Calgary Underground Film Festival announced the full lineup of 42 feature films and 38 shorts for the upcoming 20th edition taking place from April 20-30, 2023 at Globe Cinema.
“For our 20th Festival, we are going to put on the most fun, vibrant event we’ve ever hosted, and we are counting on our filmmakers, alumni, festival friends, and as many audience members as possible, to come to celebrate with us. The reason we do this is for the city, and our local fans,” said CUFF Co-Founder, Festival Director & Lead Programmer Brenda Lieberman.
The festival opens with the Canadian premiere of Onyx The Fortuitous and The Talisman of Souls, the Sundance 2023 selected horror comedy featuring terrifying monsters and dark and silly laughs, which is a creative and joyful celebration of weirdos of all kinds.
Other program highlights include Little Richard: I Am Everything (a documentary about the rock ‘n’ roll icon who shaped the world of music), Blackberry (a Canadian narrative feature telling the story of the Blackberry / RIM starring Jay Baruchel), Sisu (a highly-anticipated B-movie about an ex-soldier set in Finland, from CUFF alumni Jalmari Helander), Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) (a documentary about the art studio behind many iconic album covers marking the first documentary feature by Anton Corbijn), and POLARIS (a Canadian/Yukon success story featuring local Calgary actress Dinah Gaston).
Eight Alberta films on the lineup, include the horror-thriller Influencer from Calgary’s Kurtis David Harder, three episodes of the true crime docuseries Thunder: The Life & Death Of Arturo Gatti about the death of the Montreal boxer from Calgary director Guillaume Carlier, and six Alberta-made shorts.
The festival will host a retrospective of CUFF alumnus Anders Thomas Jensen (Adam’s Apples, The Green Butchers) with live virtual Q&A; and on Wednesday, April 19, the day before the festival officially starts, CUFF will host Calgary’s flagship National Canadian Film Day event, a free screening of the documentary Comic Book Confidential, which is celebrating its 35th Anniversary this year, with director Ron Mann in attendance.
“The lineup of films this year is just as diverse as ever, with a speckle of retro selections – many of which are celebrating milestone anniversaries – comedies, documentaries, art-house world cinema, and the latest genre films to hit the festival circuit. The stories vary, as do the budgets, and styles of films. We really love a lineup that can speak to many different audiences here, and we hope that everyone finds something to come check out,” added Lieberman.
Tickets for all films and events go on sale at 9am on Thursday, March 30.
Related posts:
