The Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF) has announced the recipients of its Fourth Annual Chicago Underground Film Fund. The six projects were selected from over 200 submissions in an effort “to foster the underground of contemporary media.” Each winner receives a cash award of between $500 and $2000 to go toward completion of his or her project:
“The Eulipion Chronicles Part One” – A lyrical experimental film, shot on Super 8, illuminating the fabric of an all-American truck-stop. A series of subjective meditations on travel and memory from filmmaker Julian Goldberger
“Fundamentals Of The Stoma” – A twenty-five minute experimental narrative from Chicago filmmaker Carl Weidemann presenting an array of characters who chain-smoke and simultaneously speak with great confidence and limited coherence. (Official site)
“Riding Ray’s Roller Coaster” – Documentary maker Doug Wolens (“Weed,” “Butterfly”) observes a week in the neverending cycle of emotional and physical self-destruction of Ray, a San Francisco hipster and methamphetamine addict.
“Take Away” – digital underground auteur Todd Verow’s latest feature starring the always captivating Philly (“Once and Future Queen”) as a NYC actress who makes plans to rendez vous with her lover in Copenhagen after shooting a film in Berlin, only to find her plans change as the film and her life fuse. (Official site)
“Threads of Belonging” – a feature length fiction/documentary hybrid by Jennifer Montgomery (“Art for Teachers of Children”), “Threads of Belonging” recreates a therapeutic community using actual case histories written by patients during the anti-psychiatry movement. Using immersion and improvisation, Jennifer developed the characters in a house over a two-week period.
“Tongues Of Stone” – In his first feature length documentary Jason Blalock (“High Rocks,” “Spangled”) uses the amusing world of Argentine rock ‘n’ roll to offer an enlightening look at the effect of globalizationon Third World cultures. By molding an imported musical style to fit their own purposes, the Argentines use rock music today as Americans did in the 1960s as a tool for social change.
The 9th Annual Chicago Underground Film Festival will be held from August 22nd-28th, 2002 at the Landmark Century Centre Cinemas,. The Festival Schedule will be posted on CUFF’s website on August 1st.
