Andy Anderson's 1987 feature, Positive I.D., put the name of the University of Texas at Arlington teacher in the festival spotlight and caught the attention of major studios. Anderson, a writer and director, took the bait and tackled a succession of writing jobs with studios. The results were paychecks that took the edge off inflation and an opportunity to see and be seen.

But luck would have nothing to do with Anderson's screenwriting career. None of the scripts were produced. Only recently was he able to buy back one that had been optioned for a whole eight years. Worse, "Nobody wanted to think of me as a director."

On the evidence of Positive I.D., that's really dumb thinking. A scrappy, wry, funny, and bittersweet story of a bored housewife attempting to heal from a rape two years before the action begins, the film is a positive monument to the concept that Payback Is a Bitch. Shot on a budget of a few hundred thousand dollars, the film joins the company of other Texas-shot shoestring classics such as Last Night at the Alamo and Blood Simple. Just this week the movie began circulating again on the Independent Film Channel.

The question remains: Why, even with a fruitless quest of Hollywood in the interim, does it take 10 years to return with a feature film?

"First, after Positive I.D. I took an entire year off and did nothing," said Anderson, whose new film, Detention, world premieres at SXSW this week. Add that year to a few more writing unfilmed manuscripts and what once seemed a promising career begins to look like a dead end.

"That's why I decided three or four years ago I had to start making films for myself again. That's my only regret, that I didn't take the money from Positive I.D. and just make another movie."

Detention, all of which was shot within 30 miles of his home in the Fort Worth area, centers on a rather enigmatic loser (played by I.D. star John Davies) who takes a job as a substitute teacher in a school district that has come to resemble Fort Apache, the Bronx. The students are out of control, the school district has no money, the teachers are resigned to mere survival, and legal liabilities forestall any radical changes. The substitute, Bill Walmsley, is assigned six detention classes and becomes a "permanent" substitute - an oxymoronic occupation that likens him, as Anderson notes, to "military intelligence or jumbo shrimp."

Without giving too much away, Walmsley, in order to further his students' chances for completing their education, takes a cue not so much from Sidney Poitier's Mack Thackerey as Lee Ermey's Sgt. Hartman. The film's ad teaser speaks for itself: Goodbye Mr. Chips, Hello Midnight Express.

Why a film about unruly students? "As a teacher at UTA I see brilliant students who can't find their way to class or who can't finish anything, and you just want to shake them. But that's a little illegal," Anderson said.

As with Positive I.D., appearances in this film are only just that, and big surprises await at the end. "It's a lot more controversial and confrontational than Positive I.D.," the director said.