Buried treasures

The Underground Film Fest brings its eclectic lineup to Wicker Park.

For Hollywood movies, August lives up to the nickname “dog days of summer.” Luckily, it’s also the month for the film festival that celebrates the charming stray mutts. The Chicago Underground Film Festival, in its 14th year, opened August 15 and continues through Sunday 19. This year, the fest is transplanting itself from the art-house confines of the Music Box to the Chopin Theater and the Elegant Mr. Gallery in Wicker Park, giving the quickly gentrifying neighborhood a shot of boho credibility.

Festival director and cofounder Bryan Wendorf says it’s a move that makes sense, especially since it’s already “a destination neighborhood for our core audience.” It also allows for some necessary downsizing: The 750-seat Music Box is hard for any festival to fill, let alone one that champions filmmaking at the margins. A shift to smaller venues, in closer proximity to the party locations, and a reduction in the number of programs also allow for a more manageable fest for Wendorf and the all-volunteer staff.

While this year’s lineup is leaner, it still offers the wonderfully eclectic and diverse programming for which CUFF is known. There are, of course, the required exploitation flicks (what underground film festival would be complete without them?): Each Time I Kill, the final film by the then–90-year-old queen of the genre, Doris Wishman; and the legendary 1970 XXX film Bacchanale (curiously tame by today’s standards) with a new experimental audio track by more than 50 sound artists. But CUFF’s programming also includes a wide array of narrative features, documentaries and shorts. Wendorf says he strives for diversity: “Underground is a wide net, and I try to embrace all possible definitions of it.” he says.

The lineup also includes La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo, former Chicagoan Jim Finn’s fictional account about female Peruvian guerrillas serving time in prison; Thax, Alex MacKenzie’s documentary about Chicago rock-poet Thax Douglas; Viva, Anna Biller’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls–esque tale of a 1970s housewife on a journey of discovery; and Random Lunacy, a doc about a country-hopping family of nomadic buskers. One of the highlights of the fest for Wendorf is the roller-derby doc Hell on Wheels, which he says is “a quintessential Chicago film, despite being made in Austin, because of its championing of a hard-nosed, working-class sport.”

After an admittedly partial survey of the films, here are our picks of the fest: Among the features, check out Azazel Jacobs’s The GoodTimesKid (Thu 16, 6pm), the quirky, charming story of three lost souls (two men and a woman). While not a comedy, Kid has a lightness and wonderful sense of rhythm that recall early Jim Jarmusch. Jacobs is a director to watch; he has a natural eye for composition, and his camera movement is subtle and resonant. A delightful and assured film, Kid rarely hits a false note.

The documentary Milk in the Land (Thu 16, 9:30pm), by Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum, is a fascinating and visually playful look at milk. Gerstein and McCollum explore the white stuff in all its historical, cultural, social and political glory. The filmmakers keep the onslaught of information lively with experimental techniques, stop-motion animation, bizarre film clips and their own lovely cinematography. The patchwork of topics—everything from antidairy activism to baby-bottle collectors—is both refreshing and a bit overwhelming: A tighter narrative thread would have been welcome.

For short films, check out Galaxian (Sun 19, 5pm), a terrific program of experimental works that use video-game imagery. When seen as a group, these films highlight the complex relationship between popular culture and our social lives. The two best are Peggy Ahwesh’s “She Puppet,” which reimagines the Tomb Raider video game in a barren world of philosophical rumination, and Michael Robinson’s “And We All Shine On,” a beautiful and cryptic film. And keep an eye out for Ben Russell’s amazing experimental short “Black and White Trypps Number Three” (Sat 18, 4pm), a hypnotic musical dirge focused on members of the blissed-out audience at a rock concert. It’s one of the best films in the festival.

The Chicago Underground Film Festival continues through Sunday 19. For more information, go to cuff.org.

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