Underground Film Journal

Posted In » Underground Film News

2013 Calgary Underground Film Festival: Official Lineup

By Mike Everleth ⋅ April 16, 2013

Colorful cartoon characters burst from the ground in the Calgary Underground Film Festival poster

The Calgary Underground Film Festival enters its double-digit years when the 10th annual edition rolls out on April 15-21 at the Globe Cinema with its usual mix of oddball features, indie flicks and documentaries.

Some of the highlights include:

A Band Called Death is Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett’s documentary that profiles the world’s first punk band, which previously won the Re-Writing History Award at the 2013 Chicago Underground Film Festival.

The Rambler is Calvin Lee Reeder‘s feature-length gross-out expansion of his icky short film, which will also be preceded by Brian Lonano‘s spooky-licious short film The Transmission.

Superstar diva Divine finally gets the documentary biography treatment in Jeffrey Schwarz‘s highly-anticipated I Am Divine.

Indonesian death squads recreate their horrific crimes in The Act of Killing, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn and Anonymous.

I Declare War by Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson depict children at their meanest, most brutal cores while playing “capture the flag.”

The full festival lineup is below. For more info, please visit the official Calgary Underground Film Festival website.

April 15

7:00 p.m.: Big Ass Spider!, dir. Mike Mendez. The military attempts to kill a gigantic spider that’s terrorizing Los Angeles.

9:30 p.m.: Berberian Sound Studio, dir. Peter Strickland. A mild-manner audio engineer has his life upended when he moves to Italy to work on a sleazy horror movie. Starring Toby Jones.

April 16

7:00 p.m.: CAFé CAFé, dir. Pat Downing. A lonely poet falls in love with a female student working at his favorite cafe.
Screening with:
For the Love of the Land, dir. Caitlind Brown

9:30 p.m.: I Declare War, dir. Jason Lapeyre, Robert Wilson. Two teams of children engage in a vicious “capture-the-flag” competition that increases in sheer brutality.
Screening with:
Super Exposure, dir. Greg Doble

April 17

7:00 p.m.: The History of Future Folk, dir. Jeremy Kipp Walker. Two aliens seeking to save their dying planet come to Earth and become enthralled with human music, so they form a bluegrass band.

9:30 p.m.: Upstream Color, dir. Shane Carruth. A man and a woman are brought together by a microscopic presence.

April 18

7:00 p.m.: Murder of Couriers, dir. Tom MacLeod & Neil Brill. This documentary profiles a group of bike messengers working in Vancouver.

7:30 p.m.: Frances Ha, dir. Noah Baumbach. A struggling professional dancer finds romance in New York City.

9:30 p.m.: Jug Face, dir. Chad Crawford Kinkle. A girl living in an icky backwoods community gets knocked up by her own brother.

9:45 p.m.: Pieta, dir. Kim Ki-duk. A loan shark’s hired muscle meets his estranged mother for the first time.

11:45 p.m.: No One Lives, dir. Ryûhei Kitamura. Following the murder of a group of students, a gang of hillbilly bandits stumble across a missing heiress and those responsible for the brutal killings.

April 19

6:45 p.m.: Clip (Klip), dir. Maja Miloš. A poor teenage girl living in Serbia becomes embroiled with an older man who brutally treats her as a sexual object.

7:00 p.m.: A Band Called Death, dir. Mark Christopher Covino, Jeff Howlett. This documentary profiles the unlikely history of what may be the world’s first punk band.

9:00 p.m.: Vanishing Waves, dir. Kristina Buožyt. A research scientist uses his own invention to enter the mind of a comatose man where he meets, and becomes sexually attracted to, a mysterious woman.

9:30 p.m.: The Rambler, dir. Calvin Lee Reeder. An ex-con travels to meet his long-lost brother and ends up in the clutches of a mad scientist and other weirdos. Based on Reeder’s short film of the same name.
Screening with:
The Transmission, dir. Brian Lonano (Watch now)

11:45 p.m.: The ABCs of Death, dir. various. This anthology film is a compilation of short films about death and dying.

April 20

10:00 a.m.: “Saturday Morning Cartoon Party”
Three hours of cartoon, plus all you can eat sugar cereal.

2:00 p.m.: “Life, Love, Lyrics and Lobsters”
Black Metal, dir. Kat Candler
Record/Play, dir. Jesse Atlas
Little Appliance, dir. Manuel Arija
Posthuman, dir. Cole Drumb
Caterwaul, dir. Ian Samuels
Lollipop, dir. Blake Horobin
Elephant (Elephante), dir. Pablo Larcuen
Thank You, dir. Pendleton Ward
The River, dir. Sam Handel

4:20 p.m.: How to Make Money Selling Drugs, dir. Matthew Cooke. This documentary examines both sides of the so-called “War on Drugs.”
Screening with:
Catnip: Egress To Oblivion?, dir. Jason Willis

6:45 p.m.: The Act of Killing, dir. Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, Anonymous. This documentary features former Indonesian death squad leaders reenacting their horrific mass-killings.

7:15 p.m.: Picture Day, dir. Kate Melville. An academically-challenged female high school student hooks up with a wanna-be rock star.

9:30 p.m.: I Am Divine, dir. Jeffrey Schwarz. This documentary profiles the most notorious actress in film history, Harris Glenn Milstead aka Divine, who starred in numerous John Waters films and was on the verge of finding mainstream fame just before she died tragically. (Watch online)

9:30 p.m.: Sightseers, dir. Ben Wheatley. A controlling young man takes his girlfriend on a sightseeing tour across the British Isles.
Screening with:
The Captain, dir. Nash Edgerton and Spencer Susser

11:45 p.m.: The Lords of Salem, dir. Rob Zombie. A mysterious record invites spirits from the past to get their ghastly revenge.

April 21

1:00 p.m.: The Final Member, dir. Zach Math, Jonah Bekhor. This documentary follows a museum curator’s quest to acquire his most challenging object yet.

3:30 p.m.: “48-Hour Movie Making Challenge”
Filmmakers had only two days to make a short film and you get to watch the results.

7:15 p.m.: Computer Chess, dir. Andrew Bujalski. In the 1980s, computer geeks hold a man vs. machine chess competition.

9:30 p.m.: The Conspiracy, dir. Christopher MacBride. Two filmmakers attempt to make a documentary about a conspiracy theorist who mysteriously vanishes during production.
Screening with:
The Hunt, dir. Spencer Estabrooks