Arizona Underground Film Festival 2021
September 17th to 25th
Friday September 17th at 7:30
2021 / USA / 81 min / Dark Comedy, Drama
At a prestigious catholic private elementary school, a practical principal and a drama teacher gather the parents of the 4th Grade students to discuss an alarming situation: a brick of marijuana found in the theatre class. To protect the school’s reputation, they need to expel the kid responsible for the weed.
Tickets:
Friday September 17th at 9:30pm
2021/ 94 min/ USA/ Exploitation, Grindhouse, Troma Movie
Meanwhile in Tromaville, three women warriors find themselves on the run and kicking in the teeth of every misogynist that dares to cross their path! Lloyd Kaufman calls it, “A Feminist movie for the 21st century!” This estrogen fueled grindhouse tribute is written/directed & co-starring Mercedes The Muse (Honor Killing).
Tickets: 18+ event due to explicit sexual content and language.
Saturday September 18th at 2:00pm
2021 / 93 min / Iran / Drama, Thriller
Right before Soodeh Sharifzadegan’s second marriage, her 11-year-old son, “Matiar” is kidnapped. After considerable effort, Soodeh is forced to ask for the ransom money from her ex-husband, “Peyman”. After Matiar’s release, Soodeh, being curious, comes to the sudden realization that it was all her son’s plan to provide the grounds for his father’s return.
Tickets: Playing with the short Wee Shadows
Saturday September 18th at 4:00pm
2020 / USA / 78 min / Indie, Lofi, Drama
Two sisters, Beth and Jackie, travel to the desert for an overnight, but when the lights go out and their true feelings for one another are revealed it becomes apparent that they may no longer wish to be related. Isolated in a cabin in the middle of the nowhere, long buried childhood grievances combine with the competitive nature of adult relationships to form a combustible tension that can only be cut by explosive ugliness.
Tickets: Playing with the short Nostalgic Purgatory
Saturday September 18th at 6:00pm
Shorts:
Alien Hunters
The Truth About Hastings
Psychos
Kopierwerk
Hungry Ghosts
You’re No Angel
Enjoying A Nice Life
Times a God Zillion
Tickets: Underground and Beyond Shorts Block
Saturday September 18th at 8:00pm
2021 / 75 min / USA / Fantasy, Drama, Surreal
In an attempt to shake off her melancholy, a young woman escapes the city to her family’s country cottage only to rediscover a world she’d long forgotten and the old friend who may convince her to leave reality behind.
“The journey through DimLand is unique, mystical, and eye-opening; nothing else quite like it exists in the world, and it’s possibly exactly what is needed right now.” – Film Threat Magazine
Tickets: Playing with the short The Dark Odyssey
Saturday September 18th at 9:45pm
2020 / 72 min / USA / Horror
A troubled young woman with a disturbing past goes to see a counselor about her night terrors.
Shot in high contrast black and white and split up into four acts. This nightmarish plot will keep the audience guessing until the final act.
Tickets: Playing with the shorts Be Quiet and Killing Time
Sunday September 19th at 12:00pm
Join us at The Screening Room downtown during the AZ Underground Film Festival. We will have a few vendors with VHS and other goodies. Feel free to bring stuff to trade. FREE entry!
Tickets: FREE EVENT!
Sunday September 19th at 4:00pm
2020 / 96 min / Canada / Documentary, Horror
The Quiet Revolution: State, Society and the Canadian Horror Film’ is the new 96 minute documentary which considers how social, political and cultural tensions within differing Canadian territories have shaped national horror film traditions from the 1960s until the present day. The first part of the documentary considers the social transitions in 1960s and 1970s Quebecois culture that influenced a new range of controversial horror productions and subgenres pioneered by filmmakers such as David Cronenberg and William Fruet.
Tickets:
Sunday September 19th at 6:00pm
2021 / 87 min / USA / Sci-Fi, Thriller, Drama
The Alternate follows Jake, a videographer who discovers a portal to another dimension in which he has everything he has always wanted: the perfect version of his wife Kris, the filmmaking career of his dreams, and the daughter he never had.
Jake quickly starts traveling back and forth between these two worlds – spying on his other self, falling in love with the alternate Kris, and getting to know his daughter.
Tickets: Playing with the short RunRainbow
Monday September 20th at 7:30pm
2021 / 86 min / France / Drama
Romane and Clemence are between 25 and 30 years old, they are sisters and live together. Romane has to look after Clémence, who is disabled since they had a car accident, when teenagers. Romane was not hurt, but Clemence had a cerebral vascular accident which lets her completely unable to speak and to walk in a normal way. One night, while Clemence is asleep, Romane decides to go out. That night, she will get back home late with Guillaume, her new boyfriend. Day after day, Guillaume will gradually feel invested in a duty: make Clemence recover her speech and the use of her legs.
Tickets: Playing with the short Ooops!
Tuesday September 21st at 7:30pm
2021 / 96 min / USA / Comedy, Fantasy, Drama
Two strangers wake up in the middle of the desert with no memory of anything – including their names. Are they dead? Or did they just party too hard at Burning Man?
A warm buddy film at heart – but hopefully also a rumination on existential themes such as regret, cynicism, faith, and empathy – Mister Limbo is an odyssey evoking Waiting For Godot on drugs, with a soft spot for the short-lived TV series, “The 4400.”
Tickets: Playing with the short Parenthesis
Wednesday September 22nd at 6:45pm
Shorts:
Drama Mama
The Fuzzies
Man on the Moon
Come on, Shake Your Body Baby, Do the Conga!
Tickets: FREE EVENT!
Thursday September 23rd at 7:30pm
Shorts:
Zap
Elise For Congress
The Maroon Bomber
Special Short – Secret Preview Screening
Between the Trees
Seed of Perfection
Exit Stage #5
Tickets:
Thursday September 23rd at 9:30pm
2021 / 105 min / United Kingdom / Thriller, Horror
Country of Hotels tells the stories of the desperate souls who pass through the doors of 508, a room on the fifth floor of an anonymous, decaying hotel. We are taken on a surreal and blackly comic journey down its lonely corridors and behind its out-dated furnishings and stained surfaces. The story plunges us into the ever-turning carousel of haunted lives who check in and check out of the establishment.
Tickets:
Friday September 24th at 6:00pm
2020 / 75 min / Austria / Comedy, Deadpan
Martha and Alex are on the road. They drive an antique red car through a somewhat less magnificent landscape stretching between Lower Austria and the Czech Republic. Their relationship oscillates between carnal moments in nature and petty quarrels while driving. They don’t seem to have a destination. At a drive-in McDonald’s they ludicrously overorder, the munching progressing into a funny kissing scene. A minor roadkill provides all the suspense in Thomas Marschall’s ORDINARY CREATURES. Martha and Alex are now being followed. Yet the pace of the movie remains the same: a borderline surreal movement ostensibly just for its own sake.
Tickets:
Friday September 24th at 7:30pm
1965 / 75 min / Japan / Action, Sci-Fi, Horror, Kaiju
A nuclear explosion in the far north unleashes Gamera, the legendary flying turtle, from his sleep under the ice. In his search for energy, Gamera wreaks havoc over the entire world, and it’s up to the scientists, assisted by a young boy with a strange sympathetic link to the monster, to put a stop to Gamera’s rampage.
Tickets:
Friday September 24th at 9:00pm
Join MaryJane and RewBee Blaze at the Screening Room for a special screening of a sexploitation cult classic directed by Doris Wishman. Which one? Well, you are going to have to come out to see!
Enjoy an evening of raunchy, nudist camp as RewBee and MaryJane provide “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” style commentary throughout the film!
This is an 18+ event due to explicit sexual content and language.
Tickets: At The Door Only
Friday September 24th at 10:25pm
2021 / 87 min / USA / Animation, Experimental, Music Video
Thirteen short stories interconnect the trauma of millennials lost in sex, drugs, and dance-punk afterparties during the 2000s in San Francisco’s seedy districts.
Tickets: Playing with the short Crowded
Saturday September 25th at 1:00pm
2020 / 84 min / USA / Animation, Experimental
Meet 5000 space aliens in 5000 seconds in this fun and totally bonkers animated film that uses computer-manipulated found footage and collage, all created by director Scott Bateman.
Tickets: Playing with the short A Machine for Boredom
Saturday September 25th at 3:00pm
2020 / 85 min / Austria / Experimental, Drama
The lives of 10 people are crossing. In their encounters unexpected things come to light that shatter the protagonists’ self-image and therefore their concept of their own life.
Filmed out of the point of view (POV) of the acting characters, “A Matter of Perspective” is an episodic film about human existence between the polarity of our freedom and the responsibilities of life.
Tickets: Playing with the short New Beginnings and False Starts
Saturday September 25th at 5:00pm
Shorts:
Every Time We Meet for Ice Cream Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes
Charity
Acere
Familiar
Rejects
Brick Wall
The Man Who Loved Flowers
A Valley Without Trees
Bullets of Baptism
Volage
Vodnik Many Years After The Rainstorm
Tickets:
Saturday September 25th at 7:00pm
2021 / 60 min / USA / Documentary
This interview-based Documentary follows the underground Electronic Music scene after one party sparked a movement in 2016. Each local helps shed light on the beauty, struggle, and inevitable outcome of a DIY scene in a tough market like Tucson. The story also highlights the influx of new capital to the city and how that effected both the scene and the culture of the city.
Tickets:
Saturday September 25th at 9:00pm
2020 / 92 min / USA / Documentary
A deep dig into the crates of the vinyl record resurgence to discover what an old technology says about our relationship to music and each other in a divided time in America.
Tickets:
