Calgary Underground Film Festival 2020 Announces Lineup, Opens with Sundance Hit DINNER IN AMERICA

Calgary Underground Film Festival announced its lineup for the 17th edition of the festival. Originally scheduled to take place in April, like many other festivals around the world, CUFF has shifted to an online model for the 2020 edition. From June 22-28 CUFF fans will have the opportunity to get their eyes on the newest genre-defying independent films not streaming anywhere else, and ensure that these films find an audience while film festivals are paused and cinemas remain closed.

“This festival will look different than most, but, our whole team is really looking forward to this new festival format. Not only do we get to provide our regular audience with some amazing new films, but we also have the unique opportunity this year to have new audiences experience what we have to offer,” said Festival Director and Lead Programmer Brenda Lieberman.

This year’s lineup includes 22 feature films showing for the first time in Alberta, 3 shorts packages, and other special events including four nights of drive-ins at Big Rock Brewery.

CUFF will open with the Sundance hit DINNER IN AMERICA (Dir. Adam Carter Rehmeier) about a punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with his band. Similar to the in-person festival, audiences only have one chance to watch this film at a June 22 live online event.

“I loved this film from the minute I started watching it at Sundance. I think I was 5 minutes in, and I had the feeling like I had found our opening film. We’ll be doing opening night as a live event, as close to our in-cinema experience our audience knows and loves, including a live introduction, followed by the screening, and ending with a live Q&A,” said Lieberman.

Following the opening night live event, starting on June 23 at midnight, the lineup of films will be available on-demand until June 28 at 11:59pm. With a few exceptions, all films will be available to watch for the duration of the festival and are available to anyone in Alberta.

June 23 will mark the return of the Found Footage Festival: Quarantine Qlassics, a staple of CUFF. In the brand-new virtual show, Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (Late Show with David Letterman) will present a wide-range of VHS delights to get focused on the theme of quarantine.