Daryl Wein’s Breaking Upwards is one of my most personally anticipated films of SXSW 2009. Wein’s follow-up to last year’s SXSW doc premiere Sex Positive, Breaking is a narrative feature starring Wein and his real-life girlfriend Zoe Lister-Jones as themselves alongside a slightly-starrier supporting cast including Olivia Thirlby. Answering The 5 Questions We Ask Everyone, Wein talks about his film and stuff, but more importantly, he makes our second SXSW-related blow job joke of the day.

Tell us about your movie. Who did you work with, why did you make it? Give us the reductive, 25-word or less, “It’s like [pop culture reference a] meets [pop culture reference b]!” pitch, then explain what the quick and dirty sell leaves out.

Breaking Upwards follows a young, real-life New York couple who strategize their own break-up, in a fictional narrative loosely inspired by their open relationship.  The film stars filmmakers and real life couple, Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones, in addition to a cool cast including Olivia Thirlby (Juno, The Wackness), Julie White (Transformers, Transformers 2), Andrea Martin (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Peter Friedman (The Savages), and Pablo Schreiber (The Wire, Vicky Cristina Barcelona).  I made it, in part, because it was a story that was quite close to me, but also because I felt there was a lack of complex portrayals of young people’s struggles with monogamy on screen, and I liked the uniqueness of this narrative, and these characters.  I also was drawn to the idea of me and my girlfriend performing our own story in the midst of an otherwise dramatized narrative. It provokes interesting questions about the nature of performance within relationships, as well as the narrative/documentary divide.

It’s like Annie Hall meets Garden State. If Garden State was better. Snap!

Do you have a day job/a non-filmmaking occupation that raises money for your filmmaking efforts? Tell us about it.

I used to be a babysitter, then I quit, filed for unemployment, and was able to sell a documentary I made called, Sex Positive.  Right now, I’m trying to write another movie before the river runs dry.

Have you been to SXSW before? If so, tell us about your funniest story from the experience. If not, what are you looking forward to re: the festival and/or the city of Austin?

Yes,  my feature length documentary, Sex Positive, was in the documentary competition last year.  I had a blast!  The funniest thing that happened while I was there was probably on my way back to the hotel late at night when a stranger handed me a joint out of the window of his car.  Aust-ome.

Let’s get hypothetical: You’re on death row. The night of your execution, you’re allowed to watch any two films of your choice. What would you pick for your last-night-on-Earth double feature?

Maybe Dr. Strangelove to laugh at the insanity of it all, and then Life is Beautiful to try to look on the bright side.

There’s been some criticism that the only way to get into SXSW is by being a part of an “incestuous scene where everybody knows everybody.” So who did *you* have to sleep with to get in? (Metaphorically or literally: are there any SXSW filmmaker(s) past or present that you’re close with personally and/or professionally, and how have those relationships helped or hurt the process of producing your film and getting it seen?)

I think it helped that I had a film in the festival last year.  But I kinda think that’s a half criticism. I think of all the festivals, SXSW is the least tied up in nepotism or celebrity pandering. As compared with a lot of bigger festivals, they still give a voice to truly independent filmmakers.  Also I slept with every staff member.  Lock. Jaw.