SXSW: 'Loves Her Gun' Press Junket Held at Shooting Range

There's no better way to wake up after a restless, half-drunken night of sleep than by ... firing a few shots from a 9mm handgun? It may sound a bit off the wall, but that was the gist of Monday's early-morning press junket from the team behind the buzzy SXSW indie Loves Her Gun who loaded up a pack of international journalists as well as members of the movie's cast and crew at 9:15 a.m. in a party bus (complete with stripper pole and fully-curtained windows) and hustled everyone to a shooting range to bang out some rounds.

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It wasn't all just a ruse/instigator: the range was actually a location in the movie, which focuses on a woman so affected by a violent moment in her life in Manhattan that she moves to Texas, where she becomes gun-obsessed. On the way to the indoor range, director Geoff Marslette talked in platitudes about the hot-topic politics brought up by the movie, although he shied away from saying whether or not he felt it took a stand one way or the other. But when we arrived at the range, the divisions were clear: during a safety briefing on how to properly use the guns, some media looked disengaged – while others asked for a second run-through, just in case.

Some of the foreign reporters looked more than a little nervous; in the van, an N.Z.-based journalist remarked that he'd never actually seen a real gun, and a young woman from the U.K. literally looked as if she were about to cry as she entered the lanes, abetted with massive sound-proofing headphones and protective eyewear. But, fittingly, she emerged empowered, discussing the sheer force experienced by using the weapon and holding, proudly, the target she had hit – not quite a kill shot, but still better than a shot of espresso.