Building on the success of last year’s relocation to Chicago’s vibrant South Side, the Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF), the world’s longest-running underground film festival, is set to return from September 11-15, 2024.
As it marks its 31st anniversary, CUFF will once again host screenings at the historic Harper Theater, in the heart of Hyde Park. The festival’s Opening Night and Closing Night events will take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center, in the Chicago Loop.
Harper Theater
5238 S. Harper Ave
Chicago
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N. State St.
Chicago
CUFF has long been a beacon for the global underground cinema scene, championing innovative and boundary-pushing films and video art. This year’s lineup promises to continue that tradition, offering a diverse array of works that challenge the conventions of mainstream filmmaking. Attendees can look forward to a rich program of screenings, complemented by insightful panels and lively afterparties, creating a dynamic atmosphere where filmmakers, artists, and audiences can connect and celebrate the cutting edge of contemporary cinema.
“For 31 years, the Chicago Underground Film Festival has showcased bold, innovative cinema that pushes boundaries,” says Bryan Wendorf, co-founder and Artistic Director of CUFF. “What began as a passion project has evolved into a vital platform for marginalized voices. In 2024, we’re reaffirming our commitment to underground filmmaking. CUFF is more than a festival; it’s a community and a movement celebrating the enduring power of alternative cinema. This year’s lineup features some of our most exciting and thought-provoking work yet. We aim to ignite conversations, challenge perceptions, and inspire the next generation of groundbreaking filmmakers.”
Narrative and Documentary Features
NO ONE ASKED YOU
Wednesday, September 11, 8 pm
This year’s Opening Night film is Ruth Leitman’s abortion activism documentary, a road trip through the United States with Lizz Winstead, formerly of The Daily Show, and Abortion Access Front. For both Leitman and Winstead, this activist travelogue is highly personal as they both had abortions as teenagers while Leitman’s great-grandmother died from complications from a self-induced abortion. Leitman and Winstead will appear in person for audience discussion.
HEAD OVER HEELS
Thursday, September 12, 4:30 pm
Sunday, September 15, 1 pm
Staged and documentary material are melded on purpose to create confusion and exaggeration in as protagonist Nelke Cor Mast researches the beauties and the horrors that make up a bimbo to create a campy, Madonna vs. Whore deconstruction, making the mundane in everyday life captivating.
WELCOME SPACE BROTHERS
Thursday, September 12, 6:30 pm
Saturday, September 14, 6 pm
A look at The Unarius Academy of Science, an extraterrestrial school that engaged in channeling spirits and self-healing in 1970s El Cajon, Calif., that also served as a prolific filmmaking collective headed up by Ruth E. Norman aka Archangel Uriel.
REALM OF SATAN
Thursday, September 12, 7:30 pm
Friday, September 13, 5 pm
Premiered earlier this year at Sundance, is a provocative day-in-the-life look at Satan Church cult members by Scott Cummings (BUFFALO JUGGALO).
I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD YEARS AGO
Thursday, September 12, 8:30 pm
Sunday, September 15, 2 pm
The film explores the life, music, and artistic output of Stuart Gray (aka Stu Spasm), who founded Lubricated Goat, the most psychotronic group ever to hail from Australia.
LIGHT NEEDS
Thursday, September 12, 9 pm
Friday, September 13, 5:30 pm
An experimental documentary that looks at the surprisingly intimate relationship between houseplants and their human cohabitators.
FLYING LESSONS
Thursday, September 12, 9:30 pm
Saturday, September 14, 12 pm
A portrait of a friendship between director Elizabeth Nichols and aging punk artist Philly (a frequent CUFF guest and collaborator with filmmaker Todd Verow), the latter of whom learns she has terminal pancreatic cancer, as they face eviction in their Lower East Side building.
BRIEF SPACE OF A TIME
Friday, September 13, 7 pm
Saturday, September 14, 7 pm
The Fernando Antonio Saldivia Yáñez’s film is an intimate observation of his aunt and uncle’s life, an indigenous Mapuche couple living in their ancestral land on their own terms.
SLIDE
Friday, September 13, 8:30 pm
Sunday, September 15, 5 pm
By noted, Oscar-nominated indie animator Bill Plympton, the tale of a mythical cowboy who appears in a logging town to battle the evil mayor and his equally selfish twin brother with the aid of his slide guitar and a giant Hellbug.
ARTISTS: DEPRESSION ANXIETY AND RAGE
Saturday, September 14, 4:30 pm
Sunday, September 15, 2:30 pm
Spanning a two-year period interviewing over a dozen artists about mental illnesses rooted in such circumstances and conditions as child abuse, trauma, neglect, and poverty, by Lydia Lunch and Jasmine Hirst, the film examines how being vulnerable in community can lead to healing, hope, acceptance, and understanding.
THE DEMONIACS
Saturday, September 14, 8 pm
Campy, lo-fi horror by the Vienna-based Scott Clifford Evans, concerns countryside nuns possessed by demons sending them on a mission to find the source, even if it means plumbing the depths of hell.
A WAY TO DIE
Saturday, September 14, 8:30 pm
Xavier Laradji and Maxime Lachaud—known as COIL—have crafted a raw, hallucinatory, and immersive 8mm and 16mm program, featuring medical art, homoerotic performances, and body horror that evokes the likes of Jean Genet and Derek Jarman, to name a few.
GENERALIZED HOSPITALS: THE LUKE LUKE & LAURA LAURA STORY … JUST ONE MORE THING!
Sunday, September 14, 4:30 pm
An amalgamation and reimagining of 1970s daytime soaps, children’s programming, and gameshows, timelined with art history, can be found in the latest Darrin Martin-Torsten Zenas Burns collaboration
JUST ABOVE THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH
Sunday, September 15, 7:30 pm
Closing Night film is CUFF alumna Marianna Milhorat’s poetic portrait of the interdependent relationship between humans and animals in a contemporary conservation landscape and how there’s hope despite currently being in the sixth era of mass extinction.
Short Films
The following are short films by CUFF alumni: WORM PORNOGRAPHY (Ian Haig) in Shorts 3 (Thursday, September 12, 7 pm & Saturday, September 14, 1 pm); PLEASE BE TENDER (Mike Olenick) and ONE NIGHT AT BABES (Angelo Madsen Minax) in Shorts 4 (Friday, September 13, 4:30 pm & Sunday, September 15, 3 pm); ELEVATOR TO STARDOM (Danny Plotnick) in Shorts 8 (Friday, September 13, 9:30 pm & Saturday, September 14, 6:30 pm) and PATIENT (Lori Felker) in Shorts 9 (Saturday, September 14, 4 pm & Sunday, September 15, 12:30 pm).
Other notable shorts are HART OF WOOD ‘WAYS OF THE PLANT’ (Benjamin Wigley) in Shorts 1 (Thursday, September 12, 5 pm & Saturday, September 14, 3 pm); ANOTHER FUCKIN’ WAR (William Zimmer) in Shorts 2 (Thursday, September 12, 5:30 pm & Saturday, September 14, 12:30 pm); THE ACT OF NOT SEEING WITH ONE’S OWN EYES (Markus Maicher) in Shorts 3 (Thursday, September 12, 7 pm & Saturday, September 14, 1 pm); HUM हम (WE/US) (Ashim Ahluwalia) in Shorts 6 (Friday, September 13, 7:30 pm & Sunday, September 15, 12 pm); PROMETHEUS’S GARDEN (Bruce Bickford) in Shorts 7 (Friday, September 13, 9 pm & Saturday, September 14, 2 pm); and CODENAME FURY (Giuliano Emanuele) in Shorts 11 (Saturday, September 14, 9 pm & Sunday, September 15, 4 pm).
After Parties
After Parties with details to be announced soon include after Opening Night at Bottom Lounge; a drag performance; and following Closing Night, a filmmaker karaoke party. After Party featuring To Make Our People Dance & The Bastard Child: Exploring the Origins of Chicago Music (Saturday, September 14, 8:30 pm), two documentaries celebrating the Chicago-born music genre, will be presented at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, 6400 S. Kimbark Ave.
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