The Flaming Lips are eyeing next March's South by Southwest film festival for the release of their long-forthcoming feature film, Christmas on Mars, according to a recent Billboard.com interview with frontman Wayne Coyne.

Christmas on Mars is a much-delayed feature film by the rock band The Flaming Lips which has been a work-in-progress for six years. According to the band's website, Christmas on Mars is a film "written and directed by Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, and featuring all of the band and many of their associates as actors (including singer-songwriter and former host of Blue's Clues Steve Burns, The Hebrew Hammer star Adam Goldberg, Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, and Fred Armisen of Saturday Night Live fame).

The film tells the story of the experiences of Major Syrtis (The Flaming Lips' multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd) during the first Christmas on a newly-colonized Mars. Coyne has described the film as "Maybe Eraserhead or Dead Man crossed with some kind of fantasy and space aspects, like The Wizard of Oz and maybe A Space Odyssey, except done without real actors or money, and set at Christmas-time. The story that unfolds is intended to hint at childlike magic within a tragic and realistic situation."

Looks to be a interesting film worth looking into. No word on when it will be available to everyone though.

Having listened to the flaming lips avidly and having seen them perform live, I must say that this movie is going to be so trippy that people can't afford not to watch it. =]

I can't wait!

Yea I'm personally jealous you've seen them live.

Ya dude. Wayne Coyne got into this huge plastic ball and we threw him around the crowd. It was crazy. And they had a bunch of people dressed up as aliens on the left side front of the stage dancing and stuff and people on the right side front dressed up like santa claus. It was such a trip.