SXSW: 9 Film/Tech Breakouts

01 of 09

FILMSpellbound wins documentary prize, 2002

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | Jeffrey Blitz's documentary about eight kids at the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee premiered at SXSW in 2002 and walked away with the jury award — Everett Collection; Kobal Collection

Jeffrey Blitz's documentary about eight kids at the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee premiered at SXSW in 2002 and walked away with the jury award for Best Documentary Feature. Thanks to SXSW, the doc enjoyed a healthy festival and theatrical run that ended with an Academy Award nomination for Documentary Feature. Not bad for a first time filmmaker. —Lindsey Bahr

02 of 09

Knocked Up world premiere, 2007

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | Kicking off the Judd Apatow lovefest that SXSW grew into with Bridesmaids (he was a producer) in 2011 and the discovery of his Girls partner — Sergio Dionisio/Getty Images

Kicking off the Judd Apatow lovefest that SXSW grew into with Bridesmaids (he was a producer) in 2011 and the discovery of his Girls partner Lena Dunham in 2010's Tiny Furniture, was the 2007 premiere of Knocked Up. The premiere was on a Monday, toward the end of the fest, but many stayed around just to catch The 40 Year-Old Virgin auteur's newest work. They were more than rewarded with the well-received comedy and Apatow cemented his spot in SXSW history. —Laura Hertzfeld

03 of 09

Lena Dunham premieres Tiny Furniture, 2010

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | For those first introduced to Lena Dunham via Girls , it's worth going back and checking out her independent feature film, Tiny Furniture . HBO's — Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

For those first introduced to Lena Dunham via Girls, it's worth going back and checking out her independent feature film, Tiny Furniture. HBO's poster child for a generation actually started building similar characters here. It was the most talked about movie at SXSW, winning the best narrative feature award. —LH

04 of 09

Bridesmaids premieres as work-in-progress, 2011

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | It's funny now to think that there was a time when Bridesmaids wasn't a sure bet. In a brilliant move, Paul Feig and company decided — Kevin Winter/Getty Images

It's funny now to think that there was a time when Bridesmaids wasn't a sure bet. In a brilliant move, Paul Feig and company decided to show a work-in-progress for the SXSW audience in 2011 at a post-midnight screening two months before the theatrical release. The early reviews and excitement it generated surely played into the comedy's enormous financial and critical success. —LB

05 of 09

INTERACTIVETwitter, 2007

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | Can you think back to a time before tweeting? It's hard to imagine there was a SXSW festival before people had the ability to @reply,

Can you think back to a time before tweeting? It's hard to imagine there was a SXSW festival before people had the ability to @reply, #hashtag, and follow each other through Austin — or anywhere else for that matter. 2007 saw the advent of the undisputed king of microblogging. It's only grown in influence since with the addition of apps like Vine and Twitpic, so you make sure you still follow @EW all week long from the festival for updates. —LH

06 of 09

Mark Zuckerberg keynote, 2008

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | SXSW audiences are notoriously tough. Everyone's got an app, everyone knows what's next. So being a 23-year-old billionaire and founder of the biggest social network

SXSW audiences are notoriously tough. Everyone's got an app, everyone knows what's next. So being a 23-year-old billionaire and founder of the biggest social network on the planet put Mark Zuckerberg in an unenviable spot. His keynote interview with journalist Sarah Lacy was hijacked by the audience — one person even yelled out ''Talk about something interesting!'' Zuckerberg seems to have gotten the last laugh. —LH

07 of 09

FourSquare, 2009

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | FourSquare launched ahead of SXSW in 2009 and ultimately attained the wholly unofficial title of most buzzed about app at SXSW. If you wanted to

FourSquare launched ahead of SXSW in 2009 and ultimately attained the wholly unofficial title of most buzzed about app at SXSW. If you wanted to find your friends in Austin, you pretty much had to download FourSquare to your iPhone (the cool kids had the 3G) and check in at all of Austin's hotspots. Best marketing? The pickup game of actual Four Square the co-founders started by drawing a board in with chalk in front of the Austin convention center. —LH

08 of 09

Air BnB, 2011

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | The idea of Airbnb is enticing enough: a marketplace to list and book a place to stay anywhere in the world for everything from an

The idea of Airbnb is enticing enough: a marketplace to list and book a place to stay anywhere in the world for everything from an apartment to a castle. But the best way to prove your worth to SXSWi is to become essential to the experience, which Airbnb managed to do in 2011. When the city couldn't accommodate the 40% increase in official Festival registrants, Airbnb hooked up attendees with over 3,000 alternative places to stay. —LB

09 of 09

Storify, 2012

South by Southwest Music and Media Conference | The social media aggregator had been around since 2010, but really took hold at SXSWi in 2012, and not just because it won the Social

The social media aggregator had been around since 2010, but really took hold at SXSWi in 2012, and not just because it won the Social Media Award. Storify became the go-to for crafting narratives out of all of the tweets and trends that were coming out of the panels. In just five days, over 1,000 stories were built about the conference. —LB