NY Underground Film Festival 2007

Last two days to catch the weirdness at the 14th New York Underground Film Festival at Anthology Film Archives. Monday and Tuesday’s repeated programs showcase the good, the bad, and the truly bizarre, in narrative, documentary and experimental form. Some of our favorites:
Sway, Richard Sandler’s freeform doc assembled from 14 years of footage of NYC subways and the people that ride them.
Life and Times of Robert Kennedy Starring Gary Cooper, by Aaron Valdez, which overlays images of the doomed politician on top of clips from Cooper’s classic 1950 western High noon, creating an eerie and striking mix of fact and fiction/narrative and newsreel (both part of the “Life and Times” showcase.
Capital, by Ruth Maclennan, a poetic, dreamlike short doc about Astana, Kazkahstan’s new capital built from scratch, founded and funded by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1997 (found in the “Poems and Problems” program).
Ultimate Reality, an 18 minute head trip by Jimmy Joe Roche that conflates psychedelic imagery, pulsing beats, menacing fetuses, and Schwarzenegger’s Terminator kicking ass (in the “Head Rush” program).
Known for daring programming, NYUFF didn’t disappoint this year either. For Lunchfilm, curator Mike Plante offered to buy a bunch of eager directors lunch in exchange for a movie that cost the same amount ( total cost of program, plus tip: $622.71 for 17 films). In Tube Time, staff and festival celebs each picked out the best of the best of depraved and disgraceful internet content and threw it up on the big screen.


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