Boston Underground Film Festival 2024 Wrap-Up
Walking around Cambridge in March isn't ideal, but at least I made it to the Brattle.
After having such a great time at the New Hampshire Film Festival (NHFF) the last two years, I’m interested in attending to more festivals. I love seeing the less conventional works the smaller ones tend to focus on. Sure, some will get (or already have) distribution, so will at least pop up on VOD/streaming, and the lucky few even get a theatrical release. But many will fade away, and with them we lose out on many interesting perspectives and topics and approaches. I have to imagine many filmmakers working at this level know they’re likely screaming into the void, making them unlikely to abandon the form due to lack of buzz. Even so, at some point, it must become demoralizing. Which is why small festivals are important: they’re a place for everyone involved in the film to get the exposure and love they deserve. And in the right circumstances, for the film to demonstrate to potential distributors that there truly is an audience out there for it.
I hadn’t heard of the Boston Underground Film Festival (BUFF) until recently, although that’s entirely a function of not being a movie nerd when I lived in the city: it’s been running since 1999, making it a bit older than NHFF. As a single screen festival, all the films are shown at The Brattle in Cambridge, Mass. This means less research for me: before NHFF, I watch all the trailers, then construct a spreadsheet to organize my schedule, deliberating over conflicting showtimes. But here, with no choices, I went in as ignorant of the films as I could. However, it also means that if you’re not interested in a film or block of shorts, your only other option is to skip it. Maybe use that as a chance to go grab food, since most of their breaks between films are pretty short (30ish minutes), meaning squeezing in a dash for a slice of pizza or whatever is tight. Doable, as I pulled it off each day, but still.
As for the festival programming itself, they cast a wide net to survey the cinematic landscape for strange or unconventional stories, from unique perspectives to truly outsider art, from features to music videos. Their shorts blocks are themed, which is probably the right approach for a single screen, although it can mean being hit with the same general tone repeatedly. Also, they run a lot later than NHFF. Each day wrapped up after 11, with Friday and Saturday concluding around 1:30 AM. As such, although there was a party each night, I instead went back to my hotel room to sleep.
But overall, it was a good time! Over its five days, I caught 50 short films (plus the 26 music videos which comprise their annual Sound & Vision block), as well as 14 features. A handful were great, only a few were truly awful, and it provided a nice contrast to NHFF. I even ran into a filmmaker I met at NHFF 2023, who was nice enough to come over and say hi. I hope to attend some more regional festivals this year, but we shall see!
I’ll be writing reviews for everything I watched on my Letterboxd over the next few days. But here are some of the stand-outs.
Best Shorts
I don’t know if BUFF ever has documentary shorts, but there weren’t any this year, so all of the following are narrative. Although, some have more of a story than others.
The Möbius Trip
I love me some atmospheric, surreal weirdness, and oh boy does this deliver. Ostensibly about a family traveling to a wedding by station wagon, we watch as the close, confined quarters begin to wear on them. Most notably the mother Maren (Fiona O’Shaughnessy), whose experience of reality begins to fray along with the threads that bind her family together, until the world explodes into a nightmarish but never-ending trip into hell, dominated by darkness and cloth. It’s the exact kind of trippy I love, reminiscent of some of my favorite folk horror. Easily my favorite short of the whole festival.
Mira
Honestly, this one started out just okay, but slowly grew on me as the story unfolded, eventually landing on this list. As it progressed from Mira’s childhood to busking to being in Lore’s thrall, I went from thinking it should have been shorter to finding few faults with it. The tale slowly built into a poignant conclusion commenting on demanding and abusive partners (creative or otherwise), and the danger of surrendering your own dreams to support someone else’s too easily.
Stairwell
This dark little fairy tale is made creepier by its unstable and childlike animation style, further amped up by the shaky narration leading us through the experience and to its haunting conclusion. Such that despite its two minute runtime, it’s stuck with me since.
Animal Facts
A quirky little Swiss film that nonetheless wouldn’t be out of place in the filmography of Roy Andersson. A woman searches for her parrot while the inhabitants of the town find parallels between their lives and that of various animals, all while the voice-over informs us of animal facts which only appear disconnected at first glance. It’s a bizarrely funny and insightful piece, one which uses elements of absurdism and irony to highlight how we all yearn to break free.
Men Grieving
A funny little piece about men’s handling of emotion, and how even that can become a competition, to measure who is most deserving of feeling intense grief. The lengths to which they’ll go in an attempt to avoid it, and how bureaucracy gets in the way. And its ending, while predictable, is perfect.
Type A
What if your life depended on being able to plug in a USB cable…on the first try? I don’t know if I would make it. But will our main character?!
Septichexen
If I could rewatch this, it would have a chance of being my favorite. Its aesthetic is heavily dreampunk, the world bathed in a surreal haze that obscures all, especially when combined with the soft filters in various colors which change with each shot. All is accompanied by a breathy, hissing VO to tell us in abstract terms what’s going on, but it seemed to fade into the background as another layer to the beautiful fog.
Thing is, this was the penultimate short of the midnight block on Friday, so it took my brain a while to lock onto its wavelength. Once I did, I loved it, but so much of the experience had already passed me by. And yet it still managed to be in the upper tier of shorts, which is proof of its success.
Honorable Mentions: Gústi the Strong vs The Merman; Order for Pickup; Don’t Fall From Grace
Best Features
Most years, BUFF does screen at least a couple documentaries. However, they did not this year, so the following are all narrative features.
Femme
This is an incredibly intense and upsetting exploration of gender dynamics and power and violence, most strongly expressed through the various forms of gender performance explored by its central cast. There’s an idea throughout that our behaviors are in part driven by the environment in which they occur, that we play to the way we’re perceived by others, and act how we’re expected to act, regardless of how it meshes with who we really are. Not that the movie excuses the truly abhorrent actions of Preston (George MacKay), but it does seek to understand them. All of this is anchored by an incredible turn from Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Jules, a gay drag performer who begins having casual sex with the closeted hooligan who beat the crap out of him in costume, but doesn’t recognize him out of it. The nuance required to pull of the complexities of that relationship is immense, especially as Jules’ internal conflict intensifies and he’s required to flow between different identities, and Stewart-Jarrett does so with power and grace.
US wide release: April 5, 2024
In a Violent Nature
I love slow cinema horror. If you’ve seen my essay on We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, you already know that. So when I tell you the premise of this film is very literally following a Michael Myers-like figure named Johnny (Ry Barrett) as he hunts the teenagers who took a necklace, awakening him from his slumber, you better believe it’s my jam. In part, it’s due to the hypnotic nature, watching him walk wordlessly from place to place for minutes at a time, only showing us his face one time halfway through the film. But there’s also value in stripping the teen slasher genre down to its bare bones, and exploring how flipping the POV completely transforms the genre - that is, until the unstoppable force comes into contact with the hapless high schoolers. The camerawork is remarkable, the kills are creative, and the special effects are second to none. The thing holding this back is that it doesn’t have a lot to say about the situation, but I enjoy the craft and the vibe enough to overcome that weakness.
US release: May 31, 2024
Off Ramp
If you’d told me that one of my favorite films of the festival would be a road trip comedy about two lifelong friends on their yearly trip to the Gathering of the Juggalos, I’d never have believed you. But here we are.
To be clear, the film is not making fun of them or Insane Clown Posse, not by a long shot. Some of the self-seriousness exhibited by Trey (Jon Oswald) may seem that way, but as we get to know him and Silas (Scott Turner Schofield), it becomes clear they’re just two very heart-on-their-sleeve guys. The wide ranging adventure they find themselves in the middle of, as well as the strong and well executed themes of found family being defined in part by the people around whom you can most be yourself make this an incredibly touching and meaningful piece as well. Even as it’s peppered with mantras like “Whoop whoop” and “The Carnival provides”.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Going into the festival, this was my most anticipated film, so I’m pleased to be able to put it on this list.
Playing as a cross between Amélie and What We Do In the Shadows, with a dash of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, this is a delightfully dark coming of age tale rife with metaphor and chalk full of wonderfully twisted humor. Its two leads absolutely nail the assignment, with Félix-Antoine Bénard as severely depressed teenager Paul, and Sara Montpetit as Sasha, a vampire subsisting on blood bags while her fangs refuse to come in, save for some very specific and often embarrassing situations. It layers a couple familiar stories, yet manages to feel like a fresh take, with a number of unique and very enjoyable framings. Whenever it finally comes to VOD/streaming in the US, I guarantee it will immediately find its audience, and enjoy success as an entrant in the canon of movies for people who are, or at one time were, outsider high schoolers.