The longest-running underground film festival in the world, the Chicago Underground Film Festival builds on its history of discovering and presenting the most genre-defying, groundbreaking, and unique films emerging from the indie scene in this, its 32nd edition, running September 17 – 25, 2025. This year’s slate features 22 feature films and 74 shorts organized into ten shorts programs, with an additional four shorts that will screen before feature presentations, on screens at the Gene Siskel Film Center and Harper Theater in Hyde Park.
The Festival opens September 17, 2025 with the Midwest Premiere of ROOM TEMPERATURE, the third and most hauntingly realized collaboration between cult author Dennis Cooper (The Sluts, The George Miles Cycle) and filmmaker Zac Farley. Set against the barren sprawl of the California desert, the film follows a family’s annual tradition of transforming their home into a DIY haunted house—an increasingly unhinged ritual now hijacked by the father’s obsessive vision.
Closing Night brings audiences $POSITIONS, a ferociously funny, full-throttle debut from Chicago filmmaker Brandon Daley. Premiering earlier this year at SXSW, this hyper-anxious comedy-thriller follows Mike Alvarado, a blue-collar Midwesterner who thinks he’s found salvation for his struggling family in the crypto market. Instead, he plunges them, and himself, into a volatile spiral of gambling addiction, screen addiction, and emotional ruin.
World Premiere screenings include END OF HISTORY, director Jacob Gregor’s stark and quietly devastating satirical look at a country addicted to content and paralyzed by ideology; Adam Marshall Present’s AMERICAN DENDRITE, shot entirely on vintage Super 8mm during a road trip along the Mississippi River system from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico; and the lovingly constructed portrait of the late Japanese experimental filmmaker Stom Sogo, A MIXTAPE FOR STOM, from director Adrian Goycoolea.
Other highlights of this year’s slate include the Midwest Premiere of Chicago-set KOMBUCHA, Jake Myers’ feverish satire of startup culture featuring Chicago talent including Terrence Carey (THE BEAR), T.J. Jagodowski (STRANGER THAN FICTION), Charin Alvarez (SAINT FRANCES), and Claire McFadden (KIM’S BIG DATE); the U.S. Premiere of Italian documentary UZEDA – DO IT YOURSELF, director Maria Arena’s uncompromising look at the 30-year journey of Sicily’s legendary noise-rock outfit Uzeda; and the Midwest Premiere of THE SECRET LIVES OF BILL BARTELL, punk documentarian David Markey’s exploration of enigmatic Bill Bartell, a fixture in the underground music world about whom everyone had a story – and none of them match.
This year’s program includes the U.S. Premiere of the 4K restoration of Paul Morrissey’s 1984 classic MIXED BLOOD, a feral, salsa-scored gang war comedy set in the crumbling chaos of 1980s Alphabet City and featuring the screen debut of John Leguizamo; and the archival feature HENRY FONDA FOR PRESIDENT, Alexander Horwath’s journey from 1651 to the 1980s narrated by Henry Fonda, personifying the nation’s complexities through a road trip from Fonda, New York to the Pacific.
The 32nd Chicago Underground Film Festival runs September 17 – 21, 2025. For full schedules and to purchase screening tickets in advance, visit VISIT HERE.
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