Doc films about Demi Lovato, Tom Petty headline SXSW 2021

Documentaries about Demi Lovato, Tom Petty, Selma Blair and Charli XCX are among the films set to premiere at next month’s South by Southwest Film Festival. The festival will kick off on March 16 with “Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil,” which will explore Lovato’s 2018 near fatal overdose and the aftermath. The Tom Petty documentary, “Somewhere You Feel Free” will be a centerpiece film, featuring newly discovered 16mm film of the late rocker at work on his 1994 album “Wildflowers.” It closes with “Alone Together,” about pop star Charli XCX making an album in 40 days in quarantine. It’s not the only film that deals with the pandemic in some way, there is also the documentary “The Last Cruise,” about the first major outbreak outside of China, “Twyla Moves,” about Twyla Tharp, “The End of Us,” about exes who must stay together after the stay at home order and “Recovery,” about sisters who go on a cross country road trip to get their grandmother out of a COVID 19-besieged nursing home, among others. Programmers decided this year to also spotlight nine of the films that were supposed to premiere in 2020, including Justine Bateman’s “Violet,” with Olivia Munn, “Clerk,” a documentary about filmmaker Kevin Smith and Nasim Pedrad’s “Chad,” about a Persian-American boy navigating his first year of high school.