My Name is Myeisha[/caption]
The 20th annual Boston Underground Film Festival returns to Harvard Square, bringing with it a five day fever dream of vanguard and description-defying filmmaking, including soul- thrillers/killers/chillers, to the Brattle Theatre and Harvard Film Archive from March 21st through the 25th, 2018.
Kicking off the festival is the East Coast premiere of My Name is Myeisha, a phantasmagorical meditation on a beloved teen’s life cut tragically short, told from her perspective at the moment of her unjust death. On the heels of its 2018 Slamdance world premiere, where it garnered both the Audience Award for Beyond Feature and the Slamdance Acting Award for breakout performance by lead Rhaechyl Walker, My Name is Myeisha is a bold and beautiful adaptation of co-writer Rickerby Hinds’ play, Dreamscape, that demands and deserves your attention. Director Gus Krieger and star Walker will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.
BUFF is taking its love of the beyond to the next level with a rare repertory screening of Slava Tsukerman’s underground masterpiece of avant-garde sci-fi and queer cinema, Liquid Sky. Nearly 35 years to the day since its theatrical release, BUFF is ecstatic to be presenting this neon-drenched, new wave, electroclashtastic cult classic on lush 35mm.
BUFF is bringing double trouble from the French film vanguard with the East Coast premiere of Coralie Fargeat‘s genre-flipping, outré feature debut Revenge and the New England premiere of BUFF alumni Bruno Forzani & Hélène Cattet’s piece de resistance, Let the Corpses Tan. Fargeat revamps the rape-revenge thriller subgenre, spinning a subversive monomythic tale of female survival and rebirth with fierce and formidable Matilda Lutz in the lead. Forzani and Cattet deliver another gorgeous, sensory-saturated homage to vintage genre, this time honing their craft in pulpy poliziotteschi perfection against a bullet-riddled spaghetti-Western backdrop.
Bleeding into the realm of real-world horror, BUFF will host the US premiere of Turkish writer-director Onur Saylak’s chilling debut Daha and the New England premiere of British writer-director Deborah Haywood’s stunning, deeply personal first feature Pin Cushion. While Haywood explores the visible and invisible wounds of intergenerational bullying as experienced by a mother and daughter in small town England, Saylak examines the cycle of intergenerational violence between a father and son caught up in the refugee smuggling trade in small town Turkey.
On the lighter side, BUFF will present the World Premiere of Stacy Buchanan & Jess Barnthouse’s homegrown horror doc Something Wicked This Way Comes and the New England Premiere of Aaron McCann & Dominic Pearce’s Aussie-by-way-of-Japan mocku-doc Top Knot Detective. Buchanan & Barnthouse give New England’s pop-horror-culture the full-feature treatment, exploring the region’s viability for growing our independent film scene with input from genre luminaries, horror fans, natives, and local filmmakers. McCann & Pearce explore Japan’s most beloved ronin detective, Sheimasu Tantai, from the 1970s style martial arts series RONIN SUIRI TENTAI (Deductive Reasoning Ronin), and his Oz-based cult fandom so thoroughly and hilariously that it’s nigh impossible to discern fact from fiction…it’s somehow beyond both.
As usual, the festival will present the kid-friendly annual Saturday Morning Cartoons program with cereal smorgasbord, programmed and hosted by renowned curator, author, publisher, and founder of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, Kier-La Janisse; a veritable bounty of shorts programming celebrating fantastic music videos, animation, transgressive horror; and more!
Boston Underground Film Festival
BUFF is an annual film festival held in late March.
BUFF is located at the Brattle Theatre.
BUFF is a celebration of the bizarre and insane.
BUFF is uncompromising, unflinching film/video.
BUFF is the only fest to award a demonic bunny.
BUFF is hazardous to your health.
BUFF is hoping you will come and check us out.
Boston Underground Film Festival started in 1999 and takes place in Boston, MA, USA
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2018 Boston Underground Film Festival Reveals First Wave of Films, Opens with Award Winning “My Name is Myeisha”
[caption id="attachment_27273" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] My Name is Myeisha[/caption]
The 20th annual Boston Underground Film Festival returns to Harvard Square, bringing with it a five day fever dream of vanguard and description-defying filmmaking, including soul- thrillers/killers/chillers, to the Brattle Theatre and Harvard Film Archive from March 21st through the 25th, 2018.
Kicking off the festival is the East Coast premiere of My Name is Myeisha, a phantasmagorical meditation on a beloved teen’s life cut tragically short, told from her perspective at the moment of her unjust death. On the heels of its 2018 Slamdance world premiere, where it garnered both the Audience Award for Beyond Feature and the Slamdance Acting Award for breakout performance by lead Rhaechyl Walker, My Name is Myeisha is a bold and beautiful adaptation of co-writer Rickerby Hinds’ play, Dreamscape, that demands and deserves your attention. Director Gus Krieger and star Walker will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.
BUFF is taking its love of the beyond to the next level with a rare repertory screening of Slava Tsukerman’s underground masterpiece of avant-garde sci-fi and queer cinema, Liquid Sky. Nearly 35 years to the day since its theatrical release, BUFF is ecstatic to be presenting this neon-drenched, new wave, electroclashtastic cult classic on lush 35mm.
BUFF is bringing double trouble from the French film vanguard with the East Coast premiere of Coralie Fargeat‘s genre-flipping, outré feature debut Revenge and the New England premiere of BUFF alumni Bruno Forzani & Hélène Cattet’s piece de resistance, Let the Corpses Tan. Fargeat revamps the rape-revenge thriller subgenre, spinning a subversive monomythic tale of female survival and rebirth with fierce and formidable Matilda Lutz in the lead. Forzani and Cattet deliver another gorgeous, sensory-saturated homage to vintage genre, this time honing their craft in pulpy poliziotteschi perfection against a bullet-riddled spaghetti-Western backdrop.
Bleeding into the realm of real-world horror, BUFF will host the US premiere of Turkish writer-director Onur Saylak’s chilling debut Daha and the New England premiere of British writer-director Deborah Haywood’s stunning, deeply personal first feature Pin Cushion. While Haywood explores the visible and invisible wounds of intergenerational bullying as experienced by a mother and daughter in small town England, Saylak examines the cycle of intergenerational violence between a father and son caught up in the refugee smuggling trade in small town Turkey.
On the lighter side, BUFF will present the World Premiere of Stacy Buchanan & Jess Barnthouse’s homegrown horror doc Something Wicked This Way Comes and the New England Premiere of Aaron McCann & Dominic Pearce’s Aussie-by-way-of-Japan mocku-doc Top Knot Detective. Buchanan & Barnthouse give New England’s pop-horror-culture the full-feature treatment, exploring the region’s viability for growing our independent film scene with input from genre luminaries, horror fans, natives, and local filmmakers. McCann & Pearce explore Japan’s most beloved ronin detective, Sheimasu Tantai, from the 1970s style martial arts series RONIN SUIRI TENTAI (Deductive Reasoning Ronin), and his Oz-based cult fandom so thoroughly and hilariously that it’s nigh impossible to discern fact from fiction…it’s somehow beyond both.
As usual, the festival will present the kid-friendly annual Saturday Morning Cartoons program with cereal smorgasbord, programmed and hosted by renowned curator, author, publisher, and founder of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, Kier-La Janisse; a veritable bounty of shorts programming celebrating fantastic music videos, animation, transgressive horror; and more!
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Boston Underground Film Festival Unveils Final Wave of Films – A LIFE IN WAVES, SHE’S ALLERGIC TO CATS and More
[caption id="attachment_20658" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
A LIFE IN WAVES[/caption]
The Boston Underground Film Festival completed the 2017 lineup with the the final wave of more intriguing films from around the world, including over 80 short films and music videos.
BUFF will host the East Coast Premiere of the documentary A Life in Waves, an intimate portrait of one of the most influential electronic composers of the last 40 years, Suzanne Ciani. Documentarian duo (and BUFF alum) Brett Whitcomb and Bradford Thomason will be in attendance, along with the diva of the diode herself for a post-screening Q&A at the Harvard Film Archive. On the other end of the documentary spectrum is the New England Premiere of Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Fraud, an impossible to categorize hybrid-doc and bold experiment in filmmaking that explores the essence of “truth” in a post-truth era.
Lovers of all things dark and disturbing are advised to pencil in this quadruplet of narrative nightmares: A grieving mother and a bullying occultist (Steve Oram) face their demons in black magic thriller A Dark Song, from Irish, first-time director Liam Gavin. First time director, writer and star, Ana Asensio examines an undocumented immigrant’s day from hell in her gripping Most Beautiful Island, fresh from its World Premiere at SXSW. Valentin Hitz’s gorgeous and unnerving Hidden Reserves gives us a peek at the future-that-could-be (ponder this: death insurance) with his Austrian dystopian sci-fi masterpiece. And speaking of hidden, BUFF presents for the first time ever a Secret Screening.
Lightening things up substantially is a triple threat of comedic treats: A group of awful idiots fail at throwing a party over and over in Slamdance smash Neighborhood Food Drive, with BUFF alum & director Jerzy Rose and writer Halle Butler in the house. Emerson College alum Michael Reich brings his surreal and sensational She’s Allergic to Cats to the Brattle; you’ll laugh, cry, and ponder duck boobs. Rounding things out is the anniversary screening of oft underappreciated Southland Tales, Richard Kelly’s gonzo anarchic vision of the near future (which may be closer to the near present), which we lift up and celebrate ten years later.
2017 BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL FINAL WAVE
A DARK SONG – East Coast Premiere Liam Gavin | Ireland | 2016 A determined young woman and a damaged occultist risk their lives and souls to perform a dangerous ritual that will grant them what they want. A LIFE IN WAVES – East Coast Premiere Brett Whitcomb | USA | 2017 his incredible documentary explores the even more incredible life and innovations of composer and electronic music pioneer, Suzanne Ciani. Join us for a Q&A with Suzanne & the filmmakers following the screening! FRAUD – New England Premiere Dean Fleischer-Camp | USA | 2016 A struggling family commits fraud in this contentious docu-ficto hybrid. HIDDEN RESERVES – East Coast Premiere Valentin Hitz | Austria/Germany/Switzerland | 2016 Where death with dignity comes at a premium, an insurance salesman turned narc must reevaluate his ideology when he falls for the rebel he’s assigned to entrap. MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND – East Coast Premiere Ana Asensio | USA | 2017 A chilling portrait of an undocumented young woman’s struggle for survival as she finds redemption from a tortured past in a dangerous game. NEIGHBORHOOD FOOD DRIVE – East Coast Premiere Jerzy Rose | USA | 2017 A group of awful idiots fail at throwing a party over and over. SECRET SCREENING – Secret Premiere Secret Director | Secret Country | Secret Year One of the best genre films coming out this year. SHE’S ALLERGIC TO CATS – New England Premiere Michael Reich | USA | 2016 A dog groomer in Hollywood aspires to be more than a dog groomer in Hollywood. SOUTHLAND TALES – Anniversary Screening Richard Kelly | USA | 2006 During a three day heat wave just before a huge 4th of July celebration, an action star stricken with amnesia meets up with a porn star who is developing her own reality TV project, and a policeman who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.
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2017 Boston Underground Film Festival Unleashes First Wave of Films – PREVENGE, THE VOID, BITCH and More
[caption id="attachment_21176" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
THE VOID[/caption]
The 19th Boston Underground Film Festival returns to Harvard Square with what the festival describes as a “smorgasbord of phantasmagoria, dark comedy, thrillers, killers, and chillers” from March 22nd through the 26th, 2017.
Veteran actress, co-writer of 2012’s Sightseers, and first-time director/writer/star Alice Lowe’s bloody British baby bump (off) slasher comedy Prevenge will open the festival on Wednesday March 22nd, and filmmaking triple-threat director/writer/actor Marianna Palka’s delightfully disturbing dive into dissociative doggone delirium, Bitch will close out the festival on March 26th.
Bubbling up from down-under, also coming to Boston fresh from SXSW 2017, is not-to-be-missed Aussie crime thriller Hounds of Love, a masterful feat of tension, terror, and restraint from Perth-based, wildly talented first-time feature filmmaker Ben Young. In stark contrast to some of BUFF’s darker fare, prepare to meet your new obsession with first-time filmmaker Bill Watterson’s Slamdance 2017 standout Dave Made a Maze, which will beguile and a-maze with its hilarious odyssey through one man’s intricately crafted, booby trapped, living room box fort labyrinth; awe-inspiring stop-motion animation and strong lulz await.
BUFF will also host the East Coast Premiere of 68 Kill from mad genius Trent Haaga, director of BUFF’s 2011 Director’s Choice Award-winner Chop and writer of 2013’s Cheap Thrills & 2008’s Deadgirl. Haaga’s highly anticipated punk rock heist film unites BUFF regulars AnnaLynne McCord & Matthew Gray Gubler in the ultimate highway to hell road film.
2017 BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL FIRST WAVE OF FILMS
BITCH – East Coast Premiere Marianna Palka | USA | 2017 Caged in the suburbs of our discontent, a woman (Marianna Palka) snaps and enters a fugue state, consumed by the psyche of a vicious dog. Her philandering, stay-at-work husband (Jason Ritter) must grudgingly assume the role of family caretaker, forcing him to engage with his four children and sister-in-law (Jaime King) as they attempt to strengthen their familial unit and entice mom back to reality. Marianna Palka writes, directs, and stars in her bitingly funny and profound fourth feature. DAVE MADE A MAZE – East Coast Premiere Bill Watterson | USA | 2017 Dave (Nick Thune) is an artist who has yet to complete anything of significance in his short career; out of frustration, he builds an elaborate box fort in his living room. When his girlfriend and friends (including Kirsten Vangsness, Adam Busch, and Meera Rohit Kumbhani) enter against his protests, he must save them all from a series of fantastical pitfalls, booby traps, and creatures of his own creation. Actor Bill Watterson writes and directs his hilarious and idiosyncratic first feature. HOUNDS OF LOVE – East Coast Premiere Ben Young | Australia | 2016 In Ben Young’s tense, chilling feature debut, 17-year-old Vicki Maloney is randomly abducted from a suburban street by a disturbed couple and held prisoner in their home. As she observes the volatile dynamic between her captors, she soon realizes the key to survival lies in driving a wedge between them. PREVENGE – East Coast Premiere Alice Lowe | UK | 2016 In her directorial debut, Alice Lowe (Sightseers, Hot Fuzz, Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place) writes, directs and stars in a pitch black comedic tale of vengeance about seven-months-pregnant Widow Ruth and the unborn serial killer that compels her on her homicidal rampage. SAINT BERNARD – North American Premiere Gabe Bartalos | USA/France | 2013 Prolific creature designer Gabe Bartalos (Brain Damage, Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, Gremlins 2, and the Leprechaun series) crafts a phantasmagoric vision of a classical music conductor descending into insanity with his sophomore feature. Seemingly vanished from a short-lived run on the festival circuit in 2014, BUFF is proud to give this must-see nightmare, and the visionary filmmaker who created it, a proper North American premiere. 68 KILL – East Coast Premiere Trent Haaga | USA | 2017 Trent Haaga (writer of Deadgirl, Cheap Thrills) returns to the director’s chair following 2011’s Chop with a punk-rock after hours thriller about femininity, masculinity and the theft of $68,000. When Liza (AnnaLynne McCord) asks her boyfriend Chip (Matthew Gray Gubler) to help her rob her wealthy sugar daddy, he can’t say no. Once they step into the man’s home, Chip & Liza embark on a breakneck roadtrip to hell. Adapted from Bryan Smith’s 2013, no-holds-barred crime novel of the same name. THE VOID – New England Premiere Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski | Canada | 2016 ASTRON-6’s Jeremy Gillespie & Steven Kostanski return with a Carpenteresque saga of brutal, cosmic dread, packed with creatures straight out of hell. In the middle of a routine patrol, officer Daniel Carter (Aaron Poole) happens upon a blood-soaked figure limping down a deserted stretch of road in the middle of the night. When he rushes the young man to a nearby rural hospital, he finds that patients and personnel are transforming into something… inhuman. As the horror intensifies, Carter must lead the other survivors into the subterranean depths of the hospital in a desperate bid to save their lives and end the nightmare before it’s too late. TRINITY – Boston Premiere Skip Shea | USA | 2016 Award-winning Massachusetts-based filmmaker, writer, artist and actor Skip Shea brings to life a deeply personal and disturbing first feature based on the true story about a moment in the life of a clergy abuse survivor. While at a coffee shop, a man accidentally bumps into the priest who abused him when he was a child, triggering a surreal, PTSD-induced dissociative moment that sends him on a twisted journey through his past.