Thursday August 19

5:00

THEY’RE OUT TO GET YOU

NEWFILM Bogumik Godfrejow

Poland, Short, Video, 7 min. 1998

A view into an industrial 1984-esque world, where things are ugly and bleak, and a mindful eye makes sure that nobody is enjoying themselves.

CAMERAMAN Bogumik Godfrejow

Poland, Short, Video, 9 min.,1999

A weird world where its inhabitants are forced to wear a controlling contraption over one eye.

SHUT IN Nat Eaton & Sean Gilligan

Australia, Short, Video, 6 min., 1999

A man obsessed with self-inflicted plastic surgery finds that he can’t change, no matter how hard he tries.

PARANOID FANTASY #1 David Krohn

U.S.A., Short, Video, 6 min., 1999, World Premiere

A government sponsored insanity test, designed to drive out the lunatics among us. With a little self diagnosis, a person is able to determine their own stability, and remove themselves from society if necessary.

IT’S GETTING WEIRD OUT Matthew T.

U.S.A., Experimental, Super-8, 6 min., 1997

Made up of fragments from the filmmaker’s own life, edited in no particular order and “carrying no profound or deep meaning. The film’s goal is to entice the viewer to think, to push the brain to a faster pace. He says he hopes it does not hurt.” – Matthew T.

CSODA POK (WONDER SPIDER) panOptic

U.S.A.,Experimental, Video, 8 min., 1999

panOptika is a corporate military supplier for eastern European countries. With recent breakthroughs in technology, they’ve launched a series of experiments using light patterns and TV frequencies, in a chilling attempt to exercise governmental behavioral control over an unsuspecting population.

TENNIS MATCH Robert Ellman

Czech Republic, Animation, Video, 10 min., 1998

A dreamy, surreal story regarding the defeat of the 1930 Prague tennis team at Wimbledon, and the zombie-like creature who rises out of the nearby cemetery in the wake of the loss. Shot to evoke old silent films and hand-tinted photographs, acerbic and humorous rather than strictly allegorical, TENNIS MATCH features a musical score (by Lithuanian composer Mecislovas Litvinskis) which is described as having been “constructed like Lego blocks.”

NUCLEAR BODY Davide Grassi and Simon Oblescak

Slovenia, Experimental, Video, 9 min., 1999, U.S. Premiere

A look at contemporary evolution, of balancing technology with anthropological and psychochemical human processes. The camera lets you look inside a body via a nuclear medicine technique, creating a dreamy, magical subversion of the concepts of inside and outside, of natural and artificial. With a soundtrack composed exclusively of body sounds, obtained through ultrasound, EEG and other techniques.

47hz David Foss

U.S.A., Experimental, Video, 4 min., 1999

“Automated evolution has brought revolution.”

HYPNO-CHICKEN 2000 David Foss

U.S.A., Experimental, Video, 10 min., 1998

The Colonel’s secret recipe for mind control. Your brain will feel finger lickin’ good by the time this is over.

5:30

PERFECT BLUE

Repeat Screening – See Wednesday 7:30

6:00

AMERICAN CHAIN GANG

Repeat screening – See Tuesday 8:00

7:00

DID I NEED TO KNOW THAT?

ADULT HELP WANTED Julie Pham

U.S.A., Documentary, Video, 9 min., 1999

Ready to start a new career in the escort business? Learn the sordid details of what it entails by listening in, while enjoying the view of fascinating sights around New York City.

PLEASE KILL MR. KINSKI
U.S.A., Documentary, Video, 9 min., 1999, World Premiere

Although a brilliant, memorable character and lead actor, Klaus Kinski had a reputation for being…well, difficult. A funny and sympathetic look at the director’s experiences with Kinski during the filming of CRAWLSPACE.

THE ACRYLLIAC George Kuchar

U.S.A., Documentary, Video, 10 min., 1998

CUFF Lifetime Achievement Award recipient George Kuchar pays a visit to the studio of artist Eric Dupery. While snacking heartily on jelly donuts, the gentlemen look over Eric’s twisted-yet-festive paintings WHICH decorate his interesting workspace.

BRINGING IT TO YOU RTMark

U.S.A./United Kingdom, Experimental, Video 11 min., 1998

Corporations are persons, and have been for over a century. Since 1886, when the U.S. Supreme Court gave them full constitutional rights, corporations have used their wealth and power to subvert democracy and its processes. In this video, RTMark shows you how it takes these same rights to bring anti-corporate sabotage into the public marketplace.

I CREATED LANCELOT LINK Jeff Krulik

U.S.A., Documentary, Video, 15 min., 1999

If you remember “Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp” and were older than 10 when you were watching it on TV, then you also remember the drugs you were doing. Amazingly, the creators of this surreal sitcom (Chimps on skates! Crime-solving chimps on skis!! Chimps in a psychedelic band!) were the farthest thing from pot-smoking hippies. A very sweet look at a very odd moment in TV history.

HOW’S YOUR NEWS Arthur Bradford

U.S.A., Documentary, Video, 28 min., 1999

A pilot for a proposed television series produced by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The How’s Your News Crew, all of whom have some form of mental or physical disability, travel the country in their van conducting decidedly off-beat man-on-the-street interviews. Both hilarious and poignant, this sure as hell ain’t Charles Kuralt.

7:30

REDBALL Jon Hewitt

Australia, Feature, 35mm, 91 min., 1998, U.S. Premiere

The Chicago Underground Film Festival is proud to present the U.S. premiere of REDBALL, a down under-dogma-’95-drama from Australia’s most controversial filmmaker, Jon Hewiit. A shocking, powerful and utterly nihilistic drama about corruption and psychoses among the baddest lieutenants on the moral frontlines of the Melbourne Homicide & Vice squads,REDBALL became the subject of parliamentary debate upon its Aussie release. The film was denounced on the editorial pages of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, where it was called “the work of vandals!”. Filmed in a terse, scattershot style, the film depicts the lives and investigations of a loose group of Australian cops, led by Detectives J.J. Wilson (Belinda McClory, THE MATRIX ) and Robbie Walsh (John Brompton, DANCE TO MY SONG). The two detectives are investigating the return of an Australian child-killer known as “Mr. Creep” and Wilson will let nothing-including the law-stand in the way of her bringing this vicious killer to justice. Fast-moving and dialogue driven, the film unfolds in a series of vignettes that are by turns confrontational, hilarious and disturbing.

REDBALL is the second feature by Australian underground filmmaker Jon Hewitt, director of the infamous horror/exploitation flick BLOODLUST. His debut film, shot years before low-budget “indie” filmmaking became hip, has been called “Australia’s most successful cult movie” by Film Threat and is still the only Australian film to be banned in Britain.

“Blasting from the screen like the cinematic progeny of some unholy union of Lars Van Trier and Abel Ferrara… here is uncompromising Australian underground filmmaking at its very best.”
    -Melbourne International Film Festival

8:00

MY FRIEND PAUL

Repeat screening – See Wednesday 8:00

9:30

REDBALL

Repeat Screening – See Thursday 7:30

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