Starting this Friday, the creative maelstrom known as SXSW overtakes Austin, Texas. For 10 days, filmmakers, internet and gaming gurus and musicians, and fans of all of the above, make their way to the most welcoming town in Texas to learn more about what’s next in their respective fields.
We’re heading to Austin for the SXSW Film festival, and will be sharing what we’re seeing and hearing in our SXSW 2010 section. We’ll be tweeting from the streets, blogging after screenings, and taking photos of various panels and events, so please join us for what is sure to be an extraordinary week.

There are a handful of big summer releases premiering or sharing a sneak peek in Austin, starting with two whoppers on Friday night: Matthew Vaughn shares his adaptation of the Mark Millar comic book series Kick-Ass, and Robert Rodriguez gives his hometown a first look of Predators along with director Nimrod Antal. Saturday, screenings of Elektra Luxx and 13 are certain to be big draws, and Monday’s MacGruber premiere may be the icing on the cake, despite the ongoing legal battle with the creators of MacGyver.

While these big films definitely help build buzz for the still growing and evolving festival, it’s the smaller films that bring the sense of laid-back exploration that I’ve always associated with this particular festival. Accordingly, a film like Jean-Pierre Jeunet‘s Micmacs was added to my ‘must-see’ list quite early on, as a Jeunet film promises a creative, amusing, and authentic evening spent. Right behind that on my list is Steven Soderbergh‘s And Everything Is Going Fine, his detailed portrait of writer/monologist/actor Spalding Gray, whose influential life in the theater and on the page certainly deserves the examination that Soderbergh will provide. And though it’s later in the festival run, I have a gut feeling that Aaron Schneider‘s Get Low, featuring the one-two casting punch of Robert Duvall and Bill Murray, may just quietly steal away with the most post-festival buzz.

Then, there’s a whole batch of films that, while not exactly premieres, seem to be stirring up the most news coverage of all: the documentary The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights, while billed as a premiere, has been quietly screened in select cities already; The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo was showcased at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January, but this adaptation of the popular Stieg Larsson novel is widely anticipated. Sundance winner Winter’s Bone will also put in an appearance, as will the Sundance-launched biopic The Runaways.

Other films piquing my curiosity? Mr. Nice, starring the completely underrated Rhys Ifans as a notorious drug kingpin; Leaves of Grass, co-starring Edward Norton… and Edward Norton; Barry Munday, featuring the intriguing pairing of Patrick Wilson and Judy Greer; The People vs. George Lucas, the feature-length documentary/dissection of all that’s wrong with Lucas’ Star Wars; and Lemmy, the rock doc delving into the life and times of Motörhead’s incomparable Mr. Lemmy Kilmister.

Honestly, there are so many more films I’d like to see that it would take a War and Peace-length blog entry to detail them, along with some warp speed self-cloning upon arrival in Austin, to see them all. Here’s the full list of films screening at SXSW; which films would make it to your ‘must-see’ list? Are there specific films/conversations/panels that you’re most excited to hear about? Share them in the comments below.