For eighteen years, the Sydney Underground Film Festival has been one of the very best film festivals operating in Australia. Having screened over 1800 films since the festival kicked off in Marrickville in 2007, SUFF has championed everything from the stickiest of short films to surreal features to documentaries that dig up the dirtiest stories you’ve never heard of.
Like most fringe film festivals, SUFF is more than the films that it screens, with the 18th festival showcasing an array of must-see events that uncover art history, like An Entangled Poetic Encounter: Jill Westwood in Conversation with Dr Jack Sargeant, where Dr Jill Westwood presents a retrospective of her work alongside a discussion on her career, or the importance of supporting Australian films with the launch of my book Lonely Spirits and the King, which features an in depth conversation with Jack Sargeant and Platon Theodoris as we delve into why film festivals like SUFF are essential institutions in the way they support Australian filmmakers, or the Can’t Stop the Music inspired afterparty featuring disco tracks from the film and beyond.
Navigating the delights of a festival like SUFF can be difficult, which is why I’m putting forward the five films you simply cannot miss at the 18th Sydney Underground Film Festival.
The Organist
After sell-out screenings at the Melbourne International Film Festival, The Organist makes its way to Sydney to deliver a delectable and darkly comedic story that satirises the cost of living crisis we are currently enduring in a deeply Australian manner. The Organist follows Graeme Sloane (Jack Braddy), a regular bloke who works as in organ-procurement. He meets up with people who are in extreme debt and helps them out by offering to clear their debt in exchange for one of their organs. Graeme believes the lie that the organs are going to someone in need, until he is brought into the inner circle of the organisation he works for and discovers a darker, more capitalistic situation than what he originally perceived.
Director Andy Burkitt and actor Jack Braddy will be at the festival for a Q&A with Alexei Toliolpoulos on Saturday 14 September, and having chatted with both Andy and Jack about the film, I can guarantee that this is an event you’re not going to want to miss.
Darla in Space
Darla in Space tells the story of Darla Peterson, the owner of Kitty Kasket, LLC, a company which provides custom made cat coffins. After being thwarted by an unexpected and massive tax bill, Darla encounters Mother, a sentient kombucha SCOBY which has an orgasmic power. Mother agrees to help Darla out of her situation on the condition that Darla helps get Mother into space.
Darla in Space is the exact reason why a film festival like SUFF exists: to showcase the fringiest of fringe films that reject boundaries and normality and push against the structures of cinema. After all, where else would you find a film about a yeast mass that can grant mind-blowing orgasms? Guaranteed to be one of the most unique films you see this year.
Vulcanizadora
When SUFF is onto a good thing, they tend to stick with it, which is why underground visionary Joel Potrykus is back at the festival with his latest film Vulcanizadora. John Fink at The Film Stage called this ‘the punk-rock cousin of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy’, and honestly, if that doesn’t get you excited for this tale of two drifters who find themselves in the woods of Michigan on a mysterious mission.
With a poster that evokes the video nasties of the eighties and a title that screams like it’s opening the gates of Valhalla, Vulcanizadora promises an experience like no other. This is the kind of genre-smashing film that makes a festival like SUFF the festival that it is; a film that wallows in dark existentialism that shakes you out of your routine blockbuster induced coma and into a world of cinema that screams: wake up.
Daaaaaalí!
When we talk about ‘unique visionary minds’ in cinema, people often think about filmmakers like Ridley Scott or Christopher Nolan. And sure, those directors have their own stamp on cinema, but are they really visionary? Well, certainly not in the way that filmmaker Quentin Dupieux is. After bursting onto the scene with Rubber, Dupieux has become an appointment viewing filmmaker, having crafted one genuinely unique and visionary film after the other.
It then makes sense that Dupieux would meet his match in the form of Salvador Dalí with his latest surrealist comedy Daaaaaali!, an absurd story of Judith, a journalist-turned-pharmacist, who seeks out an interview with the famed eccentric artist himself, only to find herself falling into the dreamlike reality of his world. Daaaaaali! sees the artist being played by five different actors, often swapping out mid-scene, and it’s in this way that Dupieux once again shows why he is truly the most unique, visionary mind in cinema.
The Lost Sex Films of Kings Cross: The Films of George & Charis Schwarz
Then we come to a side of cinema that is rarely given its time in the spotlight: the sex films of history. SUFF embrace their underground roots with this celebration of the work of George & Charis Schwarz, erotic filmmakers who worked in the orbit of the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op of the 1970s and in doing so, they crafted Australia’s first theatrical hardcore sex films.
Having been restored by the NFSA, SUFF have pulled together a rare screening of George and Charis’ work which will be followed by a very special conversation with Charis Schwarz, Leon O’Regan and hosted by Jamie Leonarder. This is why a film festival like SUFF is vitally important to support and attend as it champions a side of Australian film history that is rarely talked about and celebrated. For me, this is the session of the festival that I simply cannot wait to attend.
This is only just a slice of what SUFF are screening at the 18th festival, with a smattering of shorts, a delight of docos, and an array of fantastic fiction films. Visit SUFF.com.au for all screening details and to purchase tickets.
