Two weeks ago at the 2008 South By Southwest Film Festival, rock musical Rainbow Around the Sun made its theatrical debut. The film’s directors, Oklahoma City filmmakers Kevin Ely and Beau J. Leland, talked a bit about their debut screening jitters on the film’s website:

“Saturday night was our world premiere screening at the Alamo Drafthouse; we were all a bundle of nerves early in the day but as the time got closer we just got more and more excited. Several people associated with the film made it down for the premiere, and around the dinner hour Matt led an impromptu mouthgarden parade down 6th street, singing and handing out mustaches to hundreds of confused onlookers. Some Austinites even joined in on the parade themselves.

Then came the screening. Even though we shot and edited Rainbow in HD, we had never screened the film in its native format. When the theater manager took us into the screening house to spot check our projection, the images really took our breath away. Kudos to the Alamo Lamar for their top notch theater and staff.

At first it looked like a light house, but by the screening time the theater was mostly full, and everyone seemed ready for some fun. Even with our cleaned-up-but-still-temp sound mix, the movie looked and sounded spectacular. I was in too much of a glee-induced haze to really gage the crowd response, but everyone seemed to dig it and we had a really fun Q&A afterwards. Matt even got to sell a bunch of CD’s in the parking lot.”

Rainbow Around the Sun follows the story of hard-drinking musician Zachary Blasto, who retreats into an elaborate fantasy world when confronted with his life problems. Eventually, the real world and fantasy world begin to intermix, and Blasto is forced to deal with his real-world issues when the characters of his fantasy world no longer play along and comfort him. The film unfolds in an episodic format, much like the individual tracks on a music album, and scenes are inter-cut with animated hallucinations.

The film has received generally positive reviews coming out of SXSW, with the occasional negative criticism usually focusing on the film’s low-budget feel. Rainbow plays next at the 2008 Florida Film Festival on April 4th. This definitely looks like a film to keep an eye on. The film’s trailer is below.