Taking my Long Story Short Film to the SXSW Festival

F*ck me, it’s Andrew Scott. Or it’s a lookalike. A sexy priest lookalike. No, that’s definitely Andrew Scott. Say something. You’re the only two people on this giant bridge at 7:30 in the morning in Austin, Texas. He’s hot and sweaty. He’s been running. He’s in a sexy vest. He’s a sexy priest in a sexy vest. He’s looking at me. He’s staring. Maybe because I’m staring? Do I have something on my face? Maybe he’s admiring my pink hair. Or is he thinking what a colossal mistake the colour is. Say something. Quick!

SEXY PRIEST! Sorry. Hi. I’m Theo. No, I’m here for SXSW. I have a short film here. Jealous People Are Ugly People. No, that’s the title. It was commissioned by the lovely people at the BBC and produced by The Fold. Can I call you Andy? You should totally come to our screening. It’s happening two days from now. Today’s my first day. No, I flew in late last night on the red-eye on two hours sleep. I’m running on caffeine and pure adrenaline. Can you tell? You can’t? HAHAHAHA. You’re so funny, Andy.

I loved you in ALL OF US STRANGERS. Full-body sobs. If you can’t make our screening, you should come to this lunch I’ve been invited to today with every other director who has a film at the festival. I’m sure they’d let you in. Robert Rodriguez is scheduled to give an impassioned speech, and all the directors are given a free SXSW jacket, which I’m tempted to flog at a £250 retail price. But it has “Filmmakers Club” stitched on it, which is kinda nerdy but also great, so I’ll keep it. You’d look good in one, Andy. I’ll speak to another filmmaker while eating Texan barbecue and spend the majority of the conversation trying to dislodge a piece of beef brisket from my molars with my tongue while she talks to me about her short film, appropriately titled TONGUE, about a woman who cuts off her husband’s tongue, which sounds delightful. How many more times can I write “tongue”? What’s your tongue (1) like, Andy? Long!

After lunch we can head back into town, if you like. I’ll be going to meet my two producers, Issy and Jen from The Fold (sadly Michelle couldn’t make it), and we’ll drink frozen margs in the sun through a soggy straw and take up smoking Lucky Strikes again, because they don’t have those horrible signs of mouldy lungs and black tongues (2) over here, and we’ll watch monster trucks drive over muddy hills in the middle of the city because the whole place seems to have shut down for this festival. There’s an energy in the air, a real buzz, can you feel it, Andy? What’s Paul Mescal like to kiss?

Seeing as we’re becoming best friends, you should come out with us tonight. We’ll start a bar crawl in true Brits-on-tour fashion, and wake up the next morning full of fear and regret, gasping for water and wondering whether you should’ve tried to drive home on a Lime scooter, but luckily you forgot where the accelerator was and fell off, static, in the middle of the pavement, which is probably for the best. Then we can eat a breakfast burger the size of our faces, and you won’t worry about the calories because you’re Andy Scott: the sexy priest in a sexy vest. Amen.

I’ll need the nourishment to cure my hangover because Jen and I have a full day of meetings with different studios who have all seen the short film and asked about a feature version. You can join if you like? If you’re there, I’m pretty sure they’ll just give us the money to make it right away. You can star in it if you like. The premise is the same as the short. Or at least the Greek superstition is. Only this story is set on a Greek island for a sten-do, so it’ll basically be like a long holiday, only this one will be fuelled with jealousy and envy and evil eyes and lots of f*cked-up stuff happening to a group of friends.

Now that you’re gonna star in my feature and we’re BFF, you can come to our screening and pose in front of the big yellow wall with all the SXSW logos on it, and we can play Wham!’s Club Tropicana and dance, and do the fandango, and get all rowdy and pissed, just like the wise Mike Skinner once said. And I think Demi Moore’s here. At least the forty fans holding THE SUBSTANCE and G.I. JANE posters outside the cinema are a dead giveaway. But I can’t find her, nor should I really be looking for her around the Alamo Theatre, because that’s kinda weird and kinda stalkery. Do you know her, Andy? Maybe she can be in the film, too! Holy shit, it’s Mark Duplass. Oh hi, Mark! I wonder if he’ll get that reference. He didn’t hear me. Or he chose to ignore me. Probably the latter.

We can sit next to each other for the JEALOUS PEOPLE screening in the Midnight Madness strand, and watch the other films and laugh our way through the opening film called MAN EATING PUSSY, which I won’t ruin, but the clue’s in the title. And we can hide behind our hands for the body horror WAX, and cackle through THE SEEING EYE DOG WHO SAW TOO MUCH, which is basically a giallo with a Garth Marenghi tone. And TONGUE (3) is up next!! Then our film will play last, and the audience will gasp and wince and laugh at all the right points, and you’ll tell me you can’t wait to do the feature, and you won’t even need to speak to your agent, you’ll just do it, and you’ll ask Paul and Demi too, and you can tell the studios to start a bidding war so we can get to Greece and shoot the film in no time at all, and you’ll take my number, and tell me you’ve had the wildest three days, and you’ll never look at Austin in the same way, and as I get in the taxi to drive to the airport, you’ll remind me to thank the British Council for getting me out here, and we’ll say goodbye and it’ll be tinged with a melancholia, but we say we’ll see each other again soon for frozen margs and fun and frolics in the sun.

But then I come crashing back to reality, and now I’m back on the bridge, and it’s 07:31 in the morning, and you’re still sweating from your run, panting, staring at me, and I’m staring at you and I go to say something, anything, the words on the tip of my tongue (4) but I bottle it, and our shoulders brush past one another, and the moment’s gone. You’ve walked past me. Farewell, Andy Scott. We could’ve been best friends. Instead the festival beckons.