2020 Sydney Underground Film Festival ONLINE

WELCOME............................................................................................. 3 PARTNERS / SUFF TEAM....................................................................... 4 HOW TO WATCH THE FESTIVAL............................................................. 5 TAKE48 FILM CHALLENGE.................................................................... 6 SHORT FILM SESSION: LOVE/SICK....................................................... 8 SHORT FILM SESSION: LSD FACTORY................................................. 10 SHORT FILM SESSION: OZPLOIT!........................................................ 12 SHORT FILM SESSION: REALITY BITES #1.......................................... 14 SHORT FILM SESSION: REALITY BITES #2.......................................... 16 SHORT FILM SESSION: SH!T SCARED................................................. 18 SHORT FILM SESSION: WTF!.............................................................. 20 SHORT FILM SESSION: LATE NIGHT CARTOONS................................. 22 SHORT FILM SESSION: PICKLES, BOMBS & BORSCH........................ 24 INHUMAN SCREENS CONFERENCE..................................................... 26

FESTIVAL DIRECTORS ����������������Katherine Berger & Stefan Popescu PROGRAMMING MANAGER �������Nathan Senn TAKE48 DIRECTORS ��������������������Lauren Barrett & Chris David CONFERENCE CONVENORS �����Dr Aleksandr Andreas Wansbrough & Stefan Popescu

GRAPHIC DESIGNER �������������������Elizabeth Berger WEBSITE DESIGNER �������������������Andrew Robards SUFF 2020 KEY ARTIST �������������Dan Withey (danwithey.com)

PAGE 2 | CONTENTS

After the curtain fell on our biggest and best festival to date in 2019, our attention quickly turned to planning an even wilder SUFF 2020 and looking forward to bringing the Sydney film community together for the 14th edition of the festival.

However, 2020 had other plans.

Too much uncertainty meant that we had to either postpone or find an alternative solution and so we decided to take advantage of the opportunities an online festival could bring. Now, we are bringing SUFF to you! Yes, it’s not the same as sitting in a dark theatre (and a lot of you know we pride ourselves on creating fun, cinema experiences at SUFF), but we hope that you can enjoy a crazy collection of shorts from the comfort and safety of your own home!

For the 2020 online festival we will be bringing you all our classic short films programs OZPLOIT!, REALITY BITES, WTF!, LOVE/SICK AND LSD FACTORY plus added extra-special new ones: SH!T SCARED and LATE NIGHT CARTOONS. You can also enjoy the madness that the Take48 challenge brings in 3 minute bursts and savour an eclectic program of Ukrainian shorts in PICKLES, BOMBS & BORSH. OZPLOIT! will bring you 12 of the best films from emerging Australian filmmakers – think dystopian sci-fi, mind-bending horror, and innovative

animations. Short documentaries abound in two REALITY BITES sessions – docs for diehard film fans, films that explore gender and sexuality plus enjoy bizarre docs detailing clandestine monkey purchases and the race between Russia and the US to see who could dig the deepest hole! Our WTF! package is a standout and possibly our strangest ever collection. Headlined by a couple of big names, Yorgos Lathimos and Guy Maddin, this session will leave your jaws on the floor.

LOVE/SICK is always a favourite – a collection of films that are salacious, titillating and outright perverse.

See just how much fun one man can have with a vacuum. Warning!

Not for the faint of heart. LSD FACTORY will present a suite of works that challenge our perceptions of reality.

This year’s festival will also see the inclusion of two new packages, LATE NIGHT CARTOONS, which will present a package of the year’s weirdest independent animations, for adults, best watched very late at night.

SUFF will also present SH!T SCARED, a package containing the year’s most terrifying and atmospheric horror shorts.

There’s lots to enjoy so gather your family and friends! See you in 2021!

Stay safe!

Katherine Berger & Stefan Popescu Festival Directors

WELCOME | PAGE 3

PRODUCTION PARTNER

SUPPORTING PARTNERS

TAKE 48 PARTNERS

PR PARTNER

PATRON DONORS • Deb and Ian • Liz B

SUPPORTING DONORS DONORS • Frazer Bull-Clark • Cheryl Northey • Shahane Bekarian • Holly Radunz • Glenn Shea • Tiff Mchugh • Kate Sutherland • Jane Mills • Luke Bozzetto • Steve Richards • Luke Galiazzo

PAGE 4 | PARTNERS

• Maria Chetcuti • Meghan Wilson • Robert Toscano • Sam Irons • Stephanie Gal

SUFF have partnered with Eventive, an online screening platform, to bring you over 100 shorts across 10 sessions over 10 days. Plus SUFF will also host the 3rd annual Inhuman Screens Academic Conference online this year.

We are keeping tickets prices simple and cheap. $10 tickets to any session with no fees and only $55 for a full festival pass – so you can watch any or all sessions across the 10 days at any time that is convenient to you and attend the Inhuman Screens conference online.

GET YOUR TICKETS AND PASSES HERE Select your individual tickets from here https://watch.eventive.org/suff2020 Passes are now online here https://suff2020.eventive.org/passes/buy All sessions are 15+ unless otherwise indicated.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FOR AN ONLINE FESTIVAL Where do I purchase session tickets or passes for the festival?

Head to watch.eventive.org/suff2020 to view the complete program and click on the session you wish to buy or head straight here suff2020.eventive.org/passes/buy Can I watch the films/sessions outside the festival dates of 10-20 September 2020?

No, just like you would at our festival, you can only view films/sessions online during the festival dates which is Thursday 10 September - Sunday 20 September 2020.

Can I watch the films/sessions on demand during the festival dates of 10-20 September 2020?

Yes, you can by unlocking (i.e. buy) any session but once you start watching, you will have a 48 hour viewing period to complete watching that session.

If I buy a Festival Pass, can I watch any films/sessions on demand during the festival?

Yes, if you purchase a festival pass, you will be able to watch any session at any time over the festival dates. If you purchase a pass, you’ll be able to select any film with your pass.

Only one ticket to each session per pass.

Can I buy a session or Festival Pass as a gift for a friend?

Yes, Passes can be bought as a gift! Just need an email to transfer the pass to.

Can I download the films to watch at a later time?

No, you just get the ability to watch it from any device over the 10 day festival.

Please note: Your information will only be used in relation to your purchase and not used

by SUFF (unless you opt-in to join the mailing list). It will not be used by Eventive or any third party.

HOW TO WATCH | PAGE 5

THE 48HR FILM CHALLENGE IS BACK FOR 2020!

The challenge will run from the 28th 30th August and will dare participants to write, shoot, edit and upload a 3 minute short film in only 48 hours. To turn up the heat on this already intensive challenge, filmmakers are required to include a mystery object and line of dialogue in their films! To assist filmmakers in 2020, SUFF has created a virtual hub, offering a wide range of resources to help productions and members of the SUFF team will be online for the entire 48 hours!

CHALLENGE DATES Friday the 28th of August at 7pm AEST until Sunday 30th August.

AWARDS & PRIZES Awards and prizes including camera packages and more from SONY, RedGiant software suites and RENTaCAM equipment hire vouchers up for grabs!

Last year’s inaugural challenge saw over 30 films produced and an incredible sold out screening was hosted by SUFF.

REGISTER NOW Register now and join in on the fun! www.suff.com.au/take48

PAGE 6 | TAKE [48] CHALLENGE

was particularly for making this challenge! Can’t TAKE48 –challenge FILMMAKER’S has inspired our filmmaking team toVIRTUAL forHUB next year! “funTheandTAKE48 “waitThanks

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make many more quick turn-around projects.

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ANNIE (TAKE48 FILMMAKER)

To further support the TAKE48 community, the TAKE48 team hosted a BEC (TAKE48 FILMMAKER) Filmmaker’s Hub throughout the duration of the challenge in 2019. The Filmmaker’s Hub served as a space for filmmakers to congregate, collaborate and work out of, encouraging them to engage with each other to build upon Thank you so much for offering such theirIt was networks. to COVID-19 and restrictions, the TAKE48 Hubmembers will be a great event, all of our group honestly Due mind blowing to see the moving online in 2020 and the TAKE48 team will endeavour to provide as enjoyed this so much. quality of all the films that were made in 48 TIANQI (TAKE48 hours. online, personalised support as possible much to allFILMMAKER) participants.

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MAX (TAKE48 FILMMAKER)

TAKE 48 PARTNERS

“

”

We really enjoyed this experience – despite its challenges!

NISHA (TAKE48 FILMMAKER)

”

TAKE [48] CHALLENGE | PAGE 7 Page 5 of 11

AGES 18+

SHORT FILM SESSION

This series of salacious shorts are sure to stimulate, titillate and offend in equal measure. Exploring expressions of sexuality in all its forms, LOVE/SICK presents twelve pint sized peccadillos of debauchery, depravity and desire, not for the faint-of-heart.

DEEP CLEAN

Dir. David Wilson | 4 mins | UK | Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2019 Cleanliness is next to godliness. A celebration of objectophilia (the love of objects) and self-pleasure. Soundtracked by Neiked and their globally charting smash hit song ‘Sexual’.

Directed by GRAMMY nominated and UK Music Video Awards winner David Wilson and starring queer performance artist Harry Clayton-Wright.

F*CKING GHOSTS

Dir. Jason Cook | 3 mins | USA | Comedy | World Premiere | 2020 What if a family bought a new house that was haunted by ghosts... that had sex all over the place? What if the ghosts were just people under sheets? What if there was a Scottish priest involved? I set out to find some answers.

DINNER FOR TWO

Dir. Finnian Williamson | 6 mins | Australia | Drama/Comedy | Sydney Premiere | 2020 A man returns home from the grocery with a chicken to prepare for a date. He gets the chicken ready, freshens up and waits eagerly for his date. But there’s no date – well, turns out chicken is the date. He’s going to have sex with a roast chicken on the kitchen table with an Obama mask on. And he does, and it’s disgusting in every way.

PAGE 8 | LOVE/SICK

HEATSTROKE

Dir. Edgar Morais | 9 mins | USA, Portugal | Drama | AUS Premiere | 2019 On a hot and febrile day, teenage Claire ditches school to meet some friends in the woods where her memories, traumas and desires merge into tears, sweat, and sperm.

I LOVE YOUR GUTS

Dir. David Janove | 17 mins | USA | Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2019 Follow fast food workers Kristina and Jacqui as they work the graveyard shift and find themselves having to fend off a belligerent drunk guy trying to break in. Starring Allie McCarthy, Danielle Kay and Scott Shilstone.

LOVESONG

Dir. Michael Sanders | 7 mins | Canada | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2019 A couple struggling in the depths of their marriage. A strange woman tossed up like driftwood at the water’s edge.

SMILES

Dir. Javier Chavanel | 13 mins | Spain | Horror | 2019 Borja is about to meet his girlfriend’s parents. This is meant to be a tricky moment and even awkward.

However, he hasn’t even imagined what he’s going to suffer next. The best way to overcome the situation: to give smile and wait.

NAILBITER KARAOKE NIGHT

Dir. Francisco Lacerda | 8 mins | Portugal/Finland | Comedy/Horror | AUS Premiere | 2019 Two sleazy tourists have the night of their lives at a Karaoke bar in the Azores.

Dir. Jono Freedrix | 4 mins | USA | Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2019 Vomica has very unique tastes in men. In fact, she suffers from early onset cannibalism. When her cravings get the best of her, she hopes her date can read between the lines and offer a suitable appetizer. Nailbiter is a twisted gross-out comedy about hunger, kink, love and ultimately acceptance.

STREAM (LE JET)

Dir. Eve Dufaud | 5 mins | Canada | Drama/Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2019 When they piss standing, all men are works of art.

THE PLUNGE SOME KIND OF HUMANITY

Dir. Rock Brenner | 9 mins | France | Drama | World Premiere | 2020 A shy thirty-something receives shocking videos from his best friend.

Dir. Simon Ryninks | 10 mins | UK | Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2019 After a night of passion, Emily tells Jay that she’d like to use a strap-on. Scared of losing a girl he has a connection with, Jay reluctantly agrees.

LOVE/SICK | PAGE 9

SHORT FILM SESSION

BREAK THROUGH THE ABYSS

Dir. Giselle Chien | 6 mins | USA | Experimental | AUS Premiere | 2019 The phenomenon of digital media affecting the brains of my generation in the way we think, the way we view ourselves, morphing our desires to become the false perfections of others. The voices and echoes that lure in our heads, the wires running in monitors like the veins running through our body, we’ve allowed the abyss in our screens consume us, flesh, living, pulsing young minds.

I felt the need to use as well as learn the essence of image-making as a result of this thought. There-fore used all analog methods to produce this film, from stop-motion animation to shooting to optical printing and processing.

A potent mix of the year’s best psychedelic shorts, this suite of films offers mindmelting experimentations in materialist structuralism, glitch aesthetics and speculative animation. Playing with form and function with gleeful ingenuity, who needs drug-induced highs when you have LSD FACTORY?

GHOULISH GALACTIC GRIEVANCES

Dir. Josh Owen | 14 mins | Canada | Experimental | AUS Premiere | 2019 A ghoul follows her dreams, leading her from a friend-filled swamp to the far reaches of outer space.

BROKEN RELATIONSHIP

Dir. Wrik Mead | 4 mins | Canada | Experimental | World Premiere | 2020 Broken Relationship moves through a kaleidoscope of colour and pixels to fragments of embraced bodies. Using glitched video footage from classic porn, the broken and distorted imagery speaks to the difficulty that the LBGTQ youth encounter when trying to navigate through their sexuality and relationships. The images mimic the broken messages that much of the porn industry communicates, certainly not the birds and the bee’s stories that most youth grow up with.

PAGE 10 | LSD FACTORY

OPTIC NERVE

Dir. Peter Hartsock | 15 mins | USA | Experimental | AUS Premiere | 2019 On a stormy night in a cramped decrepit apartment, 1973, a traumatized man seeking solace and structure through meditative drawing grapples with rabid anxieties as order and chaos collide and overtake him in this psychedelic trip of a film. Part narrative psycho-thriller, part audio-visual spectacle, one technicolor nightmare. Take the trip.

PULSATOR

Dir. Thor Sivertsen | 5 mins | Norway | Experimental | AUS Premiere | 2019 Pulsator is an abstract experimental art film.

Organic and geometric shapes drifting and making constantly new pictures. Made with different painting techniques, stop motion and time-lapse – digitally manipulated and layered in the editing process. The music is made by the group Motorpsycho specially for the film.

SUSIE

Dir. Jordan Doig | 15 mins | USA/Australia | Thriller | AUS Premiere | 2020 Susie and Andy’s relationship has become toxic. In order to deal with Andy’s controlling and emotionally damaging actions, Susie begins to manifest a real and physical horror.

TERROR FERVOR

Dir. Phoebe Parsons | 6 mins | Canada | Animation | AUS Premiere | 2019 Informed by experimental films from the 1960s and 70s, Terror Fervor takes the viewer on a psychedelic non-linear journey through the vices of seven characters. By way of the timeless tropes of desire and malaise such as vanity, gluttony and fury, the wordless journey of Terror Fervor plunges the viewer into an experience that is hard to classify and hard to forget.

THERE WERE FOUR OF US

Dir. Cassie Shao | 7 mins | USA/China | Animation | AUS Premiere | 2019 An experimental film about non-linear dream experience that travels through a room where four characters are trapped, through moments in their lives and through the symbol of death that connected them together.

VR FOOD

Dir. Malcolm Mills | 13 mins | USA | Experimental | AUS Premiere | 2020 Inventors struggle to create virtual food— infinite deliciousness, zero calories— when they mistake an obscure film, “VR Food,” as a successful invention of virtual food.

WOOD CHILD AND HIDDEN FOREST MOTHER

Dir. Stephen Irwin | 10 mins | UK | Animation | AUS Premiere | 2020 Deep in the forest, a hunter encounters a strange creature he cannot kill.

LSD FACTORY | PAGE 11

SHORT FILM SESSION

Featuring the year’s best independent shorts from right across Australia, OZPLOIT! presents an eclectic offering of works spanning multiple genres and a diversity of perspectives. This collection of films shares two things in common: they’re all homegrown and total homeruns!

AT THE EDGE OF NIGHT

Dir. Phillipe Sung, Brandon Fayette | 15 mins | Australia | Drama | Sydney Premiere | 2020 A bisexual death metal ghost story set in the Mojave Desert about two estranged childhood friends, Aaron and Ben, who - though neither of them are able to admit it - are soul mates. On the night of their reunion, it’s clear the man Ben loves has moved on - but before they can discuss the past, tragedy occurs. Their deep connection transcends time and space and, ultimately, Aaron has to either let Ben go, or join him.

BAREFACE

Dir. The Lacey brothers | 8 mins | Australia | Crime | World Premiere | 2019 Sam is a misguided youth who accompanies a local gang on a home robbery. Their plan is thrown into disarray when after breaking in, they discover the owner is still home. The gang members flee, leaving Sam to fend for himself.

DARK WATER BABY

Dir. Mikey Hamer | 6 mins | Australia | Sci-Fi | Sydney Premiere | 2019 Claude has been ostracised from society for his scientific thesis on shared consciousness.

Under the pressure of his failing health, and knowing the importance of his findings, he creates a clone to continue his work. But these things can be tricky.

PAGE 12 | OZPLOIT!

Dir. Erin Coates and Anna Nazzari | 15 mins | Australia | Drama | Sydney Premiere | 2019 A deep-sea environment unexpectedly manifests in the walls of a grieving women’s suburban dwelling. It explores familial trauma and loss through the darkly surreal tale of a woman who discovers an ocean within her house.

FOURTEEN

Dir. Rowena Rasmussen | 7:15 mins | Australia | Thriller | AUS Premiere | 2018 A break-up dinner is slowly unveiled to be a much darker event. Zoe unexpectedly finds herself at a crossroads redemption or revenge. This film explores the different hues of distorted love... that love can exist even in the darkest of places.

GAMMON

Dir. Slavi Gaitt | 11 mins | Australia | Drama | Sydney Premiere | 2019 Darwin’s youngest escort driver, Dom can’t help but notice an imbalance in his social life. He naturally misses his previous life of smoking beugs, bogging and fishing.

Hanging on by a thread to dying relationships, Dom is forced to choose between the ultimatum of work- or freedom.

ON

Dir. Jelena Sinik | 2 mins | Australia | Animation | 2018 Take a curious and playful glimpse into both the connectedness and enduring loneliness of the modern condition, through this intimate and unexamined lens.

SIMON. YOU’RE DONE. FUN TIMES

Dir. Matthew Victor Pastor | 8 mins | Australia | Drama | Sydney Premiere | 2020 Sammy is a teenager with disenfranchised violent men all around him. Kate watches Sammy from across the hall of their commission flats. This is the story of their inevitable demise.

KAPARA

Dir. Steve Hudson | 10 mins | Australia | Crime | Sydney Premiere | 2019 Aboriginal female cop has a date with the devil.

NINETEEN NINETY NINE Dir. Grace Uther | 11 mins | Australia | Thriller | Sydney Premiere | 2019 At a party on New Years’ Eve 1999, a young woman senses something sinister.

Amongst the hype of the new millennium and fear of the Y2K apocalypse, getting through the night is not going to be easy.

Dir. Drew Kendell | 12 mins | Australia | Comedy | Sydney Premiere | 2019 Simon questions whether his latest novel ‘The Endless Line’ is ready for the world to see. Plagued by self-doubt, Simon wakes in an alternate universe where best-selling author ‘Dane Crawford’ has already written his novel.

STICK

Dir. Michael Gosden | 16 mins | Australia | Comedy/Horror | World Premiere | 2020 Will, an inexperienced bushwalker, leads his friends into a mysterious bush trail.

They unknowingly awaken a dark curse. Now, they must escape mother nature and what hides beneath the thick bush.

OZPLOIT! | PAGE 13

SHORT FILM SESSION #1

A program of engaging, reallife narratives in short bitesized pieces, REALITY BITES presents the year’s very best documentary shorts. From cinema verité, to essay films, animations and ob-docs, this package presents a hardhitting dose of non-fiction shorts spanning the globe. At a time when truth is so often stranger than fiction, these films are not to be missed.

AGES 18+

DIEORAMA

Dir. Kevin Staake | 10 mins | USA | Documentary | AUS Premiere | 2019 Abigail Goldman spends her work days as an investigator for a public defender’s office in Washington state, helping people who are seriously in trouble—which can mean hours of staring at grisly pictures of crime scenes, visiting morgues, even observing autopsies. By night, she dreams up gruesome events, which she then turns into tiny, precise dioramas.

Rife with scenes of imminent death and brutal dismemberment, the fruits of Goldman’s painstaking labor would be adorable … if they weren’t so disturbing. In this new documentary short, we follow along as Goldman brings her miniature worlds of murder and mayhem to life with tweezers, paint, and resin, and meet the people who just can’t get enough of her twisted visions—where the final touch is always, in the artist’s words, “two or three brushstrokes of red paint.”

CINEMA RULES EVERYTHING AROUND ME

Dir. Rachel Wolther | 5 mins | USA | Documentary | AUS Premiere | 2020 Catch a movie with film buff Caroline Golum, as she shares her thoughts on the best places to see weird movies in New York City and the state of cinema itself. We accompany Caroline to three movie screenings over the course of a week: a new indie at Anthology Film Archives, a matinee double-feature of 1920’s comedies at MOMA, and a late night 1970’s Italian horror film at The Quad. These scenes are intercut with an interview with Caroline at her apartment in Brooklyn, which is covered in vintage movie paraphernalia.

PAGE 14 | REALITY BITES #1

JUST THAT TIME OF THE MONTH

Dir. Tess McArthur-Dowty | 7 mins | Australia | Documentary | AUS Premiere | 2019 In this visceral impressionistic film the viewer is invited into the director’s world as she experiences a menstrual cycle - from food cravings, to anxiety, to physical pain. Set almost entirely in the director’s bedroom, Just that time of the month uses a series of visceral visual metaphors to share the experience of having a period.

LIMINALITY & COMMUNITAS

STRANGER/THINGS

MODERN WHORE

THE DEEPEST HOLE

Dir. Laura Rantanen | 10 mins | Finland | Documentary | AUS Premiere | 2018 After the sunset, a man wanders between the edges of the highways and freeways gathering edible dead animals hit by a car. A one night journey during where the temporal and eternal meet, this film investigates the border between life and death and the edges of the manmade world.

Dir. Nicole Bazuin | 11 mins | Canada | Documentary| AUS Premiere | 2019 University student by day, escort by night, Andrea Werhun led a secret life under the alias “Mary Ann.” To her horror, Andrea discovers outrageous online reviews of Mary Ann’s sexual performance written by self-proclaimed “hobbyists.” In this hybrid documentary, hobbyist and escort perspectives collide with hilarious and revealing results. And when the sex work narrative is controlled by johns, there are darker consequences than just a bad review.

Dir. Philip Brubaker | 10 mins | USA | Documentary | Sydney Premiere | 2019 Go behind-the-scenes for the tale of Wim Wenders’ The State of Things and how an illfated collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola led to the blossoming of Jim Jarmusch’s breakthrough, Stranger Than Paradise. The juxtaposition of the two films leads to a larger meditation on stylistic and thematic unity, and how we watch films and the way art imitates life.

Dir. Matt McCormick | 12 mins | USA | Doco/ Experimental | AUS Premiere | 2020 It’s common knowledge the USA and the Soviet Union have competed to win Space, Arms and the Cold War. Few know that they also faced off to see who could dig the deepest hole. It is particularly surprising that one of the countries may have also discovered Hell in the process.

THE WANKER PATTY ARE YOU BRINGING WEED IN FROM JAMAICA?

Dir. Matthew Salton | 9 mins | USA | Doco/ Animation | AUS Premiere | 2019 In 1968, Patty a flight attendant, realised she could smuggle strong weed in from Jamaica with relative ease. She is 77 years old now, and this is her version of what happened.

Dir. Jan Soldat | 12 mins | Austria/Germany | Documentary | World Premiere | 2020 While waiting for his inseminators, the Viennese wanker shares his sexual fantasies and his honour of being the biggest cumwhore of Vienna. When the doorbell rings, the wanker doesn’t open. The computer screen and the camera of the filmmaker is in this film, a reflecting mirror of how fantasy and reality, desire and memory become one.

REALITY BITES #1 | PAGE 15

SHORT FILM SESSION #2

A program of engaging, reallife narratives in short bitesized pieces, REALITY BITES presents the year’s very best documentary shorts. From cinema verité, to essay films, animations and ob-docs, this package presents a hardhitting dose of non-fiction shorts spanning the globe. At a time when truth is so often stranger than fiction, these films are not to be missed.

A MONTH OF SINGLE FRAMES

Dir. Lynne Sachs | 14 mins | USA | Documentary | AUS Premiere | 2019 In 1998, Barbara Hammer had a residency in a shack without electricity. She shot film and kept a journal. In 2018, Barbara began her own process of dying. She gave all of her material from the residency to Lynne Sachs and invited her to make a film. Lynne explores Barbara’s experience of solitude. She places text on screen as a confrontation with a cinema that brings us together in multiple spaces and times.

2D LOVE

Dir. Abigail Egden | 10 mins | New Zealand | Documentary | Sydney Premiere | 2019 A 24 year old New Zealander finds himself romantically attached to a fictional character from his favourite anime show. With a 2-dimensional partner that is perfect in every way (apart from being able to touch and talk and all of that), he finds himself wondering if 3D-love is still worth the risk, or if reality might have become a bit, well, irrelevant. A timely parable about human’s growing intimacy with technology, this short documentary provides a rare window into a burgeoning world of a young man grappling with love in all its dimensions.

PAGE 16 | REALITY BITES #2

ANIMAL FARM

Dir. James Hollenbaugh | 3 mins | USA | Documentary | Sydney Premiere | 2019 The animals do not stay long at the ‘Animal Farm’. Animals arrive but never leave. Uncle Steve won’t let them. It’s a place where animals come to die.

CHARACTER

Dir. Vera Brunner-Sung | 17 mins | USA | Documentary | AUS Premiere | 2020 Actor Mark Metcalf made his reputation playing aggrieved authority figures, most famously in National Lampoon’s Animal House and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now in his 70s, he takes a critical look back on his life and career in this meditation on power, privilege, and the perils of being a “type.”

THE PAINT WIZZARD

Dir. Jessie Auritt & Jessica Wolfson | 17 mins | USA | Documentary | AUS Premiere | 2020 Millicent “Millie” McCrory, also known as “The Paint Wizzard” around Austin, TX, is an accomplished house painter who works in a miniskirt, crop top and signature cat ear headband. Born and raised as Michael in a conservative Morman household, she never felt that she could be her true self. A few years ago, at the age of 58, she gained the courage to change her name to Millie and adopt female pronouns. While she identifies as transgender, Millie still struggles with her own ideas of gender and social norms. The film follows Millie in her daily life, as she wrestles with questions of identity and acceptance, painting a hopeful, poignant and honest portrait.

DARLING PET MONKEY

Dir. Jim McDonough | 9 mins | USA | Documentary | AUS Premiere | 2019 In 1969, two young brothers ordered a monkey from an ad in the back of a monster magazine.

After the postal carrier delivered the box — things got weird. Tim Tate’s true story has been covered on NPR and made into a musical. This is the story’s first cinematic telling.

THE THROWBACK

Dir. Louise Bertoncini | 10 mins | Australia | Documentary | Sydney Premiere | 2019 If video killed the radio star, then surely Netflix has killed the DVD store. So how can one tenacious woman keep her doors open long enough to be the last DVD store in the city?

IT’S COMING

Dir. Jessica Kingdon & Nathan Truesdell | 9 mins | USA/China | Doco | AUS Premiere | 2019 “The future is here! Well, almost.”

REALITY BITES #2 | PAGE 17

SHORT FILM SESSION

SH!T SCARED assembles the year’s most bonechilling, atmospheric shorts. Hauntings, demonic possession, and a host of psychotic killers populate these eerie shorts, best watched in pitch black for full blood curdling effect.

DOUBLE TAP

Dir. EROS V | 3 mins | USA | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2020 Chilli, a screen-obsessed teen, ignores an instagram chainmail warning her to ‘like this post’ or The Dickless Troll will ‘eat her blood.’

Big mistake.

In the dead of night she receives a visit from The Dickless Troll - a hairless cretin with mangled thumbs.

He’s hungry, for blood. And validation.

BEDTIME

Dir. Gemma Lee | 6 mins | Australia | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2018 A single mother struggles to look after her young son. When she finds bruises on his body, she becomes concerned that someone is hurting him and is forced to confront the evil presence that inhabits their home.

PAGE 18 | SH!T SCARED

FERINE

Dir. Andrea Corsini | 17 mins | Italy | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2019 A woman wanders in the big and empty parking lots following a man who she seems to want to ambush. From her gestures something furious and menacing emerges. Everything seems to draw back to a woods beyond her abandoned home, a place that hides the true nature of her actions.

LAURA HASN’T SLEPT

Dir. Parker Finn | 11 mins | USA | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2020 Desperate to rid herself of a recurring nightmare, a young woman seeks help from her therapist.

MUSHI

Dir. Odin Jurray | 12 mins | Australia | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2019 As a nested parasite rapidly grows inside the skull of a young woman, she has one night to determine her fate.

REGRET

Dir. Santiago Menghini | 16 mins | USA | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2020 Following the death of his father, a man must survive the manifestations of his inner demons over the course of a dreary night.

SATANIC PANIC 87

Dir. Bryan M. Ferguson | 4 mins | Scotland | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2019 It’s 1987 and two metalheads have opened a gateway to hell under the instructions of a satanic aerobics tape.

TAYLOR AND VANESSA

Dir. Christina Santa Cruz | 17 mins | USA | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2019 Taylor and Vanessa examine what it means to be in danger. Through the course of one evening the two women must choose to either confront the object of their horror or resign themselves to their inevitable fate.

THE DEVIL’S HARMONY

Dir. Dylan Holmes Williams | 14 mins | UK | Horror | Aus Premiere | 2019 A bullied teenage girl leads an a cappella club on a trail of destruction against her high school enemies.

SH!T SCARED | PAGE 19

AGES 18+

SHORT FILM SESSION

WTF! Presents a package of confounding curiosities for the cinematically adventurous at heart. These films all venture into subject matter disturbing, delirious and deranged. Featuring films from Masters of the absurd Lathimos and Maddin, and some of independent cinemas’ brightest rising stars, this collection of shorts is so mind-meltingly weird, you’ll be left asking…WTF!

NIMIC

Dir. Yorgos Lathimos | 12 mins | Germany/UK/ USA | Drama | 2019 A professional cellist has an encounter with a stranger on the subway which has unexpected and far-reaching ramifications on his life.

STUMP THE GUESSER

Dir. Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson | 19 mins | Canada | Drama | AUS Premiere | 2019 He works at the fairground as “Stump the Guesser”, who can guess anything for a fee.

But suddenly his tricks stop working. And then he unwittingly falls in love with his sister whom he believed to be lost. He sets out to scientifically disprove the theory of heredity and marry his beloved as soon as possible.

BREEZE

Dir. Elvis Xia | 7 mins | Australia | Animation | World Premiere | 2020 Two astronauts stumble across an unpredictable alien drug dealer and risk everything to save earth from crisis.

COIL

Dir. Spencer Ryerson | 12 mins | Canada | Horror | World Premiere | 2020 A young woman struggles to fight her anxiety, and the malevolent creature inside her, while she prepares to go out to a party.

PAGE 20 | WTF!

CONSPIRACY CRUISE

HEAT

FLICK

MIDNIGHT COFFEE

Dir. Brad Abrahams | 12 mins | USA | Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2019 Inspired by a real event, this is a cruise ship vacation for conspiracy theorists that takes a turn for the surreal when their most outlandish theories come true on board. A nuanced portrait of the subculture and its figureheads.

Dir. Ariel Zengotita | 10 mins | USA | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2019 A reclusive college student is driven mad after picking a booger he can’t flick away.

GLOW DORRIS

Dir. Shelby Wilson | 15 mins | Canada | Horror | World Premiere | 2020 Dorris, mysteriously receives a package containing an old Liz Luv workout VHS. Without hesitation, she decides to play the VHS, only to find herself dangerously falling into a deep trance by the host. With no idea of impending doom, Dorris sinks into this self-loathing trance, with the only escape is to kill herself.

Dir. Thessa Meijer | 2 mins | Netherlands | Comedy | Sydney Premiere | 2019 During an extreme heat wave, a shy girl seeks refuge in an ice cream shop. But when she looks into the eyes of the charming vendor, she is on thin ice.

Dir. Jaime Levinas | 12 mins | USA | Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2020 On a late-night shift, a barista burns a coffee unleashing a strange force. This wacky, highly stylised film is an absurd examination of work addiction and millennial post-humanity.

THE LAST DAY OF SPICY JACK

Dir. Giulia Mucci | 9 mins | Germany | Western/ Sci-Fi | AUS Premiere | 2018 In a motorway restaurant by the space highway, customers in love disappear without leaving traces. A similar fate is reserved to its waitress and a charming, wacky robber in this grotesque spaghetti sci-fi.

WTF! | PAGE 21

SHORT FILM SESSION

Best watched in the late hours, this adults-only assortment of alternative animations is the perfect package for the young at heart. For fans of programs like Liquid Television, Tim and Eric and Adult Swim, these Late Night Cartoons will take you back to the golden age of animation. Throw together a midnight snack and settle in for a package of toons sure to melt your mind.

BELA

Dir. Nick Simpson | 4:52 mins | Australia | AUS Premiere | 2019 The biography of Bela Julesz, Hungary’s most famous visual neuroscientist, creates a disturbance in the tedious lives of two isolated people.

DEEP LOVE

Dir. Mykyta Lyskov | 14:00 mins | Ukraine | AUS Premiere | 2019 Deep love has finally happened in Ukraine.

FARCE COSMIC SPAGHETTI

Dir. Gurleen Rai | 07:37 mins | USA | AUS Premiere | 2019 An experimental feminist think piece disguised as an absurdist comedy. Start out with a little bit of water and you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes and tomato paste.

You make sure it doesn’t stick. When ya’ got it to a boil ya’ shove in all ya’ sausage and ya’ meatballs, eh? Add a little bit ‘o’ wine and a little bit of sugar, and that’s my trick.

PAGE 22 | LATE NIGHT CARTOONS

Dir. Robin Jensen | 10:55 mins | Norway | AUS Premiere | 2019 A Sami man ends up in greedy and decadent claws as he tries to save both his reindeer herd and the woman he desires. An awful fable about fatal passion.

SYMBIOSIS

Dir. Nadja Andrasev | 12:50 mins | France | AUS Premiere | 2019 A betrayed wife starts to investigate her husband’s mistresses. Her jealousy is gradually replaced by curiosity.

FRIEND OF A FRIEND

Dir. Zachary Zezima | 14 mins | USA | AUS Premiere | 2019 A young man is sexually assaulted and subdues, punishes, then befriends his own attacker while confronting his past and the ambiguities of sexuality.

Part fiction, part non-fiction, part autobiography and part dream, Friend of a Friend attempts to broaden the conversation around abuse and its motivations and implications, as well as the survivor vs. assailant dynamic and results of ostracism.

SUCCOR

Dir. Steven Lapcevic | 4:22 mins | USA | AUS Premiere | 2020 The synopsis is simply “A warm, familiar friend.” I realize this is incredibly short and I hope that is acceptable.

TURD

Dir. Matthew Salton | 1:52 mins | USA | World Premiere | 2020 Bird. Mouse. Poop. Vomit.

SWEET SWEET KINK LITTLE MISS FATE

Dir. Joder von Rotz | 8:15 mins | Switzerland | AUS Premiere | 2020 Little Miss Fate lives in a world driven by fate. When the opportunity arises, she slips into the role of the world leader. Unintentionally she creates a monster, which greedily wants to suck up all the love of the world.

Overwhelmed by the rapid development, she loses control.

Dir. Maggie M. Bailey | 13:23 mins | USA/Chile | AUS Premiere | 2018 Take a sweet, sweet peek into the kinky world of bondage, dominance, and sadomasochism through three stories of intimate connection, consensual exploration, and deep self-reflection. Follow four members of the Austin, TX Kink/BDSM community reminiscing on the moments of exciting ‘firsts’, the long journey of healing, and beginnings of lifelong relationships.

URBAN SPHINX

Dir. María Lorenzo | 5 mins | Spain | AUS Premiere | 2020 An animated short film that creatively documents the presence of street art at various neighbourhoods of Valencia, Spain, between 2018/2019. These pieces of ephemeral art, connecting each image like the frames of a film. All these faces look at us with widely opened eyes, as if they tell us that we exist, but we might not exist —and the world would go on.

LATE NIGHT CARTOONS | PAGE 23

UKRAINIAN SHORT FILM SESSION

An eclectic genre blast of shorts: Pickles, Bombs & Borsch presents a package of films portraying everyday life in contemporary Ukraine - a country grappling with continual political upheaval and the toll of Europe’s forgotten war. Julian Knysh returns with more unmissable Ukrainian shorts that capture the new wave of an artistic explosion reflecting upon and actively redefining the culture!

HEARTBREAKER

THANK YOU!

When a man falls in love with the local supermarket cashier, he gives her his heart... literally... which, along with other packages, travels along the conveyor belt, straight to the checkout.

A young volunteer in an old van tries to deliver vital items to the military in the East, where there is fighting, but met by several roadblocks - both literal and figurative – along the way. Based on the true story of a real volunteer car that travelled more than 1,000 km through a combat zone, to deliver medicine and evacuate the wounded.

Dir. Oleksandra Brovchenko | 5 mins | Drama | AUS Premiere | 2018

Dir. Maxim Lyukov | 5 mins | Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2018

THE COFFIN

Dir. Kadim Tarasov | 9 mins | Existential western, short film | AUS Premiere | 2019 Having lost his family, old Ivan goes crazy, he paints his face and puts on a shamanic headdress with feathers on his head, takes out the icons from the frame. Ivan builds a coffin with his own hands and prepares for the meeting with death. It seems that no one and nothing can bring him back to his senses until an unexpected meeting with a stray black dog that changes his plans.

PAGE 24 | UKRAINIAN SHORTS

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ODESSA

Dir. Vladek Zankovsky | 5 mins | Action/ Comedy | AUS Premiere | 2016 An assassination attempt on a high-ranking official in the center of Odessa, Ukraine.

CURATED BY JULIAN KNYSH

INT. KITCHEN. NIGHT.

Dir. Arkasha Nepytaliuk | 4 mins | Drama | AUS Premiere | 2018 A nervous married couple, two radiant high school graduates, an ambiguous folk song and a cake – the table is set for a disaster. A surreal satire about traditional values and antiquated prejudices.

SOMEWHERE NEARBY : THE STORY OF ONE BREAK Dir. Andriy Ames | 12 mins | Drama | AUS Premiere | 2019

Julia is an ordinary schoolgirl who runs afoul of the alpha in her class - Lika. The cruelty and uncontrolled aggression she experiences is transformed into both physical and psychological violence. Her classmates sit idly by and Julia does not offer any resistance until an unlikely series of events changes everything.

THE SECRET, THE GIRL AND THE BOY Dir. Oksana Kazmina | 13 mins | Experimental | AUS Premiere | 2018

The Girl and the Boy play in a garden. They are left alone there and they do not have any obligations to behave in a certain way. This gives them the freedom to create their own ways of interaction with the world. During such an interaction, adult social constructs inter-twist into weird children folklore and shift into an abstract sphere. There are secrets and various modes of being in the world of the Girl and the Boy.

MEMENTO MORI. NEXT LEVEL

Dir. Viktor Butok | 4 mins | Horror | AUS Premiere | 2017 Virtual games can make us forget real life until it’s too late.

THE ADULT WAR MOTHERS UNBREAKABLE

Dir. Stefan Bugryn | 15 mins | Doco | 2019 As her country goes to war, 18 year old Yana puts aside her dreams of becoming a doctor, and creates a national movement that almost costs her life.

Dir. Zhanna Ozirna | 4 mins | Drama/Horror/ Fantasy | AUS Premiere | 2019 Bohdan is turning 18 today and his dad gives him his old Lada car as a birthday present. His buddies from the trade school come visit him in the garage to check out the car. But a simple birthday takes an unexpected turn that forces Bohdan to stand his ground.

UKRAINIAN SHORTS | PAGE 25

THE CRISIS OF THE HUMAN & THE NONHUMAN FRIDAY 11TH OF SEPTEMBER 9AM - 5PM

The Sydney Underground Film Festival in collaboration with Sydney College of the Arts is pleased to announce the third annual conference Inhuman Screens. The conference will explore issues of the human and nonhuman in relation to crisis. Fittingly, the conference will be held online.

The conference features keynotes from ANGELA NDALIANIS and LISA E. BLOOM. Bloom explores ecological devastation in relation to issues of representation and memory and Ndalianis explores uncanny technological representations and their ontological challenge to the human.

We will also be talking—via exclusive interviews —with Barbara Creed and Jodi Dean.

Dean’s interview will cover topics such as “Communicative Capitalism” in relation to whether capitalism is the new feudalism and whether there may be a socialist/communist future. Creed’s interview will examine the human and the animal in relation to film, and especially horror film; with Creed’s focus being species studies and the way in which horror cinema undermines anthropocentrism, breaking the distinction between man and animal.

Plus there will be a panel discussions with Susan Potter, Salote Tawale and Bruce Isaacs.

TICKETS: $10 OR FREE WITH A FESTIVAL PASS Convened by Dr Aleksandr Wansbrough & Dr Stefan Popescu For more info, visit: suff.com.au/inhuman-screens

PAGE 26 | INHUMAN SCREENS

LISA E. BLOOM

ANGELA NDALIANIS

BARBARA CREED

JODI DEAN

Lisa E. Bloom is a theorist of visual culture, film studies, and feminist art history. She is the author of Gender on Ice (1993), With Other Eyes ( 1999) and Jewish Identities in American Feminist Art (2006). She is currently completing a book titled Critical Polar Aesthetics in the Anthropocene (Duke UP, 2022). She is currently in residence at the Beatrice Bain Center in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California.

Angela Ndalianis is Research Professor in Media and Entertainment. Her research focuses on entertainment culture (films, video games, television, VR, comic books and theme parks) and the history of media technologies.

Her publications include Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment (MIT Press 2004), Science Fiction Experiences, The Horror Sensorium and the edited books The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero, Neobaroques (co-editor), and Fans and Videogames (co-editor, Routledge, 2017).

Barbara Creed is Redmond Barry Distinguished Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of six books, including The Monstrous- Feminine (1993), Darwin’s Screens (2009); and Stray (2017). Her forthcoming book is Return of the Monstrous-Feminine (Routledge in 2021). Her recent research is in fourth wave feminism, ethics in the anthropocene and the inhuman. She is the director of the Human Rights and Animal Ethics Research Network (HRAE) in the Arts Faculty.

Jodi Dean is professor in the Political Science department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York state.

She is the author of many books, co-editing Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civil Society (co-editor, Routledge 2006), and the author of Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies (Duke University Press 2009), Blog Theory (Polity 2010), The Communist Horizon (Verso 2012), and Comrade (Verso 2019).

INHUMAN SCREENS | PAGE 27