Portland Film to Debut at SXSW
February 7, 2025
NEWS RELEASE
The Portland Events and Film office at Prosper Portland is pleased to announce that Portland-made film and 2024 Post-Production Grant recipient Trash Baby will have its world premiere this March at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
Directing narrative features has been a goal of Oregonian Jacy Mairs for as long as she can remember. Trash Baby is her first narrative feature, and premiering at SXSW is a lifelong dream come true. The film is a coming-of-age drama that follows 12-year-old Stevie as she navigates growing up, getting out, and the art of finding beauty in the ugliest of places.
Starring Sunset High School freshman Esther Harrison, the film looks at poverty in America through the lens of one of the most dismissed communities in the country. “We’re telling a story that is rarely given the attention it deserves and shining a light on the beauty of a world often left socially unclaimed,” said Mairs.
This film was incentivized locally using Oregon’s state tax incentives through Oregon Film and completed with a Post-Production Grant from the Portland Events and Film office at Prosper Portland.
“Supporting a local writer, director, and Oregon filmmaker on this level has been the absolute joy of my work. Helping grant recipients work on both a national and international stage is the goal. We want our filmmakers to tell Portland stories, and we want to show the industry that the talent we have here is world-class,” said Elyse Taylor Liburd, Film Industry Project Manager at Portland Events and Film.
SXSW is attended by more than 500,000 people from more than 100 countries. Now in its thirty-eighth year, this year’s festival will take place from Friday, March 7 through Saturday, March 15. Trash Baby has its festival premier Sunday, March 7 at the Alamo Theater in Austin.
For additional information on this project please contact: trashbabypublicity@gmail.com
