SXSW 2026: Bagworm & Daughters of the Forest

South by Southwest (SXSW) returns to Austin, Texas, for its 39th year from March 12th through March 18th. While the festival started out as a hub for independently produced films, it has, over the years, premiered movies backed by major studios, featuring top-name actors and directors. Thankfully, there’s still an emphasis on burgeoning filmmakers of both narrative and documentary filmmaking. While I’m not there in person, I was able to review a couple of the films curated for the festival. There are two very different films, which is the idea and the draw of any film festival. Below, you can check out my review of “Bagworm” and “Daughters of the Forest”.

BAGWORM

(directed by: Oliver Bernsend/96 min.) 

Carroll (Peter Falls) is already a miserable person before he steps on a rusty nail, but he thinks everything he complains about in life is getting worse after that unfortunate injury. He remains sexually frustrated and unlucky in love, or most importantly, in first impressions. He’s socially awkward, drives a beater that he uses for ride-share side gigs, and lives in squalor, almost as if he’s a squatter. It’s hard to feel for the guy, considering all of this. His full-time job is selling hammers to hardware stores for a company called Handmer, cleverly named for the product’s specially designed hand grip. If something good were to happen in his life, this paranoid and insecure sad-sack would likely miss it altogether.

Carroll is the protagonist of “Bagworm”, the directorial debut of Oliver Bernsen, which was written by his brother Henry Bernsen (their father, Corbin Bernsen, of “L.A. Law” and “Major League” fame, has a cameo role), that appears to be inspired by real-life malaise yet taken to a surreal, body-horror level. There are others that come in and out of Carroll’s life, like his friend Teddy (Robbie Arnett), who wants to somehow help him out of his misery, and Cassia (Michelle Ortiz), someone he’d like to have a relationship with, but he shuns them both.

We don’t know why Carroll is like this, which is the main reason why it’s hard to get on board with the character’s state. It’s unclear why his apartment is in such grotesque disarray, but it says a lot about how he views himself. His walls look like he’s tested his hammer product on them one too many times, leaving large openings that look like forgotten gaping wounds. He has a lopsided microwave that barely sits above kitchen cabinets, and inside those cabinets is what looks like a gloppy, goopy mess that Pizza the Hutt threw up.

Carroll’s physical condition worsens significantly after the nail incident, as if it’s catching up to his self-defeating mental state. Bernsen and his crew do a good job of making Carroll’s appearance look more and more miserable, and, honestly, quite nasty. His sweaty face looks diseased with puffy eyes, swollen skin, and nasty boils. Indeed, this guy needs some serious help, but it doesn’t appear he’ll be getting it any time soon, and that’s entirely his doing.

Falls is convincing every step of the way, but “Bagworm” suffers from a handful of undeveloped elements that could’ve helped viewers become more invested, or at least offered a sense of relatability. How Carroll got this way is never explored, nor is the development of the titular creature that is caccooned for most of the picture. There seems to be an allegory between the insect’s development and whatever is developing inside (and outside) Carroll, but Bernsen never brings these elements to a satisfying or discernible destination. After watching “Bagworm” I wanted to take a 20-minute minimum shower to wash off all the grime and grossness that Bernsen offers.

RATING: **

DAUGHTERS OF THE FOREST

(directed by: Otilia Portillo Padua/95 min.)

Mexican filmmaker Otilia Portilla Padua returns to SXSW, after 2012’s “Three Voices”, with her latest feature, the immersive and somewhat trippy documentary “Daughters of the Forest”, which follows two indigenous mycologists, Eliseete (Lis) and Julieta (Juli), experts in all things fungi, as they navigate the past, present, and future of mushroom ecologies in Mexico. While the two young specialists are scientifically trained in this field, their passion and knowledge of the subject are generational, having been passed down from their parents and grandparents. It’s a look at both the naturally occurring and imposed tangled relationships between fungi and humans.

Some humans, like the ancestors of Lis and Juli, have long lived in symbiosis with the diverse mushrooms in their environments, while others threaten that relationship through deforestation. This isn’t just another documentary that shows how the natural world is in jeopardy due to human arrogance, but rather one of hope for a continued coexistence between the organic world that mushrooms thrive in and the human world that has lived alongside them for centuries.

While Lis and Juli desire an understanding of the fungi intertwined with human existence, they are quite aware that a shift is underway, and the world they know is changing. They must deal with the threat of deforestation, limited opportunities, and ecological loss. Still, they are determined to pass along their knowledge, just as those before them have passed it down to them. The pair shares their knowledge with young children and demonstrates how mushrooms offer models of coexistence, while also showing how they confront obstacles and reshape their lives in order to thrive.

The immersive and vibrant documentary takes viewers on an unexpected, at times speculative journey into the realities of two Indigenous communities and the fungi in the forest they inhabit, inviting audiences to reconsider the boundaries between human and non-human worlds.

The film is inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction and the principles of Radical Mycology, and challenges apocalyptic narratives of collapse. Instead, it adopts a mycelial lens, a non-linear, interconnected, collaborative approach that foregoes a cinema rooted in reciprocity among foragers, Indigenous communities, scientists, and the more-than-human world.

Portillo Padua delivers a luscious visual narrative, while also illuminating the work of women who bridge scientific training and ancestral wisdom. The suggestion these “Daughters of the Forest” offer counters narratives of extraction with those of community, process, and care. Ultimately, suggesting that the future remains unwritten and depends on our capacity for imagination and interdependence. The sound and vision of the film combine to make an unusual sensory experience. Through poignant, evocative visuals and a richly layered sound design, Portillo Padua weaves together science and Indigenous knowledge, revealing them not as opposing forces but as wisdom traditions moving hand in hand.

“Daughters of the Forest (Hijas del bosque)” made its world premiere at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival CPH: DOX on March 13th in the DOX: Award main competition section, followed later that day by its North American premiere in the Visions section of SXSW in Austin, Texas.

RATING: ***