While there may be film festivals more highly regarded than South By Southwest, few of those festivals can match the populist joys of Austin's hometown offering. In this episode of the podcast, Matt Donato and Matthew Monagle team up to discuss some of their favorite premieres from recent SXSW film festivals, as well as their most-anticipated movies from the 2025 lineup.
In this excerpt, Matthew Monagle shares why Prospect remains one of his favorite SXSW premieres to this day:
"Maybe my favorite film to ever come out of [SXSW] would be Zeke Earle and Chris Caldwell's Prospect, which is a retro-futuristic sci-fi film. It stars Pedro Pascal, which is probably the reason that anybody's seen it over the last couple of years, and a very, very young Sophie Thatcher. [...] A lot of our visions of the future have gotten sleeker and sleeker as our technology allows us to do fun things with it, and there's just a special place in my heart for blue collar space."
For additional coverage on former SXSW premieres at Certified Forgotten, check out these articles:
- Gen Z Reclaims the Slasher in Tragedy Girls
- The Final Girls Finds Acceptance in Slashers
- The Monstrous Minds of Daniel Isn’t Real and The Babadook
- The Screenlife Futurism of Unfriended: Dark Web
Our 2025 SXSW episode of the Certified Forgotten podcast is now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or the podcast platform of your choice.
