The Best Film, TV, and Video Game Premieres for Food Lovers at SXSW 2025

First up is Drop, the debut feature film role for Meghann Fahy, who is perhaps best known for her breakout role in season 2 of White Lotus and who also recently appeared in Netflix’s The Perfect Couple (and for the hardcore stans, was a featured star on Freeform’s The Bold Type). The majority of the film takes place in a fancy rooftop restaurant with city views while Fahy is on a date with a guy who some mysterious person is blackmailing her to kill. All the folks in the restaurant become part of the terrifying action.

Drop is a Universal film that’s going to get a major theatrical release on April 11 and will make its world premiere at SXSW.

Also making its world premiere is the pilot of an independent TV show called Stars Diner. The teaser description promises that it “isn’t the best choice for a quick steak and eggs.” Stars Diner is set in Fresno, California and features a cadre of employees, including ex-party girl Wendy, who runs the place; chef Milius, who is seemingly “unhinged,” and a busboy named Willard, who’s a little left of center. The show follows them as they try to keep the place, which faces foreclosure, open while “a geologically improbable volcano threatens to end all life in Fresno.” Those are some high stakes. Award-winning Mexican-American director Fidel Ruiz-Healy and filmmaker Tyler Walker direct the pilot.

After a world premiere at Sundance, Unholy gets its Texas premiere in the Narrative Short category. The short, directed by Daisy Friedman, follows a girl attending her family’s Passover seder for the first time following the insertion of a feeding tube to help with her gastrointestinal disorder. As if navigating that wasn’t enough, she’s unable to eat most of the food at the table and has to explain herself to a family who just doesn’t seem to get it.

The augmented reality experience Future Botanica makes its international premiere. It sounds fascinating — this AR project from the Netherlands allows viewers to design “future nature within speculative ecosystems” within an app that includes AI. What that means, in slightly more accessible terms, is that the user plants crops that don’t exist yet and has to design an ecosystem in which they grow. The idea behind it is to elevate understanding of how ecosystems work and imagine what the future for agriculture and plants might look like — and what humanity’s connection to it could be.

Finally, there is Sweet!, also from the Netherlands, making its world premiere. This AI candy story lets the user explore how color affects the choices we make in candy and the impact sugar has on our brains. It also promises to delve into sugar’s “history of both imperialist politics, commercial profits and exploitation, military conflict, and racism.”

SXSW runs from March 7 to March 15, 2025. Get tickets and festival pass information here.