The 48th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival is another exciting celebration of underground film past and present, featuring two retrospectives of two master filmmakers and dozens of short films and features from some of the most gifted talents working today.

For the retrospectives, first, Kenneth Anger will be in attendance at the festival for two programs of his classic work, including Fireworks and Scorpio Rising. Plus, for the first Anger screening, the filmmaker will be joined on-stage by film critic Dennis Lim for a discussion of his work and career. The second retrospective is of the work of the late Chick Strand, who sadly passed away in 2009. Strand’s Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966) will actually open the entire festival, then there will be two retrospective screenings of her work, the first of which will be presented by film scholar Irina Leimbacher.

The rest of the AAFF lineup reads like a who’s who in the modern underground film scene. The first “film” I suggest everyone check out is the music video Anonanimal by Chicago animator Lisa Barcy, who who has created an absolutely beautiful stop-motion animation piece for the song by Andrew Bird. Also on the animation side is the new entry in Bill Plympton’s super-successful “dog” series: Horn Dog. Then, there’s two animated films by the always awesome Martha Colburn: Myth Labs and Triumph of the Wild.

In the world of experimental films, there’s Kent Lambert‘s creepy found footage montage of love, Fantasy Suite, and Laida Lertxundi‘s pensive My Tears Are Dry. Plus, there’s new short films by perpetual Underground Film Journal favorites Vanessa Renwick and Sylvia Schedelbauer; as well as Steve Cossman‘s TUSSLEMUSCLE, which I’ve seen a clip of and am dying to see the whole thing. And there’s the feature experimental films by Matt McCormick, Some Days Are Better Than Others, and Ben Russell, Let Each One Go Where They May.

Two other special events to watch out for are Naomi Uman‘s “Ukranian Time Machine,” short films that Uman has made during and about her relocation to her ancestral country of Ukraine. And there’s a special screening of Harry Smith‘s legendary Heaven and Earth Magic accompanied by a live score by experimental hip-hop artist Flying Lotus.

And all that’s just the tip of the iceberg! The full Ann Arbor Film Festival lineup is below. And please visit their official site for more info on screenings, parties, panel discussions, award ceremonies and more.

March 23

8:15 p.m.: “Opening Night Screening”
Angel Blue Sweet Wings, dir. Chick Strand
El ataque de los robots de Nebulosa-5, dir. Chema García Ibarra
Missed Aches, dir. Joanna Priestley
Photograph of Jesus, dir. Laurie Hill
Sleeping Bear, dir. Jack Cronin
Nous (Us), dir. Oliviers Hems
The Place Where We Were, dir. Naoyuki Tsuji
de Mouvement, dir. Richard Kerr
Fantasy Suite, dir. Kent Lambert (Watch this underground movie online)
The Unmaking of ‘I Am A Sex Addict’, dir. Caveh Zahedi
Portrait #3: House of Sound, dir. Vanessa Renwick
My Tears Are Dry, dir. Laida Lertxundi (Read the underground movie review)

March 24

1:00 p.m.: Let Each One Go Where They May, dir. Ben Russell

5:00 p.m.: Time Machine: Bill Brown & Sabine Gruffat

7:00 p.m.: “Diamond Pivot Bright”
Golden Hour, dir. Robert Todd
Beyond, dir. Annja Krautgasser
Music for a Missing Film, dir. Luciano Zubillaga
A Deep Well, dir. Alexis Bravos
Lost World (Letűnt Világ), dir. Gyula Nemes

7:30 p.m.: Everytime I See Your Picture I Cry, dir. Daniel Barrow

9:30 p.m.: “From Honey to Ashes”
The Presentation Theme, dir. Jim Trainor
On a Phantom Limb, dir. Nancy Andrews
Zephyr, dir. Naoyuki Tsuji
Somewhere Only We Know, dir. Jesse McLean
Seven Songs About Thunder, dir. Jennifer Reeder

10:00 p.m.: A Decade of LUX

March 25

1:00 p.m.: “Juror Presentation: Tomonari Nishikawa”
Apollo, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa
Sketch Film #1, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa
Sketch Film #2, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa
Market Street, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa
Clear Blue Sky, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa
Building 945, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa
Into the Mass, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa
16-18-4, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa

3:30 p.m.: “Film Jam”

5:00 p.m.: Penny W. Stamps Presents Matthias Müller

7:00 p.m.: “Out Night”
Black Ops Arabesque, dir. Jared Drake
Tools 4 Fools, dir. Kate A. Brandt
EVERYTHING TO LIVE FOR, dir. Scott Northrup
City of Borders, dir. Yun Suh

7:30 p.m.: “Nicky Hamlyn Retrospective”
Minutiae, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Hole, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Lux et Umbra, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Not Resting, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Penumbra, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Pistrino, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Transit of Venus, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Object Studies, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Panni, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Quartet, dir. Nicky Hamlyn
Pro Agri, dir. Nicky Hamlyn

7:30 p.m.: Matrix, dir. Nicky Hamlyn

9:30 p.m.: “Illuminations of the Beyond”
Travelling Fields, dir. Inger Lise Hansen
Black Rain, dir. Semiconductor
#37, dir. Joost Rekveld
Straight Lines, dir. Vincent Grenier
Still Raining, Still Dreaming, dir. Phil Solomon
A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

10:00 p.m.: Wasteland Utopias, dir. David Sherman
Screens with:
way fare, dir. Sylvia Schedelbauer (Read the underground movie review)

March 26

1:00 p.m.: “Juror Presentation: Irina Leimbacher”
Waterfall, dir. Chick Strand
Kristallnacht, dir. Chick Strand
Fever Dream, dir. Chick Strand
Soft Fiction, dir. Chick Strand

5:30 p.m.: “Music Video Showcase”
Twilight Spirit, dir. Jodie Mack
Anonanimal, dir. Lisa Barcy
SOUR ‘Hibi no Neiro’ (Tone of Everyday), dir. Masashi Kawamura, Masayoshi Nakamura, Magico Nakamura, Hal Kirkland
Gary War “Highspeed Drift”, dir. Jacqueline Castel
Blonde Redhead meets Gainsbourg, dir. Jérôme Schlomoff
The Vagina Song, dir. John Madden
Her Morning Elegance, dir. Oren Lavie
Forest, dir. Allison Schulnik
BOTTLE OF WINE, dir. Joseph Ernst

7:00 p.m.: Heaven and Earth Magic, dir. Harry Smith

7:30 p.m.: “How the Darkness Doubled”
In a Year With 13 Deaths, dir. Jonathan Schwartz
Wednesday Morning Two A.M., dir. Lewis Klahr
Bernadette, dir. Duncan Campbell
Gesturings, dir. Peter Herwitz
If There Be Thorns, dir. Michael Robinson
Role, dir. Denise Oleksijczuk
TUSSLEMUSCLE, dir. Steve Cossman

9:30 p.m.: “This Animated Life”
Lev, dir. Laura Yilmaz
The Bellows March, dir. Eric Dyer
M, dir. Felix Dufour-Laperriere
The Black Dog’s Progress, dir. Stephen Irwin
Horn Dog, dir. Bill Plympton
History of the Meat Packing District, dir. Gary Leib
Triumph of the Wild, dir. Martha Colburn
The Art of Drowning, dir. Diego Maclean
Collide-a-Scope, dir. Gregory Godhard
In the New World, dir. Richard Raxlen
Mecanismo Olvidador, dir. Juan Camilo Gonzalez
Twist of Fate, dir. Karen Aqua
Over and Over (and Over) Again, dir. Andy Glynne
Alma, dir. Rodrigo Blaas
Please Say Something, dir. David OReilly

10:00 p.m.: “Ukrainian Time Machine”
Kalendar, dir. Naomi Uman
Unnamed Film, dir. Naomi Uman
Coda, dir. Naomi Uman

11:59 p.m.: The Room, dir. Tommy Wiseau

March 27

11:00 a.m.: “The Kids Are Alright”
Singles, dir. Rebecca Sugar
Magic Cube and Ping-Pong, dir. Lei Lei
Jillian Dillon, dir. Yvette Edery
The Zoo, dir. Katherin McInnis
balance, dir. Debra Sea
bric-a-brac, dir. Aaron Wendel
Pickles for Nickels, dir. Danielle Ash
The Mascot, dir. Wladyslaw Starewicz

12:30 p.m.: “Films by Matthias Muller”

1:00 p.m.: “All That Lies Between Us”
Garden Roll Bounce Parking Lot, dir. Melissa Friedling
Passage Briare, dir. Friedl vom Gröller (Kubelka) (Read the underground movie review)
Notes on the Other, dir. Sergio Oksman
Coffee Futures, dir. Zeynep Devrim Gürsel
Rihla, dir. Gerbrand Burger
The Use of Movement, dir. Chris McNamara
April Day and Night, dir. Daniel Sheppard

3:00 p.m.: “Pavel Medvedev”
Vacations in November, dir. Pavel Medvedev
Wedding of Silence, dir. Pavel Medvedev
On the Third Planet from the Sun, dir. Pavel Medvedev
The Unseen (Nezrimoe), dir. Pavel Medvedev

3:30 p.m.: “Constants to Nothing”
Dick Cheney and a Cold, Dark Cell, dir. Jim Finn
Wound Footage, dir. Thorsten Fleisch
What Comes Between, dir. Cecilia Araneda
Greenpoint, dir. Jim Jennings
Songs from the Shed, dir. Melika Bass
Simultaneous Contrast, dir. Chris Kennedy
Yanqui WALKER and the OPTICAL REVOLUTION, dir. Kathryn Ramey

5:00 p.m.: Off and Running, dir. Nicole Opper
Screens with:
Tomorrow-Yeah!, dir. Daniela Abk

7:00 p.m.: Tehran Has No More Pomegranates, dir. Massoud Bakhshi
Screens with:
Piensa en Mi, dir. Alexandra Cuesta

7:30 p.m.: “An Evening with Kenneth Anger“
Fireworks, dir. Kenneth Anger
Rabbit’s Moon, dir. Kenneth Anger
Scorpio Rising, dir. Kenneth Anger (Watch online)
Kustom Kar Kommandos, dir. Kenneth Anger

9:30 p.m.: Some Days Are Better Than Others, dir. Matt McCormick (Stream this underground film online)

10:00 p.m.: “Matter and Memory”
Myth Labs, dir. Martha Colburn (Read the underground film review)
From the Archives of an Inventor, dir. Stephen Wetzel
Beauty Plus Pity, dir. Duke & Battersby
Dropping Furniture, dir. Harald Hund & Paul Horn
I Know Where I’m Going, dir. Ben Rivers
Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis, dir. Daichi Saito

11:59 p.m.: The Room, dir. Tommy Wiseau

March 28

1:00 p.m.: Expansive Grounds, dir. Gerburg Rohde-Dahl
Screens with:
Salt, dir. Michael Angus & Murray Fredericks

1:30 p.m.: “Chick Strand Retrospective 2”
Mosori Monika, dir. Chick Strand
Anselmo and the Women, dir. Chick Strand
Fake Fruit, dir. Chick Strand

3:00 p.m.: “Everybody Knows This Is Now Here”
Scene 32, dir. Shambhavi Kaul
Atlantropa, dir. Samuel Stevens
The Burning Blue, dir. Jesse McLean
Vineland, dir. Laura Kraning
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on The Alberta Tar Sands, dir. Peter Mettler

3:30 p.m.: “Kenneth Anger Retrospective 2″
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, dir. Kenneth Anger
Invocation of My Demon Brother, dir. Kenneth Anger
Lucifer Rising, dir. Kenneth Anger