After a stunningly successful year in 2014, Melbourne Underground Film Festival is back with MUFF16 – their sweet 16th year supporting independent and guerrilla local and international cinema.
MUFF16 will kick off on Thursday, 11th September and run for 9 consecutive days across two great venues – Backlot Studios and Howler Bar.
This year MUFF has promised a killer curated program of feature films and shorts, as well as a special event screening of Festival Director Richard Wolstencroft’s own The Second Coming Volume 1, starring the likes of Michael Tierney, Gene Gregorits, Boyd Rice, Pete Doherty from The Libertines, Jerome Alexander from the Deadcuts, Kim Fowley, William Margold and a host of others.
This year’s Opening Night film is the fantastic Under a Kaliedoscope by Addison Heath and starring Kenji Shimada, Kristen Condon, Glenn Maynard and Aston Elliot.
Timothy Spanos’ Sizzler ’77 closes the festival – a hilarious and entertaining tribute to ’70s Australian TV and genre cinema, as Mob Boss Bossy Jim takes over the 70’s hooker trade in Melbourne.
Expect regular sections MUFF NEU – all the best local and international genre features, as well as MINI MUFF programmed by ‘Mad’ Hussein Khoder. The festival’s BEST OF THE REST category features work by Andrew Leavold and Travis Bain, as well as Daniel Armstrong’s From Parts Unknown starring the great Ross Ditcham.
In other words 2015 brings us another bumper MUFF – so get in and check it out!
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Full details & ticket info available via www.muff.com.au.
OPENING NIGHT: Under a Kaleidoscope by Addison Heath
A soldier who has been fighting a long war is driven mad because he no longer believes in any purpose or righteous truth behind the killing. He comes to a surreal world looking for his and only love from his youth, believing she will rescue him from his demons. On the road to Edge City he encounters two seductive spree killers who oppose his efforts to find his love and the redemption he desperately seeks.
MUFF NEU:
8 of the best films submitted to the festival, produced over the past year by local and international indie/guerilla filmmakers.
SPECIAL EVENT: The Second Coming Vol 1 by Richard Wolstencroft
After announcing itself as THE SECOND COMING VOLUME 1 and presenting a quote from the WB Yeats poem of 1899, ‘The Wind Among The Reeds’, a man (Michael Tierney) picks himself up off the dirt floor of a barren landscape and begins to walk. An electronic soundtrack pulsates ominously. Unable to get a lift while hitchhiking, the man turns to the sky to bellow the eternal existential question, “What do you want me to do?” He answers himself by conducting magic ceremony 777 in front of a small blackened winged-demon, all the while invoking the second coming.
FAKESHEMP.NET DOUBLE FEATURE
Programmed by film critic Glen Cochrane of fakeshemp.net and featuring exclusive video intros by directors Albert Puyn and Shane Ryan.
BEST OF THE REST:
A retrospective program of 4 great features and one short film by directors John Fox, Daniel Armstrong, Andrew Leavold and Travis Bain
MINI MUFF:
A showcase of various short films from around the world, curated by Hussein Khoder and Reilly Archer-Whelan
CLOSING NIGHT: Sizzler ’77 by Timothy Spanos
An inner city tale of 2 detectives on the trail of a depraved killer stalking prostitutes through the streets of 1977 Melbourne.
MUFF ACADEMY @ HOGAN GALLERY:
Presented by SAE Creative Media Institute and MUFF alumni, and running over two days, MUFF Academy is a free film school and side bar event to be held at Hogan Gallery in Collingwood. Eight guest speakers will give you the low down about how to make, complete and exploit a low budget or micro budget feature to its best and most productive ends. Just turn up and be part of it – no booking necessary!
FESTIVAL DETAILS:
Dates: 11th to 19th September 2015
Venue 1: Backlot Cinemas, 16 Haig Street, South Melbourne
Venue 2: Howler Bar, 7-11 Dawson Street, Brunswick
Ticket link: http://www.moshtix.com.au/v2/muff