South Australia’s creative industries showcase at SXSW Sydney

For the first time in its 36-year history, SXSW will expand outside of Texas in the United States to Australia, with South Australia’s games studios taking advantage of the home soil location to showcase their talents.

SXSW Sydney, the official Asia Pacific instalment of SXSW, will be held from 15 to 22 October, will provide the opportunity for South Australia’s creative industries to shape and discover future trends, emerging technologies and access networking opportunities.

South Australia’s creative industries sector has experienced substantial growth in the past few years, with the opening earlier this year of triple-A global games studio, Keywords, the world’s largest provider of end-to-end technical and creative solutions to video games publishers.

The best of independent games will be featured at the SXSW Games Festival Showcase, featuring more than 150 independent games from creators across the globe and providing a glimpse of the best games in the industry. 

Chantal Ryan of We Have Always Lived in the Forest, will feature her internet-horror streamer RPG-sim game, darkwebSTREAMER, as part of the Games Festival Showcase. darkwebSTREAMER has been shortlisted in the SXSW Games Awards and is also nominated for the Games Festival Discovery Award.

“SXSW coming to Australia is a huge deal for our tech sector and huge for our games industry,” said Chantal Ryan. “I was honoured to be invited to speak at the inaugural SXSW Sydney event.

“Doubly so, to have had my studio’s game darkwebSTREAMER shortlisted for the SXSW Game Awards.

“I’m hyped to watch SXSW Sydney grow and connect industry leaders and communities today into the future.”

Alongside Chantal will be We Made a Thing Studios with their game, Box Knight; Dino Rocket with the game Kadomon; Two Lives Left will show Punchimals; Melonhead Games will showcase Rooftop Renegade and A Few Dragons will show The Sacred Acorn.

Experts from South Australia’s games and VFX studios will participate in a panel session, supported by the South Australian Government to discuss the future of gaming, featuring: Kim Forrest from Tantalus South; Jeremy Kelly-Bakker from We Made a Thing Studio; Chantal Ryan from We Have Always Lived in the Forest and Arthur Ay Chee (Jnr) from Cerulean Creative Studios.

The spotlight will also be on South Australia at the SXSW Sydney 2023 Screen Festival’s opening night when the highly anticipated thriller ‘The Royal Hotel’ is featured. The Royal Hotel was filmed on location in remote South Australia and Adelaide, and stars Julia Garner (Investing Anna, Ozark), Hugo Weaving (Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Oranges, Sunshine and The Matrix) and Jessica Henwick (The Matrix Resurrections and Knives Out 2). 

The SXSW Sydney Music Festival, held as part of the event, will feature two South Australian groups amongst its line-up; Moss, a five-piece original rock, pop and blues band with a sound reminiscent of the 1970s and Teenage Joans, an Indie, rock and punk duo formed in 2018. 

For further information on SXSW Sydney, visit www.sxswsydney.com

To learn more about the creative industries sector in South Australia, visit www.invest.sa.gov.au/sectors/creative-industries