IFP proudly congratulates its 17 alumni films premiering at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, including five from our Independent Filmmaker Labs: Matt Ruskin’s Booster (Narrative Labs 2011) in Narrative Competition; Avi Zev Weider’s Welcome to the Machine (Documentary Labs 2011) in Documentary Competition; and Nir Paniry’s Extracted (Narrative Labs 2011), Tim Sutton’s Pavilion (Narrative Labs 2011), and Wu Tsang’s Wildness (Documentary Labs 2010) in Emerging Visions.

Additional IFP alumni screening at the festival: Spotlight on Documentaries alumni Annie Eastman’s Bay of All Saints, Jay Bulger’s Beware of Mr. Baker, and Caveh Zahedi’s The Sheikh and I in Documentary Competition; Katie Dellamaggiore’s Brooklyn Castle, Rebecca Richman Cohen’s Code of the West, Ashley Sabin and David Redmon’s Girl Model, Ben Shapiro’s Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, and Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroes in Documentary Spotlight; and Mark Kendall’s La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus (also fiscally sponsored by IFP) and Kahlil Hudson and Tyler Hughen’s Low & Clear in Emerging Visions. Also screening at the festival are Todd Rohal’s Nature Calls (No Borders) in Narrative Spotlight and Adam Leon’s Gimme the Loot (IFP/Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Visions) in Narrative Competition.

Also at SXSW, IFP’s Rose Vincelli is a part of the “Mentors: Artist Development” session at 11am on Saturday, March 10. She is also moderating IFP’s panel, “Tough Love: Why You’re Still Not Festival Ready” with hybrid distribution guru Jon Reiss and IFP Labs alumnus Tim Sutton, director of Pavilion. “Tough Love” is at 3:30p March 10. If you’re at SXSW, come say hi & glean from our knowledge! Follow IFP on Twitter @ifpfilm for updates from some of the 17 IFP alumni fest premieres and other news from the fest.

Congratulations to everyone – we’ll see you in Austin!