To Be Seduced by Dolly Parton, Nicolas Cage and Channing Tatum at SXSW 2022
Before Tom Hanks came down with it and Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert fondled all those mics during his post-game presser, one of the first cultural flashpoints alerting us to the imminent threat of COVID-19 stateside was the cancellation of SXSW, the annual music/film/tech conference and festival in Austin, Texas.
More than two years—and close to a million American deaths—later, SXSW was reborn, attracting tens of thousands of people to the rapidly-changing tech metropolis (a Meta tower is currently under construction) from March 11 to 20. And The Daily Beast was there on the ground, covering all the best film and music offerings on hand whilst artfully dodging any and all talk of NFTs, crypto, or the blockchain (with one noteworthy exception).
And so, here are our highlights of SXSW 2022.