Last night, Harmony Korine‘s “Spring Breakers” hit the SXSW Film Festival, bringing with it mayhem and a pushed-to-the-red soundtrack fuelled by Skrillex. But it’s far from the only movie in Austin with cutting edge tunes that play an important role in the thrust and texture of the narrative. “Snap,” co-directed by Youssef Delara (who was behind last year’s buzzed-about “Filly Brown“) and Victor Teran, is a psychological thriller set within the dubstep scene and we’ve got an exclusive track from Reza Safinia to give you a flavor of what will be coming out of movie theater speakers at SXSW.
After previously working with Delara on “Filly Brown,” they reunited for “Snap,” with Safinia expanding his role as composer to include producer. A longtime music industry veteran and musician in his own right, Safinia told us he sees more opportunities for electronic artists in the film world, thanks one film in particular. “‘The Social Network‘ was the real breakthrough because it showed that audiences respond well to hearing the type of production they know from their iTunes playlists incorporated into score, so that makes it a lot easier to pitch!” he said.
And for Safinia’s outing on “Snap,” his involvement from early on allowed him the freedom to tinker musically, and find what would work best with the story being told. “…we conceived the soundscape for ‘Snap’ together from script level. It was very exciting to get involved at that early stage and have such a big creative stake in the project, and also be able to suggest ideas that I wanted to experiment with,” he explains.
So what is the movie about? Well, it stars Jake Hoffman, Nikki Reed, Thomas Dekker, Scott Bakula, Jason Priestley and Gina Rodriguez, but we’ll let Safinia describe the rest: “It’s about a paranoid schizophrenic musician who functions as an adult by suppressing his memories of childhood physical and sexual abuse, and he controls his delusions by occupying himself with music, but he has an awkward experience with a girl, a social worker that he becomes very fond of, and unfortunately this experience triggers his memories and makes him ‘Snap’ with horrific and tragic consequences. I was really drawn to the story because of the way it portrays the total tragedy of situations like this that sadly exist in the real world, and how those tragedies begin early in life.”
Below, you can listen to the bone rattling “Fuck The Neighbors” from the film. And if you’re in Austin, “Snap” premieres tonight at 9:30 at the Alamo Ritz.