Calgary Underground 2018 Line-Up is Diverse and Eclectic: Lynne Ramsay! Freaks and Geeks! Blood and Donuts! Saturday Morning Cartoon Party!

The Calgary Underground Film Festival is coming up on April 16th, and their full slate of films for their fifteenth edition is an eclectic mixture sure to satisfy many tastes and moods.

The opening night film is Jim Hosking's An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn. Those of you familiar with Hosking's unusually weird debut film, The Greasy Strangler, will be curious to see what he does with a more marquee cast including Aubrey Plaza, Emile Hirsch, Craig Robinson and Jemaine Clement in an oddballs-on-the-run tale.

Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here is screening, along with Ratcatcher and We Need To Talk About Kevin, and if you haven't had the chance to dive into the world of the Scottish filmmaker, this is your chance (no sign of the fabulous Morvern Callar however to complete the retrospective).

Festival cult favourites include dark Mexican fairy tale, Tigers Are Not Afraid, Belgian Giallo tribute, Let The Corpses Tan and Canadian rape-revenge picture, Allure.

Kier-La Janisse's All-You-Can-Eat-Cereal Cartoon Party returns to the festival. These are highly recommended, regardless of age, because they are not just a highly curated collection of Saturday morning staples from the 1960s to the 1990s (before round the clock cable cartoon channels put an end to the era), but also includes particular commercials, station bumpers, and other boob-tube curios of the era along with a wide variety of sugary cereals.

Brent Hodge's feature documentary on the cult TV series Freaks and Geeks: The Documentary, arrives fresh off its Tribeca debut. Meathead Goes Hogwild director Sean Pierce returns to CUFF for is follow-up film The Secret Poppo.

Boasting 43% of their feature films are directed by female directors, combined with a strong vein of Alberta local talent in both the features (Kunckle Ball, Slave To The Grind) and the shorts.

Lastly, and very near and dear to my Canadian heart is the obscure cult gem, Blood & Donuts. An unusual melancholic, deadpan vampire story from 1995 filled with things Canadians love: Diners, Donuts, and David Cronenberg.

The Calgary Underground Film Festival runs from April 16th to April 22nd and their website has the full schedule and tickets.