The Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF) opens its 21st edition today, and runs until April 28th.
Western Canada's largest showcase of genre film, offbeat documentaries, and industry events is housed in the two-screen (stacked on top of one another) Globe Cinema in the heart of Calgary.
Filmmakers John Waters and Vincenzo Natali are in attendance to discuss their careers (accompanied by multiple retrospective screenings), as well as David Cronenberg's daughter Caitlin debuting her first feature, along with a number of guest filmmakers, industry, and panelists who will be converging on the festival.
CUFF's place on the calendar offers a role for the festival to act as a curated catchall of wild, experimental, and indie cinema: a sampler from international festivals, blended in with the work of local filmmakers, a smattering of off-beat documentaries, short films, and live music events.
Scroll through the gallery below for a small slice of what happening at this years festival, and look back to these pages for various coverage over the next two weeks.
The opening night film, I Saw the TV Glow, from writer-director Jane Schoenbrun (We're All Going to the World's Fair), is fresh off its Sundance bow. Our own Mel Valentin had this to say:
"Cult fandoms, the positives and perils inherent in nostalgia (tonic or toxin), and the boundless search for personal identity, come together in Voltron-like fashion into a disquieting, discomfiting blend of fantasy, horror, and drama.
"Riddled with existential discomfort, surreal digressions, and fractured, irreparable identities, I Saw the TV Glow confirms Schoenbrun’s status as a singularly talented, risk-embracing filmmaker more than worthy of the accolades and acclaim that have come their way."
Canadian photographer Caitlin Cronenberg is the daughter of horror legend David Cronenberg. Making her film debut, Humane is a dystopian science fiction drama starring Emily Hampshire, Jay Baruchel, Enrico Colantoni and Peter Gallagher, where ecological collapse makes world leaders take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population.
Tilman Singer blasted onto the festival scene with his intense and stylish possession mind-fuck and pick-me-up, Luz, which also happened to be his graduate thesis from art school. For his sophomore film, he has been given a significantly larger budget, a marvellous German Alps location, and a very game cast, particularly Dan Stevens, who all but steals the show with a gonzo performance.
The result is Cuckoo, a film that favours sensory overload above all else. Stunningly shot on 35mm, with delightfully analog production design to match, the film is a treat for those who want that 80s aesthetic brought forth in the 21st century.
The title is a rather overt reference to the 'surreal, unsolved mysteries' in the Twin Peaks universe. Sporting a Ray Wise cameo, and from the still above, looking every little bit like Lumberton in Blue Velvet, it is obvious that director George Dalton is riffing on all things David Lynch with his debut feature.
The Blue Rose is a surrealist detective thriller, set in the 1950s, featuring two rookie detectives who set out to solve a murder, only to find themselves in an alternate reality made up of their worst nightmares.
Iconic speculative fiction and horror writer-director, and story board artist, Vincenzo Natali's large body of work spans both the Canadian film landscape (Splice, Cypher) and prestige American television (The Peripheral, Westworld, Hannibal). He is at the festival to present two of his strangest, and arguably most high concept features: the 1997 shoestring budget classic Cube, a literal puzzle-box horror film, as well as the surreal, existential, and minimalist comedy Nothing, a film where two roommates find themselves in a world which is nothing but an empty white space.
Screen Anarchy writer Dustin Chang caught Omen at Cannes where the film debuted, and described it thusly:
"With multiple storylines and characters, Omen introduces a different kind of storytelling than Western filmmaking. Much like Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams’s Neptune Frost a couple years back, the film is not bound to a straightforward narrative. Presenting a multicultural society in flux, where things clash with each other for dominance, the film’s colors and texture vie for your attention. It takes everything from everywhere – from the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, and multiple other African nations, even from the Creole culture of Louisiana."
Filmmaker, writer, enfant terrible, maestro of filth, and fun lovin' film critic, John Waters will be performing his new spoken word performance Devil's Advocate, which will include a 30th (!) Anniversary Screening of his Kathleen Turner starring cult classic film Serial Mom.
Special effects artist Chris Nash has been directing interesting short films for years. His Z for Zygote was the closer, and the highlight of the second ABCs of Death anthology. After contributing his talents to many, many, films in the Toronto indie horror community, his directorial debut feature, In a Violent Nature, turned some heads (and broke some bones) at Sundance this year.
Our own Mel Valentin had this to say: "Quality zombie slashers tend to be few and far between. A richly unexplored sub-genre — with only the redneck zombie slashers central to A Cabin in the Woods the lone, memorable exception more than a decade ago — first-time writer/director Chris Nash's horror film, In a Violent Nature, deconstructs the sub-genre before reconstructing it."
Screen Anarchy's J. Hurtado caught Damian McCarthy’s Oddity at SXSW earlier this year, and had this to say: "What really works is the atmosphere and mystery. Lots of dark and stormy nights, excellent sound design, as well as a few well-executed jump scares. McCarthy manages to create a kind of modern House of the Long Shadows vibe with Oddity, where the audience is fairly well attuned to the source of the evil, but we are still eager to see how it will play out."
PANEL: THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY. A casual discussion with various film festival professionals, on the importance on building community in cultural spaces.
Panel includes Festival directors (Mitch Davis, Fantasia; Kelly Michael Stewart (Blood in the Snow), Senior Programmers (Curtis Woloschuk, VIFF; Jarod Neece Tribeca), distributors & acquisitions (Liane Cunje, Vinegar Syndrome; Logan Taylor, Umbrella Entertainment) moderated by curator, producer, and Texas Chainsaw aficionado Heather Buckley.
There will likely be special guests as well.
Just last week at Panic Fest, contributing writer Kyle Logan caught Nathan Tape's Off Ramp and offered this:
"An equally odd and beautiful movie, and the juggalos wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s upsetting just so that it can be more wholesome. The film’s most emotionally potent moment is the choice to 'capture the beauty' by having one character film others having sex. Scattered in the chaos are genuine pieces of wisdom like 'there are a million ways to mourn, all of them are correct.' All that makes Off Ramp feel like an invitation to join the family, more than just a movie."
Quentin Dupieux makes absurdist comedy out of cinematic language. Just the right panning shot, rack-focus, or object reveal is often the punchline. From his debut film Steak, nearly two decades ago, up to his recent riff on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Smoking Causes Coughing, Dupieux has been steadily building a gonzo oeuvre that exists without rhyme, reason, or any narrative limits. I am sure that is just the way he likes it. His latest film, Yannick, was shot in secret over 6 days on a minimalist budget with a single location, and comes in at a breezy 67 minutes. Quoting our own Martin Kudlac:
Dupieux has already demonstrated his ability to traverse a genre spectrum with a pop-surrealist and absurdist flair. His latest film aligns with Mandibles, essentially his take on a road movie bromance. Yannick is structured like a sitcom, highlighting the clash between conformist and nonconformist worlds."