The Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF) is Western Canada’s largest genre film festival which showcases everything from horror and sci-fi to indie comedies and music and fan docs.
The 21st Edition of CUFF runs from April 18-28 and will open with I Saw the TV Glow; the Canadian premiere of the A24 release from visionary filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (We're All Going to the World's Fair) follows a lonely teenager whom a classmate introduces to a mysterious late-night TV show, and soon the world within the show begins to feel more real than real life.
Cult favourite John Waters will be in attendance for one night only, with his new live spoken word show Devil's Advocate, followed by a 30th Anniversary screening of his film Serial Mom.
A retrospective celebrating the work of Canadian filmmaker Vincenzo Natali will be a highlight The director and collaborator David Hewlett will be in attendance for screenings of 1997’s Cube and 2003’s Nothing.
Ten Alberta films and special events will be showcased, including the episodic short-form series Department of Paranormal Affairs from Calgary director Michael Peterson. Also screening will be the Canadian horror-comedy Mother Father Sister Brother Frank from Caden Douglas, who grew up in Calgary, as well as The Last Video Store, a love letter to the era of the video store from Albertan-born filmmakers Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford (aka House of Heathens).
Also on the Canadian front: Chris Nash's unconventional wilderness slasher film, In A Violent Nature, will also screen, coming off its success at Sundance. Caitlin Cronenberg's filmmaking debut, Humane, a dystopian thriller where ecological collapse makes world leaders take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population, will also screen.
Also on the Canadian front: Chris Nash's unconventional wilderness slasher film, In A Violent Nature, will also screen, coming off its success at Sundance. Caitlin Cronenberg's filmmaking debut, Humane, a dystopian thriller where ecological collapse makes world leaders take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population, will also screen.
Music is a big focus of this year’s festival, with five music documentaries, including docs about feminist icon Peaches (Teaches Peaches), Ukrainian immigrant and punk legend Eugene Hütz (Scream of My Blood: A Gogol Bordello Story), and the seminal band Redd Kross, following the screening of Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story.
The traditional Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat-Cereal Cartoon Party returns, featuring three hours of retro cartoons plus an unlimited sugary cereal bar.
On Wednesday, April 17, the day before the festival officially starts, CUFF will host Calgary’s flagship National Canadian Film Day event, a free 35mm presentation of the 1981 Alberta supernatural slasher Canuxploitation classic Ghostkeeper, with cast & crew in attendance for this special reunion screening.