech world and vice versa. She then begins to question whether her actions are driven by free will, or something else altogether, and heads down a deep path of exploration.

Broadcasts on Starz, May 2.

The Initiation (formerly Dembanger)

World Premiere, Narrative Feature, 2020

A murder during a university’s pledge week ignites a spree of sinister social-media messages and a race against time to stop a killer before he strikes again.

In Theatres, May 7.

Profile

North American Premiere, Narrative Feature, 2018

Profile follows an undercover British journalist in her quest to bait and expose a terrorist recruiter through social media, while trying not to be sucked in by her recruiter and lured into becoming a militant extremist herself.

In Theaters, May 14.

Rare Beasts

North American Premiere, Narrative Feature, 2020

Rare Beasts is the dark, funny, failed love story of Mandy and Pete. Mandy is a modern woman in a crisis. Raising a son, Larch (Toby Woolf), in the midst of a female revolution, mining the pain of her parents’ separation and professionally writing about a love that no longer exists, she falls upon a troubled man, Pete (Leo Bill), who is searching for a sense of worth, belonging and ‘restored’ male identity.

In theaters, May 21.

Sound of Violence

World Premiere, Narrative Feature, 2021

Alexis, a sound engineer, helps an aspiring musician, Josh, win the drum machine of his dreams in a competition in a mall. She mentors him and helps him find his groove to compose the winning beat. Once he submits his creation, it triggers a chain reaction revealing the competition booth to be a gruesome contraption. Through Josh's beat and a horrific death, Alexis' creative design comes to fruition directing the macabre music she envisioned.

On Demand, May 21.

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