Cinema has a long history of entertaining the masses. But, within its history, there have been filmmakers who want to shock their audiences, making them reflect through disturbing stories. The Sydney Underground Film Festival has made it its mission to bring to Australia the best in underground cinema from across the world. For its tenth anniversary, festival directors Stefan Popescu and Katherine Berger have once again curated a selection of films both tasteful and tasteless.
'Carrie'When not running the festival, Stefan Popescu, a passionate fan of cinema, teaches screen arts at the Sydney University College Of The Arts. When asked what exactly ‘underground film’ means, he describes it as, “an independent production that subverts the status-quo, is provocative, and is experimental. For me, it’s about cutting-edge stuff. It’s what’s pushing the boundaries stylistically, aesthetically, politically, or narratively. We try to look to things that are doing something different. That’s the one thing we ask ourselves when programming, ‘Is this film doing something different?’”
Spread across five cinemas in The Factory Theatre, the Sydney Underground Film Festival will be screening a number of films which the directors believe are doing something different to mainstream cinema. For their ten year anniversary, the festival has managed to attain a number of big coups. For starters, the festival was able to get cult illustrator Ralph Steadman to provide artwork for their program. In addition, the festival will open with the official Australian premiere for ‘Wiener-Dog’, the latest film from the provocative director Todd Solondz, and starring Greta Gerwig and Danny DeVito.
'Aaaaaaaah'Over the course of the festival weekend will be screenings of outsider documentaries, weird short films, creepy comedies, and confronting horrors. The festival will also make itself stand out from others with its host of workshops with the likes of screenwriter Gordy Hoffman and 'Fight Club' producer Ross Grayson Bell, and a Cereal Cartoon Party, where attendees can spend their Saturday morning eating cereal while watching old cartoons.
“You know how you get a music festival, and it’s a festival of music? When you get a film festival it’s usually just screenings. We decided we have to take this idea of a festival serious. That’s why we have five cinemas in one location, and different things happening, like workshops, screenings, and music. We have more events to make it more of a ‘festival’ than just a whole bunch of screenings.”
'I Am Not A Serial Killer'Most importantly, the Sydney Underground Film Festival wants to provide an outlet for those who want an antidote to what Stefan describes as “mediocre and polite”, offering more of the edgy films too shocking for cinemas.
“The way we view our audience is that they come for a certain experience, and they want to be pushed a little bit. We look to try to push them over the edge because the whole point is we’re meant to be pushed. I joke that sometimes we abuse our audience, but they keep coming back for more [laughs].”
