One of the first events to get cancelled due to coronavirus was SXSW (AKA South by Southwest), Austin’s biggest celebration of movies, music, technology, culture and the arts. This also includes the Film Festival, an event that premieres some of the biggest titles in cinema, with last year’s producing the likes of Booksmart and Us.
Whilst these film screenings obviously cannot go ahead anymore physically, there’s still a virtual option. SXSW has teamed up with the Amazon Prime giants to release the SXSW Film Festival Collection online this April for 10 days. The catch? It’s only on Amazon US.
However, seeing as these will be free for everyone without the need for Prime membership, they should (in theory) be accessible through using a VPN. This is the same method we use for watching the likes of Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Wondering what other things in the world of cinema have been affected? Read our piece on every film delayed because of coronavirus.
How to watch SXSW films on Amazon using a VPN
First things first, you’ll need a VPN to overcome Amazon’s geo-targeting. VPNs (virtual private networks) allow you to surf the web as if you’re based in another country. For watching the SXSW Film Festival, this would be the US.
There are various VPN providers out there, but for the best user-experience and affordable prices we recommend either NordVPN or ExpressVPN. You can take a look at alternative options in our list of the best VPNs for streaming. There are free VPNs out there, but they likely won’t have enough servers to stream successfully.
Once you’ve downloaded your VPN of choice, choose a US server and then simply head on over to Amazon.com (not Amazon UK). You should be able to use your usual login details for Amazon on the US site – and you don’t need to worry about signing up for a Prime account.
We’d like to clarify that we haven’t yet tested this method on the film lineup as they aren’t available yet – this is speculation based on using it on other sites. Once they become available we’ll test this method thoroughly and update this article.
What films are in the SXSW Amazon lineup?
It’s worth noting that filmmakers have the option of being hosted on Amazon, and some may very well choose not to stream their movie here and wait for next year’s festival, or host an alternative premiere at a later date.
We don’t know yet which films will and won’t be taking part, but you can see the full festival lineup of 2020 over on the SXSW website.
Via Techadvisor