In our first installment of Way Too Indie’s Secret Stash, filmmaker Eddie Mullins (DOOMSDAYS) shares three super-obscure and totally excellent films for you to seek out, watch, love, and show off to your friends! Every film geek loves having little-known gems of films in their back pocket that they can whip out to their friends to be the coolest dude (or dudette) in the room, and Mr. Mullins has got some perfect picks to add to your arsenal!

For more info on Eddie’s first feature film Doomsdays, visit doomsdaysmovie.com

Eddie Mullin’s 3 Secret Stash Picks

#1 – Easy Streaming – Death by Hanging (Streaming Link)

#2 – Obscure But Obtainable – Dusty and Sweets McGee (Purchase Link)

#3 – Near Impossible To Find – The New Babylon (eBay/Bootleg)

Watch the video to hear the reasons behind these picks and how to go about finding them.

Got any hidden treasures in your secret stash that you want to share? Tell us in the comments below!

Dirty Fred (Justin Rice) and Bruho (Leo Fitzpatrick), believe that peak oil–the theory that we will soon deplete the earth of petroleum, causing the demise of our modern lifestyles–will bring upon mass hysteria and a societal breakdown. In preparation of the impending apocalypse,  they’ve chosen to stay ahead of the curve, adopting a vagabond lifestyle, trekking through the Catskills, scavenging through rich people’s vacation homes for supplies (and booze, pills, and other fun stuff). When they accept a smart-ass teenager (Brian Charles Johnson) and a fiery young woman (Laura Campbell) into their group, however, they’re forced to reevaluate their pre-apocalyptic lifestyle.

Doomsdays is a meticulously crafted, devilishly funny road movie on foot (though cars do play a role as the smash-able victims of Bruho’s rage). First time director Eddie Mullins was a film critic for a decade prior to becoming a filmmaker, and as a result has an encyclopedic pool of filmic reference from which to pull from. During SF Indiefest, we spoke to him about whether he’d have the same reaction to the apocalypse as his characters, how film criticism can numb enthusiasm, his directorial influences, the art of blocking as opposed to editing, and more.

If the world did break down as a result of peak oil, would you behave the way your characters do?

Eddie: Most of the crew were young men, guys in their 20s. The same comment was made over and over again. “I could see myself doing this.” It could be peak oil, or global warming. There are so many possibilities.

Singularity may be a different movie entirely.

Eddie: I didn’t actually name check Ray Kurzweil, but I wanted the Reina character to at least pay lip service to an alternative possibility. I guess because I’m an old man, I still buy and read the hard copy of Rolling Stone every month. I know it’s like saying, “I read Playboy for the articles,” but I actually read Rolling Stone for the articles. Matt Taibbi is the man. There was a piece about Her, and they asked a couple notables in the tech world, “When will we be at a point where an operating system that is this close to being human?” Ray Kurzweil said, “Oh. 2039.” I was like, that’s really specific, man! You seem really confident! I was impressed an appalled at the same time.

You got some beautiful shots in the film. Since you shot in the town you live in, did you already have a lot of these shots in mind before production began?

Eddie: Absolutely. Most of the homes are friends’ places. The art gallery is my house. My girlfriend and I run an art gallery out of that room. It was great because I knew well in advance where I was going to be shooting, so I could tailor my shots as I was blocking them out on the page months and months before I started hiring a crew. I shot the film in a fairly idiosyncratic way. There are maybe four match cuts in the entire film. The idea was to have each scene rendered in one shot. You have to figure out how to sustain visual interest through blocking. We have a lot of deep focus shots where different theaters of activity encourages a different kind of spectatorship than what you normally get at the movies. This is certainly not something I dreamt up on my own; I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.

At times the shots remind me of Tati.

Eddie: Tati is certainly an influence. I’m in the minority. I think Traffic is his masterpiece. I’m not a Playtime guy. Shohei Imamura and Mizoguchi Kenji [are influences]. William Wyler, particularly Little Foxes. None of those filmmakers are quite as locked off as us. I think we have one tracking shot in the picture. Every single shot is on sticks.

Did you go to film school?

Eddie: Yes I did.

The reason I ask is, you don’t really see a lot of people making films the way you made Doomsdays anymore. There isn’t much editing involved in your film.

Eddie: The way Hollywood films are made…it’s like capitalism, or air. Most of us are just born into it, and we take it for granted. You go to film school and they say, “This is how you film a shot. You do the wide, the medium, the close-ups, the over-the-shoulders, and then you figure it out in the editing room.” No one ever presented to me in film school alternatives to this approach. My real education as a filmmaker came during my ten years as a critic. It’s an enormous privilege to be able to think and write about movies for a decade. Had I not done that, I’m not sure whether I would have become a filmmaker. And if I had, I probably would have been a rather shitty one.

How did those ten years of being a critic shape your taste in film?

Eddie: Being a critic can numb your enthusiasm for movies. You’re obliged to see so many, so often, and the majority of them are bad. I was fortunate to write for a fairly hip magazine. My longest tenure was at BlackBook, which is an awesome culture magazine. I’d be able to watch what I wanted sometimes, but I’d still have to muddle through Paul Blart: Mall Cop or whatever. It can be so demoralizing. It’s been a pleasure to stop being a film critic and no longer have to swim all the time and keep up with everything. Now people have to keep up with me. I much prefer this. (laughs) But I have seen Nymphomaniac. I ask myself this all the time: Who’s the American Lars Von Trier? Or Wong Kar Wai? Or Johnnie To? I don’t think we have them, certainly not in Hollywood. Independent filmmaking is becoming so vanilla, so jejune. You don’t really see a lot of edgy pictures coming out of Sundance or SXSW. Beasts of the Southern Wild is certainly an independent film, and it’s a lovely picture, but it slides very easily into the art house market that, in this day and age, is dominated by what we call in this industry “blue hairs”. Older women are the biggest consumers of independent cinema. This wasn’t true in 1992, when we had this rash of people coming through every day, like Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, and even Kevin Smith, who I have no love for, but Clerks was a breath of fresh air. These were edgy filmmakers. There doesn’t seem to be an appetite for this anymore.

What shot are you most proud of in Doomsdays?

Eddie: Probably the shot where Leo goes to the window and sees Laura talking to her boyfriend outside. They start having a little fight, then Leo exits the upstairs window and comes down into the frame he was watching before. As he does that, Justin comes in and takes his place to watch the fight play out. There are, like, 12 different moving parts to that shot. We actually had the cops come during that shot. They had a number of calls that said there was a fight going on. The crew was scared, andI felt like a real champ, because the cop got out of his car and I said, “Oh, I know that guy. His name’s Mark.” The shot in the bar was incredibly difficult. I talk about different theaters of activity, and there’s the bit where Leo and the drunk go outside and fight, and you only see them as they go back and forth in front of this glass window.

That shot is so much fun.

Eddie: I like for the violence to be hyperbolic, and I think I get that from Godard. People mention Weekend in talking about the film, and they’re dead-on. That’s a huge influence on me, and I was thinking about it while I was writing the picture. I think the difference is that my film is much more self-consciously comic. It’s a black comedy, basically. The staging that I’m doing in this picture is a very specific formal agenda that I have going on in this picture. Very few people thought it was going to work, myself included. I thought, is this just going to be incredibly static? The camera’s on sticks, there’s no cutting, there’s zero coverage. I’ve often speculated that if the producer were anyone other than myself, this idea might not have flown. It’s so unforgiving. There’s no going back and fixing anyone’s timing. If your best take has a boom mic shadow in it…well, that’s the best take.

It’s approaching theater.

Eddie: Yeah, it is. It’s a mixed blessing for the actors because they have to sustain. If one person cocks it up and everybody else gets it right, that cock-up might stay in there. Alternately, it’s great for them because they don’t have to shoot a scene 47 times. I think the most amount of takes we had to do on a certain scene was 16. Once we got it right, we moved on. Justin Rice is my neighbor, and all of the actors stayed in his house. I think I got along famously with all of my actors. With a few exceptions, we always went straight to the bar after shooting.

How important was that rapport?

Eddie: It was indispensable. Everyone asks how I got this wonderfully organic relationship between all of these people. It’s easy! They all lived cheek by jowl for a month! Everyone liked one another, and they’re all still my friends. I’m quite fortunate.

Justin’s dialog is so peculiarly poetic. His lines are great.

Eddie: Justin came onboard before I’d even finished the script. He hadn’t done anything in 3-4 years, but he has 9 movies under his belt, all in lead roles. He’d always been type-cast as the sensitive, milquetoast type. I don’t think he’s ever had a role before Doomsdays where he doesn’t play guitar. I didn’t know if either of the characters were right for him, but then a light bulb went off in my head. Bing! I was like, “Oh my god…do you want to play Dirty Fred? It would completely upend your image. I want you to grow your hair long, grow a beard, wear glasses. And no guitar!” He even got method. I’d written in the script that Dirty Fred had a chipped tooth. One of Justin’s teeth had a crown from an accident that happened, so we got a dentist friend to shave it down. But with the way I shot it, you can’t see it at all! (laughs) Justin’s a Harvard graduate, so I knew he wouldn’t have a problem with the dialog. He’s a very Withnail-y character. Knowing what his energy is like, I knew he was going to do it deadpan. I think if I had read other people for the part, I’d have had a lot of people doing really flamboyant stuff. I love how you have Leo Fitzpatrick as Bruho with all of this angry energy, and then Justin who quietly goes about his business with all these pearls in his mouth.

I love the jokes in the movie. They match the characters perfectly. Dirty Fred’s is so poetic, and Jaiden’s is a fart joke. And Jaiden is so juvenile he can’t even recite Dirty Fred’s!

Eddie: (laughs) No, it’s too subtle for him. I like the idea of, as a piece of entertainment, to stipple throughout people telling jokes. The one that Dirty Fred tells is actually something my grandfather used to tell. When I showed it at the Virginia film festival, my two aunts were there. That joke always gets laughs, but that night you could hear peals of screaming laughter in the back! (laughs)

And Bruho’s joke is simply, “Fuck your mother”.

Eddie: (laughs) I think that’s in keeping with the character. Leo was really helpful. He had more experience than any of the actors, and he was encouraging to me, as a first time director. It was a really good time. It was very intimate–we shot the picture in 18 days. And lo and behold, people have actually given a shit.

Hide Your Smiling Faces

Set in a beautifully photographed forested town in the rural North East, Hide Your Smiling Faces by Daniel Patrick Carbone is a moving, richly atmospheric coming-of-age film in the vein of Terrence Malick. It centers on two young brothers who, following the death of a friend, are forced to come to terms with the bitter taste of mortality, both in their own way. It’s a hauntingly accurate depiction of the dark side of boyhood and puberty. The boys wrestle with overwhelming emotions they don’t have the faculty to contain, and they wrestle with each other as well, literally, in their lush, deep green surroundings. Carbone and DP Nick Bentgen capture the landscape in amazingly composed, majestic shots that serve as the perfect framing for the boys’ bubbling emotions. Performances are good across the board, though the young actors feel more naturalistic and raw than the seasoned adults, whose polished skills feel less appropriate to the material. Highly recommended.

Bluebird

When Lesley (Amy Morton), a good-natured school bus driver, is distracted by a pretty bluebird perched inside her bus, she fails to discover a young boy hiding in a back seat during a routine end-of-the-day check-up. The boy goes into hypothermic shock when he’s left in the freezing cold overnight. Set in a frigid industrial town in Maine, Bluebird follows the families of both the boy and the bus driver as they’re stricken with guilt, grief, and inner turmoil. Morton and Louisa Krause (who plays the boy’s mother) are fantastic, and the supporting cast (including John Slattery, Margo Martindale, Emily Meade, and Louisa Krause) back them up solidly, despite their characters feeling like quickly-sketched small town stereotypes. Despite the horrifying nature of the incident at the center of the drama, the film lacks a sense of urgency or intensity, making it feel emotionally distant. Director-writer Lance Edmands shows promise, however, even though his potential isn’t fully realized here.

Rezeta

Following a free-spirited, 21-year-old Albanian fashion model whose jet-setting lifestyle has brought her to Mexico City, Rezeta is a somewhat messy, but peculiarly charming indie romance film starring talented non-actors. While at first Rezeta (Rezeta Veliu) has fun in her new environment, sleeping around with various handsome men, her romantic side begins to yearn for a more stable relationship. She finds this in a tatted-up punk rocker named Alex (Roger Mendoza), whose shy, bad boy personality draws her in. Rezeta’s flirtatious tendencies begin to form cracks in their relationship, and Alex eventually reaches a breaking point, though Rezeta won’t let him slip away without a fight. Director-writer Fernando Frias has an ear for naturalistic dialog, and he pulls good performances out of his actors. He makes Mexico City look as colorful and vibrant as Rezeta’s personality.

Congratulations!

Writer-director Mike Brune’s nutty missing-person drama Congratulations! will appeal to those who enjoy films about the stranger side of suburbia, like Blue Velvet or Quentin Dupieux’s Wrong, which played at Indiefest last year. When an 8-year-old boy named Paul mysteriously disappears during a house party, Mr. and Mrs. Gray (Robert Longstreet and Rhoda Griffis) are left frozen in a state of utter confusion. To the rescue comes Detective Dan Skok (John Curran), who believes that there is “no such thing as a missing person; only missing information”. All evidence points to Paul still being somewhere in the Gray family home, so Dan takes up residence, incessantly searching for clues, driven by the nagging memory of a similar case. As everyone’s mind begins to unwind, their behavior, including Skok’s, grows more bizarre by the minute. Brune conjures some deliciously weird shots (the image of the entire house covered in missing person posters is unforgettable), and the film’s pacing is spot-on. The cast is constantly, constantly deadpanning, which is hilarious at times, grating at others.

i hate myself begins with New York filmmaker Joanna Arnow aiming her camera at her first boyfriend James, a crude, oft-drunk showman who enjoys screaming the n-word to a room of black people during open mic “performances”. He has a gift for rubbing people the wrong way, and he constantly pokes and prods at Joanna’s emotions and insecurities, almost to the point of abuse.

She evaluates, through the film, whether their relationship is a healthy one or not, but as she gets more wrapped up in the narrative herself (there’s a sex scene included that’s as explicit as it gets), the film evolves, and Joanna begins to point her camera at the filmmaking process itself. We see her sitting with her co-editor Max (who constantly nude on screen), and we even see her show the film to her parents and James, sex scene and all. It’s a multi-layered, complexly and intimately personal window into the soul of the woman behind the camera, and piercing look into the nature of shame and insecurity.

Joanna spoke with us in San Francisco during SF Indiefest about why people are drawn to James, turning the camera on herself part-way through production, how people have been reacting to the film, her experience in the indie world so far, and more. For more info, visit the film’s facebook page.

With this film, was your aim to break people out of their shells?
Joanna: The arc for me in this film is reflected in the title. I’m showing aspects of myself that are less socially acceptable, being open about them, and then coming to terms with them and seeing the humor in them. Hence the smiley face. It gives you a certain freedom. I hope that when people see the film they also feel like they can be more open.

The film is incredibly revealing. Were you planning to put yourself out there like that from the beginning?
Joanna: I think it was something that evolved along the way. When I started making it, I thought it was going to be a short film, but things ended up getting more complicated. I didn’t think I was going to be the main character in the story.

You thought James would be the main character.
Joanna: Yeah, and I thought the relationship was going to be more of a framework for telling James’ story. But then I changed a lot about the process and I wanted to include myself in the story as well. In telling a personal story, you run the risk of being self-indulgent. To avoid that, I had to be honest and willing to make myself look bad.

Do you think you look bad in the film?
Joanna: In places, but I think that’s a good thing. I think that it makes me look good that I look bad. (laughs) I don’t think it would have been good…okay, now I’m getting confused. (laughs)

No, I totally understand! There are a lot of layers to uncover as the film plays out. I could feel the evolution of the project as an audience member.
Joanna: I’m not in the beginning of the film that much, but once I realized that I wanted to get myself in the story later on in the process, it was tough because there wasn’t really a way to do that. I wasn’t in the footage enough to tell my part of the story unless we used an interview or voiceover, but both of those techniques felt a little too serious given the subject material. Max Karson, the co-editor, and I were having some great conflicts at the time, and I like the idea of telling my story in a conflict-driven way. I think it’s more dramatic and interesting, so that’s why I started filming the editing process. It also addressed the issue of how to include me in the story when I didn’t have the early footage.

James is magnetic, somehow. I felt a lot of uncomfortable emotions watching him, but I was listening close. What do you think it is about him that makes him draw people in?
Joanna: It’s his energy, his charisma, he’s a creative person. I guess it’s a lot of things. There’s never a dull moment with James. He’s very uncensored, and it’s an interesting ride.

What’s it like sitting in those rooms, watching his performances, and watching people react to what he’s saying?
Joanna: It’s very surreal. He says some things that you don’t normally hear, and it’s interesting to see people react. It was an interesting time. (laughs)

Do you think people should be more open, like James?
Joanna: (laughs) I think it depends on what they’re being open about!

It’s a fine line.
Joanna: It is a fine line. I think Max and James are provocative people who offend some people, and that’s something I admired about both of them. By including them in my film, I became provocative myself. That’s the transformation, and I wanted to emphasize that.

There’s an uncomfortable scene in which you show your parents the film, specifically one of the more risqué moments.
Joanna: I had been working on the film for several years, and it was very important to me. I thought I had to share it with the people that were most important to me. Keeping it from them would affect how I’d act in other areas of my life. I think that’s something every artist deals with at some point. I thought it was best to confront that issue. I think of the film as remolding my narrative and using the camera as a tool to do that. It’s important to show how the film is perceived in order to show the reconstruction of the narrative.

What was the first screening in front of a crowd like?
Joanna: It was so much fun. I’ve seen the footage so many times, so I’m really desensitized to it. To watch it with new eyes, new energy, and to hear people laughing, is really great.

I think it’s a very funny film.
Joanna: Oh yeah. I wanted it to be a funny film, and I think it is, but sometimes people feel sad for me. One of the challenges of making a film about yourself is imagining how others who don’t know you would see it. I would think the footage was funnier than other people would. I’d be laughing, and the audience would be horrified! (laughs) “This is so sad.” No! It’s funny! Don’t you understand? (laughs)

Do you have any filmic influences that inform your work?
Joanna: I have a weird influence that doesn’t come through in the film that much. I really wanted the film to be like All That Jazz by Bob Fosse. It’s an autobiographical film he made that follows how his relationships are entangled with the film he’s editing and the theater piece he’s directing, and it all falls apart. My film isn’t as much like that as I’d hoped, but they both show how life and narrative can be entangled with each other. I really like Caveh Zahedi’s documentaries, The Sheik and I and I Am a Sex Addict. They show how there are no rules in documentary filmmaking, and I admire him. I don’t know if it would have occurred to make the film this way had I not seen Ross McElwee’s films, especially Sherman’s March. I really like the idea of the character behind the camera, that subjective perspective.

What’s one of the most surprising reactions you’ve seen someone have to the film?
Joanna: One person seemed angry that I included the sex scene. That was interesting, to talk about the reasons I did and why I felt it was important. She felt very adamantly against it. My reasoning is that it’s an important part of the relationship. To me, one of the most beautiful things about documentary is that you get such great access, such a close view of someone else. In books and movies, what I’m looking for is getting a chance to see a side of someone that you don’t normally get to see. That side is what we normally think of as private or something that we’re ashamed of. It’s important to see that part.

What’s the most touching reaction someone’s had?
Joanna: People have been so positive. I like it most when people say they related and that it made them think about their own life. Someone I knew from school was telling me that they felt they needed to make some changes in their life, re-motivate, and think about their direction. I was so happy! I want this film to have a positive impact, although it’s a strange one! (laughs)

It’s strange, but hopefully with time it won’t be so strange!
Joanna: I hope so!

You’ve said that we live in a society where people live in shame.
Joanna: I feel like society has very specific expectations for how people are supposed to act and express themselves. People talk about sexuality more, but it’s still very taboo in many ways. Also, it’s still a very male-dominated conversation. I really see this as a feminist film as well.

Now that the film is done and you’re out in the festival scene, have you had a good experience so far operating in the independent film world?
Joanna: Yeah. I’ve been awed, time after time, by the generosity of people–filmmakers, curators, programmers–who take the time to see a first time filmmaker’s film and advocate for it. This film hasn’t gone into a huge number of festivals or any of the more mainstream ones, but the ones it’s gone into have been great.

What’s next?
Joanna: We will be distributing a film either through a distributor or by ourselves. We had a one day preview on No Budge, so that was a little taste of getting it out there digitally.

How do you feel about the digital market?
Joanna: Excited. There just seems to be endless possibilities. I like the idea that, if you make enough noise in a positive way, you can find an audience.

What’s your next movie going to be like?
Joanna: I’m still developing some documentaries, but I’m moving in a more narrative direction, and I’m working on scripts now. I have an actress in mind to work with for the next one, but she doesn’t know it yet. (laughs) It feels like I have a crush on someone and I haven’t told them yet.

In See You Next Tuesday‘s long opening shot, we see a close-up of Mona (Eleanor Pienta) at her shitty job as a grocery store clerk, mouth hanging open due to weariness, utter boredom, or both. She stares straight into the camera, unmoving, while the opening credits scroll underneath her chin. The credits continue to crawl, the camera keeps rolling, and gradually we begin to feel uncomfortable. It’s clear weariness and utter boredom aren’t the only causes of Mona’s vacant countenance; there’s something amiss. A screw loose. This girl’s deeply disturbed, and she’s looking right at us, barely blinking.

Writer-director Drew Tobia explores inherited mental illness, and the idea that, sometimes, the only people willing and (most importantly) able to truly help broken, damaged souls…are other broken, damaged souls. Mona’s chronically distressed, and the pressures of pregnancy and everyday burdens like bills and annoying co-workers weigh heavier on her than most people. She doesn’t own a cell phone, she’s barely holding on to her apartment, and she’s neglected seeing a doctor about her baby, because thinking about these things makes her terribly upset. Mona’s constantly on the cusp of a mental breakdown and, as her fatal flaw, airs out her anxiety in social situations, making everyone around her feel uncomfortable. It’s alarming behavior, and she clearly needs help.

The only time Mona seems to be at ease is when she’s hanging out with her wisecracking mother May (Dana Eskelson), an endearing former addict with whom she shares a similar sense of bone-dry, expletive-fueled humor, which the film’s clever title represents well (google it if you don’t know). They watch TV together with their feet propped up on the coffee table, making each other laugh as they talk shit about May’s whiny roommate, a dreadful old lady. “I fucking hate her!” Mona vents. “I know!” May mouths, so as not to alert the lurking hag. Pienta and Eskelson have a natural rapport, and genuinely funny scenes like these provide welcome levity to a script that’s an otherwise weighty affair.

Mona begins to crumble rapidly as her problems stack sky-high, and in a brutally cruel argument, severs her relationship with May, her only friend and confidant. Mona’s sister Jordan (Molly Plunk), a bratty wannabe-artist who’s distanced herself from the family, shares her mother and sister’s mental imbalance, but internalizes her anger and lets it simmer until it erupts, unlike Mona who’s constantly lashing out in fits of tearful rage. The three women are a picture of dysfunction, but in each other they find, if nothing else, empathy and a sort of chaotic camaraderie. It’s touching, in a twisted way that may be lost on many in the midst of the shit-storm.

The film feels like a typical cringe-comedy in its first quarter, but as Mona’s condition worsens and more of her family history is revealed, “comedy” gives way to “cringe” big time. Watching these three women make terrible life decisions is hard to stomach, and you’ll often want to watch the drama through your fingers. (A scene at a house party where Mona chugs whiskey in front of kids and Jordan gets into a tussle with the host is painful.) It doesn’t help that, as a moment gets more and more uncomfortable, Tobia pulls his camera in tighter, giving you the most intimate view of the car wreck possible. It’ll be unpalatable to most, but in this case it’s indicative of effective cinema.

The three main actors retain their likability throughout the film, despite their characters’ extreme behavior. Pienta in particular has a screen presence that draws you into her plight, even when she’s at her most offensive. Tobia’s script is overwhelming, but he scatters in enough humor to keep us from turning on the film completely. Moments of laughter are few and far between, but they’re key; they eased my anxiety just when I felt I was about to burst.

Director Mahamat Saleh Haroun spends no time establishing the main draw of Grigris‘ title character; in the opening moments we see the young, disabled dancer (played by non-professional Souleymane Démé) busting some moves on the dance floor to a rapturous audience. It’s a captivating sight, watching Démé writhe around the club while using his paralyzed leg to pull off some truly impressive moves. It’s a highly entertaining and original moment, but one of the only ones throughout the film.

Grigris is Souleymane’s stage name (Démé used his real name in the film), and during the day he spends time helping out his mother and stepfather. Tragedy hits when Souleymane’s stepdad falls severely ill, and the only way to save him is to pay 700,000 francs. This causes Souleymane to ask for work from Moussa (Cyril Guei), a local businessman who smuggles petrol. Souleymane gets hired on as a driver, but when he steals some money to pay for his stepfather’s treatments it gets him in some serious trouble. At the same time Souleymane is falling in love with Mimi (Anaïs Monory), an aspiring model who resorts to selling her body in order to make ends meet.

It’s a storyline that wouldn’t exactly feel out of place in a film by the Dardennes (or a lot of other European arthouse fare), but its familiarity is what undoes Grigris. Haroun’s simple, slow-paced form of storytelling only drags out the clichéd proceedings. In A Screaming Man Haroun had an immensely compelling father/son relationship at the heart of his film; here, we only get the relationship between Souleymane and Mimi, which is severely lacking. Démé is a talented and charismatic person, but he looks like he’s out of his depth when it comes to the thriller plotline. Anaïs, also making her film debut here, is gorgeous but her role can’t resonate beyond its “hooker with a heart of gold” archetype.

The way that Grigris and Mimi both use their bodies as a means of escape from their surroundings (him through dancing, her through modelling) only to use them in corrupt ways as a means for survival is a fascinating idea Haroun flirts with early into Grigris, but as the story takes darker turns that concept is mostly abandoned. The same goes for Souleymane’s dancing, which is shoved to the background once him and Mimi go on the run from Moussa. It’s somewhat confusing that Haroun would take his actor’s greatest strength and use it sparingly, but not as baffling as what he does in the final act. The film morphs into an anti-thriller when it shifts locations to a small village before taking a surprisingly feminist turn towards the end. It’s an unexpected moment, but it’s one that doesn’t gel with anything that came before it.

Despite its shortcomings, Grigris still has many things working in its favour. The cinematography by Antoine Héberlé is gorgeous, lending a vibrant quality to the film’s locations, and Haroun has a knack for boiling stories down to their essential qualities that would make other filmmakers jealous. If the script wasn’t so lacking in characterization (a good example: Grigris’ mother and stepfather vanish from the film when their conflict wraps up, making their presence as nothing but plot devices even more obvious) and freshness it might have been more affective. Instead it’s a minor work, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Kestrin Pantera is an actor, writer, director, and classically trained cellist (she’s played with the likes of Weezer and Beck), but one gig on her resume stands out like a neon light in the night: she and her husband Jonathan Grubb own and operate a tricked-out RV called the RVIP Lounge, a rockin’ karaoke party on wheels. They travel around the country, plucking people off of the street, out of big events and long night club lines, and invite them into their mobile fantasy machine, which they playfully describe as, “equal parts transportation and entertainment. Transportainment.”

A few years back, Jonathan began to not-so-subtly suggest that the couple have a baby, a proposition Kestrin struggled with. “I felt guilty and sad, like I should want something. Like a baby-switch flips and you’re ready. I wasn’t ready, and I thought there was something wrong with me.” Harnessing the anxiety of the situation, she began work on Let’s Ruin it With Babies, a fictionalized story heavily informed by both her baby dilemma and her experiences with the RV.

I sat down with Kestrin (now a mother!) to talk about the film hours before it screened at SF Indiefest this past Saturday night. She’s a vivacious, fun-loving soul (which the film reflects), and we chatted about the “carnal sin of karaoke”, how the film picked up distribution right out of the gate, casting her husband and friends, how she thinks the movie is more drama than comedy, and more. I was lucky enough to step into the RVIP Lounge myself after the screening (see pics in the gallery below), and I can’t recommend the experience enough. It was a freaking blast, with free booze, free tunes, and awesome company. Follow the lounge on twitter at @rviplounge.

The film plays tonight at the Roxie Theater at 7pm and at the New Parkway in Oakland next Tuesday the 17th at 7pm. It’s also available on cable VOD and Amazon now, and on iTunes next month.

For more info, visit: letsruinit.com, rviplounge.com, sfindie.com

You and Jonathan have been running the RVIP Lounge for a few years now. When and how did the idea for the film come about?
Kestrin: Let’s Ruin it With Babies is a film with a fictional narrative, but the emotional backstory is real. The RVIP Lounge is a very real thing that we started doing at SXSW in 2007 or 2008. We wanted to throw the best party at SXSW and we could’t afford a hotel room. Plus, they were all booked. We rented an RV to sleep in and we threw a party in it with a karaoke system and top-shelf booze. We drove around to all of these parties with huge lines outside, and we just parked in front of them and yelled, “Dude! Get in!” (laughs). We threw down a red carpet and made it look really fancy. The most fun, cool, risk-seeking people were the ones who took us up on it, and we made great friends. It was this amazing pot of karaoke love madness that was cruising around like a bus of merry pranksters. But instead of a bunch of punks and hippies on drugs it was a bunch of software engineers who were creating the future.

Right now, that’s taken up the slot in my head for “coolest thing in the world”.
Kestrin: What’s cool about it is that it’s interactive, as opposed to showing up at a party and passing business cards. You sing Bon Jovi for the first time, you duet with someone, and you’re moving while it’s happening. It’s so surreal you can’t believe it’s happening. And then you learn each others’ name. That’s where true friendship and memories are forged.

What’s your most outlandish memory on the RV?
Kestrin: Oh man…One time we put a fire-poofer on it. This propane tank breathed huge breaths of fire! We got a bunch of people to come down under the 4th street bridge in Austin, and we took the fire-poofer down, and it kind of became this flame sword. People would push the red button and take photos…and also sing karaoke. It was deeply satisfying.

The film is super cute.
Kestrin: Thank you! (In an evil voice) Let’s Ruin it With Babies (laughs). In my mind, the movie’s a drama. Any time someone has a horrible life experience, if it’s done among friends with a good sense of humor, it’s always hilarious, even though it’s heartbreaking. Even though the movie is being shown like a comedy, it’s still to me more of a drama with funny moments.

I’m very lucky; I’m happily married and the guy I’m married to was ready to start a family. It’s different for guys and girls. For girls it’s like, “Do you want to stop living your life the way you’re used to right now.” If after our interview you had to not go out, not go party, and had to be physically responsible for creating this other thing…does that sound like a good thing to do tonight?

Nope!
Kestrin: It didn’t sound good to me either! It never felt like the right time. I always felt very lonely and afraid, because it’s this guy’s life, too. It’s his future, and I kind of had it in the palm of my hand. I felt guilty and sad, like I should want something. Like a baby-switch flips and you’re ready. I wasn’t ready, and I thought there was something wrong with me. That was the real impetus for making the film. I wanted to connect with other people who feel like that so that they don’t feel so terrifyingly alone and they know they’re normal.

Did you come up with the film with Jonathan or by yourself?
Kestrin: It was all me. I pitched it to him and he was like, “Dude…”.

What was his reaction to the idea?
Kestrin: He was a little hesitant to have a personal issue, even though it was fictionalized, shown to our friends, as I was. But, the first time we showed it to people they laughed at my jokes, and that made me happy.

Are you doing the festival tour thing?
Kestrin: We got distribution! We did everything backwards. We got distribution, sent it to VOD, and then SF Indiefest asked us to play here. We got a theatrical release in Los Angeles, too.

You’re bringing the RVIP Lounge to the screening tonight, which is going to be amazing.
Kestrin: It’s going to be really fun. We’re going to show the movie, the RV is going to be parked outside, and we’re going to rage until the early morning.

Is it true that you’ve banned “Bohemian Rhapsody”?
Kestrin: Yeah.

Other than that song, what’s the worst?
Kestrin: “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the worst song to sing in karaoke because it’s 12 minutes long and requires a lot of vocal skill. Some people are just drunk and don’t have that skill. It seems like a good idea because of Wayne’s World, but it’s not. We also made a rule that there’s more Journey before midnight because c’mon…you’re better than that! Be creative.

Some people think that singing poorly makes karaoke more fun, while others appreciate it when the person actually tries to do a good job. What side do you fall on?
Kestrin: I fall on the side of commitment. If the singing isn’t good, but the person is firmly committed, spectacular things can happen. What makes me crazy is when someone gets on there and they flake or they hide and make someone else try to sing. If you don’t want to sing, ask for another song and skip it. I think waffling on the mic and not wanting to be there is the carnal karaoke sin.

You and your husband play fictionalized versions of yourselves, but there are some great supporting actors in the film as well. 
Kestrin: My friend Eva, who plays my friend Bunnie in the film, is funny in real life. She’s a professional rave DJ named DJ Eva, and she was just my funniest and closest partner in crime. Pat, the angry mechanic, gives an extraordinary performance. I wrote the part for him.

What about him made you write the part for him?
Kestrin: He’s just so lovable…and he just looks like a mechanic! Look at him! He looks like a mechanic! The part is so memorable and weird. Sam Friedman shot the film and acts in it as well. I think I pushed him to his absolute limit. His photography is so beautiful, and he’s such a great actor. He says he’ll never do it again, but I hope he does.

I’m newly married, and now me and my wife are pondering the whole baby thing. Do you have any advice for people like us who are facing that decision?
Kestrin: There really isn’t a good time, and it is a “leap and the nut will appear” thing. I made a movie just because I wasn’t feeling it and only felt uncertainty in my heart. The movie was also a means of negotiating an extention. (laughs) “I have this project, and when we finish the project, we can [have babies].” If you’re facing that, I think that’s when you have to take a long walk and ask for the vision to come to you. Ask for clarity, and if the clarity isn’t now, give yourself a timeline that speaks to your heart. You have to communicate with each other why you’re afraid and what you’re afraid about.

I feel like I’m getting free therapy!
Kestrin: You might make a movie too!

No! That’s why I’m on this side of the table. I’ll leave that to you talented people. (laughs) There are some heavy, dramatic scenes in the film. Was it easy to enact them because the emotions were coming from your real experiences?
Kestrin: We were striving for truth in all of the scenes, whether they were dramatic or comedic. It was all about being honest with the material. I felt that I had a lot to work with for my own dramatic scenes, but with the mechanic scene with Pat, for instance, it was just responding truthfully to what he was giving me.

Was the dialog written or improvised?
Kestrin: The film vacillated between carefully scripted and totally improvised. Then there was this middle ground where the actors were improvising and I would bark out lines that were scripted in my mind. We’ll call that “A, B, and C”, and we’ll call that “B”. There was a lot of “B” going on, the fake-improv, coached lines. My husbands scenes were improvised, and I’d do a lot of barking with him. (laughs) Barking is the new writing.

Is there a soundtrack?
Kestrin: Yeah! I was a professional cellist in rock bands and toured for years, and one of the benefits of that is you tour with a lot of bands and you meet a lot of people by the end of it. You see so many people who should be huge and have all these “hits”! I tried to put in all the “future hits” of unknown bands that will be huge. I was just a total fan.

What do you have in the works now?
Kestrin: I have another low-budget indie movie called I’m a Terrible Mother. That’s in the works, and I have a bigger-budget movie. I optioned a book and adapted a screenplay, and it’s based on a work of journalism, on real stuff. It’s going to be a lot of work, and I feel like it’s going to be my life’s work. It’s going to be the biggest thing I ever do, and I’m passionate about that. But what seems like is going to be first is the RVIP TV show, which is a low-budget episodic series. It’s like Party Down but on the RVIP Lounge and with very different relationships running it than the movie. It’s Party Down plus Glee.

A Field in England

Ben Wheatley’s fever dream of a film, A Field in England, will have you scraping your brain off of the floor by the time the end credits save you from the madness. Set during the English civil war, we follow four blokes as they flee the field of war and turn from soldiers to wanderers, trekking through the titular field in search of an alehouse. They inexplicably unearth an Irish alchemist (or something like that), and the dark man proceeds to abuse the sorry souls (and us) into a state of helpless insanity. Wheatley utilizes a barrage of strobing diabolical imagery, grimy black and white photography, and disorienting narrative leaps to jostle loose your grip on reality, and the effect is astonishing. As an experience, it’s truly something else. Something that must be seen to be believed. [Bernard]

Proxy

Proxy opens with a scene so disturbing it’ll be too repulsive and morally disagreeable for most (walk-outs are almost guaranteed). In the scene, our main character, Esther, walking home from a prenatal doctor’s appointment, goes from pregnant to not pregnant in the worst way possible. Let’s leave it at that. It’s an upfront declaration of the film’s wickedness, and should vex the weak of stomach and delight those with a taste for the twisted, gruesome, and psychotic. The vile tone never lets up, as the film explores the darkest corners of mental illness in graphic, sadistic fashion. Director Zack Parker’s images, despite their repulsiveness, look slick and often poetic, and his cast (including indie favorite Joe Swanberg) is solid. [Bernard]

Teenage

Teenage is an earnest examination of the teenager’s role in culture. It may not provide many new insights, but it does use an impressive array of archival footage to convey the shifting ideals and subcultures of the early 20th century. Though the film’s attempts at character-driven diversions feel a bit muddled, director Matt Wolf overall does an effective job of showing the similarities of teens through the years. Featuring narration by actors including Jena Malone and Ben Whishaw and a vibrant score by Bradford Cox (Deerhunter), Teenage feels like an elegant though somewhat on-the-nose love letter to rebellion and identity. [Colleen]

How to Be a Man

Mark (Gavin McInness) is a retired comedian faced with terminal breast cancer (hmm…) who wants to make a series of man-advice videos for his unborn son. He finds a young man (Liam Aiken) to film it for him and, predictably, they form a quick father-son bond. How to Be a Man is an Apatow-ish,  toilet-humor fueled, raunch-comedy that manages to be pretty funny despite its derivative makeup. McInness is a gifted funny man, and director Chad Harbold gives him space to strut his stuff. (A public sexual instruction scene is given ample screen time, and McInness shines.) Aiken almost gets lost completely in McInness’ shadow, however. The film isn’t as edgy as it thinks it is, but neither are most films of its ilk. A solid effort. [Bernard]

SF Indiefest kicked off its “Sweet 16” celebration at the beautiful Brava Theater last night with a screening of Ari Folman’s The Congress, a buzzing after party in the theater lobby, and a live music show that had the indie-lovin’ festival-goers on their feet late into the night.

After we shuffled down the aisles and settled into their seats to fill up the theater at the night’s outset, Indiefest founder Jeff Ross took the stage to welcome us and tell us what we can expect of our two-week festival experience this year. The lineup was carefully picked–the festival programmers watched and considered around 1,000 films and plucked 75 prime selections. (That’s dedication, people!) San Francisco’s famous Roxie Theater is the undisputed epicenter of the festival, but Ross noted that for those living in the East Bay, Oakland’s New Parkway Theater will be showing selections from the festival program as well.

Ross’ brief introduction was followed by the opening night screening of The Congress, which proceeded to blow half of the audience’s minds while befuddling the rest (see my thoughts on the film below). It’s a heavily experimental film that could only ever exist in the indie landscape, so it was a fitting choice to set the tone for the rest of the fest. (Check out these five films at the fest to get excited about.)

Following the screening, libations flowed in the lobby while people attempted to reorient themselves with reality. Struck with a case of the munchies, I walked down the street and ate best tacos I’ve ever had (seriously). When I returned to the Brava Theater, the drinks were still flowing (Indiefest doesn’t slouch on the booze!), and the live music portion of the night was in full swing. Hip Hop/EDM band Vokab Kompany and Motown revivalists Gene Washington and The Ironsides sent the crowd home happy and capped off the night in style.

The Congress

With The Congress, director Ari Folman refused to follow anyone’s roadmap and made the movie he wanted to make, without pretense, or timidness, or restraint. The film centers on Robin Wright, playing herself, as she sells her digital likeness to “Miramount Studios”, with which the they can make any movie they please. The catch is, she must never act again. It’s a strange, beautiful, part live-action, part animated film about the fickleness of reality, the toxicity of media and celebrity, and the ephemerality of life itself. It’s also flawed; the psychedelic animated portion feeling inflated and meandering, and the story can feel more elusive than intriguing at times. But the boldness and ambition of Folman’s vision helps to polish up the film’s rough edges.

From Febuary 6-20, SF Indiefest will be celebrating 16 years of independent film goodness with a stacked program of indie films of all kinds, from docs, to comedies, to horror flicks, to dramas, to shorts…and the list goes on. The lineup is super exciting: for fans of independent film (you guys), this is going to be freaking Disneyland. Plus, to get to talk to up-and-coming filmmakers before they hit it big is indie cred in the bank. The films will play at the Roxie and Brava theaters in San Francisco, and at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland.

This year’s theme is “Sweet Sixteen”, and keeping with the tradition of “keeping the festival festive”, there will be a slew of off-the-wall parties and events to keep you busy: an opening night party, a Roller Disco Party, the Bad Art Gallery (awesome), a Pub Quiz, an Anti Valentine’s Day 80’s Power Ballad Sing-along, the famous annual Big Lebowski Party (featuring a 35mm screening of the film and a costume contest), and more. It’s a great time (I had a blast last year), and the parties give the festival a more quirky, fun, inviting atmosphere than any other film fest in the Bay Area. For more info, visit sfindie.com

This is my personal favorite festival of the year, and we at Way Too Indie obviously have a close connection with the films being showcased. Stay tuned for comprehensive coverage, including reviews, interviews, photos, videos, and more. If you live in or around the Bay Area, I hope to see you there!

Here are 5 films we’re looking forward to (though there are plenty more):

I Hate Myself : )

This subversive documentary by filmmaker Joanna Arnow should please fans of Girls and docs alike. Centering on Arnow’s relationship with her racially provocative, instigative boyfriend, the film features exceedingly intimate, hard-to-watch footage of the couple (both emotional and sexual) that will make you cringe and squirm in your seat, guaranteed. Themes of femininity, sexuality, dysfunctional love, and racism pervade, making the film a catalyst for rich post-screening conversation. The film has been garnering a lot of buzz on the festival circuit, and it’s heading into San Francisco with a lot of momentum. Arnow will be in attendance at the festival along with her “naked” co-editor Max Karson, who bares all in the doc. It’s said he may appear “in costume”, whatever that means…

Screens at New Parkway 2/11 7pm, Roxie 2/14 7pm, 2/18 7pm

A Field in England

At last year’s festival, Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers was one of the strangest (in a good way) films that played, and his entry this year, A Field in England, looks to be just as darkly bizarre. Set in the English civil war, the film follows a group of starving soldiers fleeing from battle. They fall under the control of a sadistic necromancer who induces them into a state of wild hysteria. I’m a big fan of strange cinematic mindfucks (The Legend of Kaspar Hauser, which played at last year’s Indiefest, was one of my favorites), and Wheatley’s film looks to scratch that itch. Shot in grimy black and white, it’s praised by Martin Scorsese as being a “stunning cinematic experience”. If Scorsese’s endorsement isn’t enough to whet your appetite, I don’t know what is.

Screens at Roxie 2/8 7pm, 2/9 1215pm

 The Congress

Based on a sci-fi novel by Stanislaw Lem, The Congress stars Robin Wright as herself in a version of the future where actors can sell their digital likeness to movie studios for them to use in any way they see fit (depending on contract stipulations, of course). She’ll be gracing the silver screen for all eternity, forever young, and she gets a hefty payday, but as she grows older the ugly ramifications of signing away her likeness begin to surface. Waltz With Bashir director Ari Folman utilizes both live-action and animated techniques to tell his story, with a trippy, psychedelic animated middle section that’s sure to blow a mind or two. The Congress will open up the festival this Thursday at the Brava theater, and should set the tone for the festival nicely with its reality-bending style.

Screens at Brava 2/6 7pm

Blue Ruin

Jeremy Saulnier’s outrageous horror-comedy Murder Party played at SF Indiefest in 2007, and after a long directorial hiatus he returns to the festival with Blue Ruin. The film Dwight (Macon Blair), an unassuming bum who lives in his car, as he seeks to avenge the death of his parents by tracking down their recently-released-from-prison killer. It won the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes and kept the buzz buzzing at Sundance. Blair’s performance has been garnering universal acclaim as well. It’s great when you find the rare genre piece crafted with an artful sensibility (You’re Next), and Blue Ruin looks to be a violent, thrilling piece of indie filmmaking. The film will close out the festival.

Screens at Roxie 2/9 7pm, 2/20 915pm

Proxy

Zack Parker’s Proxy harbors some of the most unsettling, look-through-your-fingers movie moments I’ve seen in years, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a must-see for festival attendees, if only to share the shock of these devilish images with a room full of people. Collective gasps, moans, screams, and theater walk-outs are almost a guarantee, and honestly, there are few festival experiences more enjoyable than watching a crowd of people pushed to their limits by a movie. The film opens with  a pregnant woman, Esther Woodhouse, being brutally attacked in an alleyway. The film only gets darker and more disturbing as she seeks mental help at a support group and descends into a world of sexual obsession as she befriends a woman who may be just as fucked-in-the-head as she is. The film, which features indie darling Joe Swanberg in a supporting role, is best suited for those with an appetite for unadulterated sadism and gore.

Screens at Roxie 2/16 915pm, 2/20 7pm

San Francisco’s Another Hole in the Head genre film festival comes to a close tonight at New People Cinema, with the world premieres of The G-String Horror Demon Cut, a horror film by Charles Webb set in the streets of San Francisco, “re-cut by demons”, and Senn, a sci-fi otherworldly fantasy by Josh Feldman. Celebrating its tenth year, the festival welcomed dedicated genre film-lovers with open arms, screening the bloodiest, strangest, most excessive fims in the horror, fantasy, and sci-fi genres out there.

Below are my thoughts on a trio movies we saw at the festival. One, Thanatomorphose, was so mesmerizing in its yak-inducing body horror that I’m still thinking about it, and while the other two weren’t quite as enrapturing, all three were welcome, bloody distractions from the super-serious films I’ve been drowning in during this festival season.

For more reviews from the festival, click here.

Thanatomorphose

A body horror opus that would make David Cronenberg blush, Thanatomorphose is the sludgiest, blackest, stinkiest piece of cinema I’ve seen smudged across a movie screen maybe ever. And you know what? I dug it (not at first, but ultimately, yeah. I dug it). Following a lonely young woman and taking place exclusively in her Montreal apartment, we watch as she falls into an increasingly disgusting state of bodily decay that’s so visually vile and unwatchable to the weak-of-stomach, thanks to the intimate and patient style of director Éric Falardeau and cinematographer Benoit Lemîre.

The film opens with our lonely protagonist (Kayden Rose) screwing her douchebag boyfriend (with a perfectly douchey French-Canadian Montreal accent).  Our girl somehow contracts the titular disease that at first manifests itself as small bruises. Then, as the days wear on, the symptoms get worse and more gruesome: her skin begins to rot, her nails fall off, her bones become more brittle. Every step of her degradation is filmed as up-close and personal as possible, testing even my stomach (it’s usually pretty hard to gross me out). Falardeau’s camera is always uneasy, swaying from side to side, framing everything way off-center, creating a sense of constant unbalance. As our girl’s body grows more grotesque (maggots eventually begin to feast on her blackened, dead flesh), Falardeau shoves our face in it and makes us watch every detail, with shots that linger much longer than most could stand.

The crawling pace of the film moves a slowly as the bile and puss dripping down Rose’s almost always-nude body, and is at first hard to latch on to. But, I began to fall in step with the lurching rhythm of the film, I was induced into a buzzing, nightmarish state that had me riveted. There are a couple deeper themes and metaphors at play here, touching on agoraphobia, loneliness, depression, and female self and sexual worth. But really, what’s fascinating is Falardeau’s terribly disturbing imagery, an unblinking, patient depiction of a woman wasting away to nothing, physically, mentally, sexually, and spiritually.

Motivational Growth

Yet another gross-out film that takes place entirely in an apartment, Motivational Growth is a silly, irreverent, bizarre film about a guy named Ian (Adrian DiGiovanni) and his relationship with a talking giant piece of mold (looks more like a piece of shit) on his bathroom floor. Ian is a complete slob, and his rotting, filthy apartment (which he never leaves) is a reflection of his mess of a life. When his ancient television set (which he’s named Kent) breaks down on him, he throws a panicked fit and tries to kill himself, but fails and ends up bumping his head, which presumedly leads to him having perceived conversations with The Mold (Jeffrey Combs).

The film goes on way too long, and while Ian’s conversations with The Mold are worth a chuckle, at least, his human interations–with a snappy grocery delivery girl (Hannah Stevenson), his hulking landlord (Pete Giovagnoli), and his pretty neighbor (Danielle Doetsch)–are poorly acted, too long, and only worth a shrug. Stylistically, director Don Thacker excels, with unique, trippy editing, wonderful set design, and enjoyable, off-kilter dialog (particularly between Ian and The Mold). Worth a look for midnight-movie heads, but for no one else.

Bath Salt Zombies

A potent strand of bath salts have been circulating the New York drug scene, turning people into devoted junkies. But these aren’t your run-of-the-mill, paranoid coke-heads; they’re violent, crazed, flesh-eating, Bath Salt Zombies! Resembling a pothead student film, director Dustin Mills’ crack at the zombie genre doesn’t excel at anything, though it seems Mills and his crew probably had a good time making it, which is definitely worth something. The various characters–some junkies, some government officials trying to contain the epidemic, some dealers–are almost all amateurishly acted, and the nothing plot is a patchy string of sloppily produced set pieces. An “action sequence” sees a DEA agent taking down a group of criminals in the hallway of a suburban household and looks like it was made by Boondock Saints-loving high school kids. Maybe I would have liked it better if I were on bath salts…

Another Hole in the Head–San Francisco’s 10-years-young independent genre film festival–finished up its run at the Balboa theater last night, with a screening of the supernatural high school thriller, All Cheerleaders Die, which got a great response (and a round of applause) from the happy festival-goers. Starting tonight, Another Hole moves to New People Cinema in Japantown for the remainder of the festival (which runs through December 19th.)

With two more weeks of bloody goodness left in the fest, there are still a lot of great movies to check out and enjoy with like-minded fans of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi films. These movies are as independent as it gets, and one of the great joys of being a member of the indie film community is seeing films like these first and spreading the word so that others can discover these hidden blood-soaked gems.

Here are a few capsule reviews from the festival so far. Stay tuned for more festival coverage!

All Cheerleaders Die

Two parts Mean Girls, one part The Craft, and a dash of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, All Cheerleaders Die takes the best elements of the aforementioned high school femme-flicks and stirs them into a delicious dish of R-rated, bitchy girl-power fun. When Maddy’s (Caitlin Stasey) friend Alexis dies in a freak cheerleading accident in junior, she transforms herself from a plain-jane nobody into a pretty-princess cheerleader type heading into her final year of high school (for devious reasons best revealed in the movie.) The cheerleader bitch club (the “b” word is a term of endearment for the troupe) accept Maddy as one of their own, which forms a rift between she and ex girlfriend Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee), a novice wicca who inadvertently introduces dark magic into the angst-y teenage drama.

The movie begins like any other store-brand high school movie, but once the supernatural story elements get introduced, it’s a lot of trashy (in a good way) fun. Directors Lucky Mckee and Chris Sivertson elevate the horrors of high school through the lens of the dark arts (there’s that dash of Buffy I mentioned) and don’t shy away from the fantastical, the absurd, the hyper-violent, or the melodramatic. Everything’s turned up to 11, and those with a taste for zany excess will no doubt be frothing at the mouth for more after the tantalizing cliffhanger ending. [Bernard Boo]

Evil Feed

Up there as one of the most bizarre synopsis that I have read in a while, Evil Feed is a comedy/horror (in that order) film about an underground Chinese restaurant that kidnaps martial artists to fight each other with the loser getting cooked up and served for consumption to wealthy restaurant goers. Yes, it is just as crazy as it sounds. But the film is only out to have fun with the genre and that is exactly what makes this over-the-top violent and raunchy horror film so enjoyable to watch. For every bloody cage match fight there is a hilarious campy scene to balance it out.

Everything about the film screams grindhouse throwback, the most obvious way being the picture chock-full of artificial scratches and film reel artifacts. For a film that is not supposed to be taken seriously at all (dick jokes are frequent punch lines), the production value found here is shockingly high; the cast deliver their lines with conviction (no matter how ridiculous they are) and the fight sequences look professionally choreographed. If you are easily offended by crude sexual humor, people eating human body parts, or cage fights where people’s throats are ripped out, then Evil Feed is definitely not for you. But for others Evil Feed is wholly entertaining with its exaggerated ridiculousness. [Dustin Jansick]

Face

Face opens with the disclaimer that what you are about to see is supposedly found footage from leaked police evidence of the “Halloween Fear Factory” competition between a fraternity and sorority that went horribly wrong. The rules of this annual scare competition are simple and are explained early on by a group of stereotypical frat partiers; the first side that calls for help or leaves the house loses. The penalty of losing is that you are forced do anything that the other team wants. It is a classic boys versus girls revenge story with each side confident they outsmarted the other.

The film eventually becomes tiresome when we are forced to re-watch the entire beginning of the night all over from the perspective of girls. At first this is admittedly intriguing because it exposes the fact that the girls had a plan when they seemingly did not, but the novelty soon wears out and becomes redundant. For the majority of its runtime Face is like a lovechild between The Blair Witch Project and Spring Breakers—capturing the recklessness college kids partying on a continuously moving handheld camera. That is until all hell breaks loose in the nightmarish final 10 minutes when suddenly the title of the film becomes horrifically apparent. [Dustin Jansick]

The Battery

Despite its premise–a pair of former baseball players trekking across a zombified New England–Jeremy Gardner’s The Battery is far from the silly bash-em-up you’d expect. It’s way smarter than that; this is a grounded character piece, about lost hope, clashing personalities, denial, and camaraderie, cut from the same cloth as Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. The zombies act as both backdrop and MacGuffin, propelling the characters forward on their journey whenever things start to settle. It’s really funny, too, with the leads pulling off the odd-couple chemistry so well that you’ll laugh, and laugh, and laugh with them until suddenly…they feel like your best friends. You’re screwed–stakes are high; chances of survival are low; intense drama ensues.

The humor starts of light and quirky, but where the film ends up is startlingly grim and unsettling. Gardner, who wrote, directed, and stars in the film (alongside Adam Cronheim, who plays the second baller), is ambitiously artful (especially for this genre), using ungodly lengthy takes (the climactic single shot of the film had to be at least 8 minutes long), lots of slick nature shots of the muggy backwoods, and a twangy guitar soundtrack that makes his New England feel like the bayou. Gardner’s wise-ass, zombie-smashing, lovable dude-bro works well with Cronheim’s paranoid, jumpy killjoy, making the 100-minute runtime brisk. Like Shaun of the Dead, The Battery accomplishes the rare zombie-movie feat of making the live characters more entertaining than the dead ones. A gem of a zombie flick, especially when you consider the $6,000(!) budget. [Bernard Boo]

Tonight, after the insanity of Black Friday shopping has passed and everyone’s Turkey-itis has subsided, the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival will be kicking off its three-week-long program, introducing San Franciscans to a whole new kind of madness, full of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy flicks that’ll delight fans of hardcore genre film (and likely make everyone else want to hurl. In a good way, of course.) The program, consisting of 54 feature films and 27 shorts, will be taking place at the Balboa Theater from today, November 29th, to December 5th. Then, the fest moves on to the New People Cinema in Japantown until December 19th.

For opening night, the festival is kicking off with Stalled, an interesting take on the zombie genre that places all the gory action in a tiny bathroom stall, The Battery, a zombie flick about two former baseball players navigating an undead-filled New England, and The Shower, about a twisted, homicidal baby shower.

Films we’re looking forward to at the festival:

All Cheerleaders Die–Lucy McKee and Chris Sivertson’s All Cheerleaders Die, the festival’s opening night film, is an ode to the slasher films of the ’80s in which the rebellious new girl at Blackfoot High convinces recruits her fellow classmates into the cheer-leading squad to combat a dark supernatural enemy. (Plays Dec. 5 at Balboa)

Face–Following a string of harrowing acts committed by college students that turned into the massacre of the Delta Chi Kappa sorority on Halloween 2012, Face looks to be a treat for fans of gross-out violence and…boobs? Sounds like there will be boobs. The film will be making its world premiere at the festival. (Plays Dec. 18 at New People)

Bath Salt Zombies–“Drugs, sex, & cannibalism!” Those are the three wonderful words the makers of Bath Salt Zombies use as a tagline for their zombie outbreak epic. I’ve seen the film, and I’ll just say it delivers on just two of the three promises. It’ll be interesting to see how an audience reacts to this frantic mess of a movie. (Plays Dec. 16 at New People)

Cheap Thrills–When a man (Pat Healy) loses his job and isn’t able to provide for his family, he teams up with an old high school buddy (Ethan Embry) to do dirty work for a wealthy couple to make extra dough. How far will he go to make ends meet? Here’s hoping he goes as far as the eye can see. (Plays Dec. 18 at New People)

Thanatomorphose–My pick for catchiest title of the festival (doen’t it just roll off the tongue?), Thanatomorphose is a Canadian film that follows a pretty girl as she wakes up to find her body rotting away (the title is a hellenic word that means “the visible signs of an organisms decomposition caused by death.” Sounds lovely! (Plays Dec. 16 at New People)

Senn–Making its world premiere as the closing night film of the festival, Senn follows the titular character, a worker on a forgotten world called Pyom, as he’s chosen by an alien being called the Polychronom for reasons that could spell doom for the humble factory worker. Sci-fi zaniness is sure to be abound. (Plays Dec. 19 at New People)

One of the biggest highlights of the festival for me will be the screening of two horror classics in gorgeous 35mm: Steven Spielberg’s textbook in suspense,  Jaws, and Stanley Kubrick’s legendarily enigmatic The Shining. In addition to these screenings, there will be a presentation of The Shining: Forwards and Backwards, which will probably drive me crazy, but will most importantly offer a fascinating new perspective on Kubrick’s classic.

Another very cool event will take place tomorrow at the Balboa Theater at 1pm, where the festival will screen two hours of Saturday morning cartoons and serve cereal and milk, all for FREE! The opportunity to watch “Jem & the Holograms”, “Looney Toons”, “He-Man” and more is one no self-respecting 90’s kid can pass up.

Another Hole in the Head runs from November 29th-December 19th. For scheduling and ticket info, visit sfindie.com. Stay tuned to Way Too Indie for more news from the festival!

After two weeks of movie-watching, subway-riding, popcorn-eating, people-meeting, white-russian-drinking madness, all I can say is that SF IndieFest is an incomparable experience not to be missed by any fan of independent film. What makes SF IndieFest special are the wild parties (the crowd at the Big Lebowski party was absolutely insane), but what makes film festivals in general special are the people; filmmakers, festival coordinators, film critics, the Lebowski fans, the guys and gals working the box office, and, of course, the festival-goers. We were all there for one reason: To share our love of independent film with each other. It was a great feeling. The atmosphere at The Roxie Theater was always welcoming, always upbeat. I met a lot of lovely people and some ridiculously gifted filmmakers whose gift to us were their extraordinary films. Check out the video to hear my thoughts on the films I saw and the experiences I endured during the 2013 SF IndieFest.

Video Wrap-up of 2013 SF IndieFest

I look forward to hopefully returning to cover SF Indiefest next year. It was a fun ride, and I hope to see some of you at the festival next year. Til next time!

The lineup at this year’s SF IndieFest was unbelievably strong; I anticipated that there would be at least a few certified duds, but that wasn’t the case. Though I didn’t love every film, each had its unique voice, ambition, and spirit. From the lowest-budget short to the most polished full-length feature, they all offered a brand new experience. This made making my list of ten favorite films very difficult. I connected with many, many films at the festival, but these ten are the ones that I felt compelled to champion the most.

Top 10 Films from SF IndieFest

#1 Simon Killer

The thing about Simon Killer is, it’s a difficult movie to digest, but in the best way possible. The teeth-grinding level of discomfort Antonio Campos and Brady Corbet are able to achieve in Simon Killer resonated with me more than anything else at the festival. Corbet finds a way to make Simon both magnetic and repulsive, and Campos captures Paris at its most deeply colorful and richly textured. Pound for pound, my favorite movie of the festival.

Remember to keep it tuned in to Way Too Indie in April for our full review of Simon Killer and our interview with director Antonio Campos.

#2 Be Good

Though not as flashy as Simon Killer, Todd Looby’s Be Good also finds its protagonist going through alarming mental transformations that surprise even him. Be Good will break your heart stealthily, little by little. Joe Swanberg’s All the Light in the Sky does the same and shares the same naturalistic tone, but when it comes to picking my personal favorites of the festival, Be Good just hits closer to home. Every moment in this movie feels earned, and Looby’s characters are handled with care. It’s the type of movie that just might teach you something about yourself by the time the credits roll.

#3 I Declare War

There were more than a few movies at this year’s festival that evoked feelings of nostalgia, but I Declare War recalls an era of movies (The Goonies, Stand by Me) that I just happened to grow up with. The kids playing their supposedly innocent ‘game’ quickly realize that their heated prepubescent emotions are too powerful to contain. The child actors’ performances are beyond impressive, and the film’s intensity and stakes are consistently high throughout the running time.

#4 The Legend of Kaspar Hauser

‘Strange’ does not begin to describe this movie. To attempt to describe what ‘happens’ in The Legend of Kaspar Hauser would be to betray it. It’s a visually and sonically stimulating film that rubs you in a way that no other film can. It will make you laugh, squirm, headbang, ponder, gag, yadda yadda yadda. You just…you just need to watch it. It’s absolutely nuts… in a good way.

#5 Antiviral

Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral serves as a showcase for its gifted lead actor, Caleb Landry Jones, much like two other films at the festival, Simon Killer and The Story of Luke. What sets Jones’ performance apart from the other two is his spine-chilling physical transformation. Cronenberg’s imaginative and haunting imagery are as arresting as his fathers’, but Jones makes use of every bit of his body to burn the images of his painful deterioration into our minds.

#6 All the Light in the Sky

Films are best when they act as a mirror, illuminating our darkest fears and forcing us to confront them. As Jane Adams, as Marie, fights internally to find her place in this gigantic world, we realize that she’s fighting something we all must all face sooner or later. Nobody has captured the 21st century adult on film quite like Joe Swanberg, and he delivers another stunning time-capsule work of art with All the Light in the Sky.

#7 The Story of Luke

Of all the characters I’ve encountered in the many films at SF Indiefest, The Story of Luke is the one I hold nearest to my heart. The attachment you feel for Luke and his quest for love is inescapable, mostly due to Lou Taylor Pucci’s spot-on performance. The powerful message of acceptance and love The Story of Luke delivers is one that fit the spirit of SF Indiefest and the great city of San Francisco like a glove.

#8 The We and the I

Leading up to the opening night screening of Michel Gondry’s The We and the I, the thing I was most looking forward to was just how innovative Gondry would get with his camera in the super-enclosed space that is a city bus. Just how many interesting camera angles could he find? The answer? It doesn’t matter. Gondry does use his camera in interesting ways, but what makes this film special are the ever-changing dynamics of the loud-mouthed, quick-witted, unfiltered characters that occupy the bus.

#9 The Ghastly Love of Johnny X

Watching this film in 35mm at The Roxie was one of the cornerstones of my incredible SF Indiefest experience. Having the director, Paul Bunnell, and the cast there, the energetic crowd, the buttery popcorn, the technical difficulties; these things all added up to an unforgettable night at the movies, which is what SF Indiefest is all about.

#10 Funeral Kings

The ultra-vulgar kids in Funeral Kings remind me of myself as an awkward teenager. I chuckled at how much of myself I saw in these characters in their pursuit of attention, validation, and sex. To see them chase after girls and sneak around their parents’ houses in the middle of the night was like a blast from the past. Like I Declare War, Funeral Kings features some incredible performances by young actors. The attitude these kids exude is authentic, and nothing about their performances feels forced.

All the Light in the Sky

Joe Swanberg’s All the Light in the Sky is a naturalistic portrait of Marie (Jane Adams), an actress whose career seems to be losing steam. Romantically, she’s gotten to the point where she no longer possesses the energy to actively pursue men, and isn’t quite sure if love is in the cards for her any longer. Marie’s niece, Faye (Sophia Takal), comes to stay at Marie’s Malibu beach house and acts as a projection of her bygone youth, reminding her that life is forever moving forward, never stopping. Marie is a woman at a crossroads, past her prime, directionless and stuck. She’s an emotional castaway, frozen by the immensity of the infinite possibilities laid out in front of her.

As in Swanberg’s previous works, All the Light in the Sky is ultra-realistic and naturalistic in every way. It’s also a snapshot of the technology of our time, as Swanberg utilizes smartphone cameras and Skype to tell his story. Though he throws things like shots from camera phones in there, the implementation is seamless and his mechanisms don’t call attention to themselves.

The dilemmas Marie wrestles with are universal ones, and it’s hard not to identify with the feeling of listlessness she is stricken with. Her friend Rusty, a useful character played by the genuinely funny Larry Fessenden, exudes a “stop and smell the roses” attitude, and being with him just might be the healthiest path for Marie to take. In fact, every character in the film represents a different path for Marie to take in life. The question of which path she chooses to go down is a heavy one. Jane Adams is sensational, creating an endearing and grounded character in Marie. She uses every muscle in her face to convey the feelings she needs to while never once abandoning the realism so essential to Swanberg’s films. The overwhelming sense of serenity makes this film stand out from the pack, as does Adams’ poignant performance.

RATING: 9

The International Sign for Choking

Josh (played by writer/director Zach Weintraub) is an American sent on a mission to Buenos Aires to find inspiration for a film. Losing sight of his original objective, he finds himself aimlessly searching the city for something, somebody, to shake him from the loneliness that’s consumed him. The problem is, every time he’s close to making a connection, he (you guessed it) chokes. He meets a fellow American, Anna (Sophia Takal, again), and just as their attraction becomes undeniable, Josh pushes her away. Josh makes makes failed connection after failed connection, and the feeling of isolation grows and grows.

The International Sign for Choking feels personal, though watching Josh’s social inadequacy becomes tiresome as the film progresses, as no stakes are ever established. There are several effective moments where the characters’ relationships silently and subtly crumble before our eyes, but the consequences for the characters are mild. Watching Josh awkwardly shuffle from person to person, racking up missed connections is effective in that we feel sad for him, but ineffective in that it’s not entertaining. While the actors put forth a good effort and are clearly talented, most of the characters are uninteresting and forgettable. Weintraub shows skill in how he captures the essence of scenes by highlighting the small nuances of the actors’ performances. However, these scenes fail to become greater than the sum of their parts.

RATING: 6.7

Sun Don’t Shine

Amy Seimetz (Tiny Furniture, Be Good) delivers a soul-rattling directorial debut about two lovers, Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) and Leo (Kentucker Audley), who roll through the muggy wetlands of central Florida toward an unknown destination while trying to attract as little attention as possible (the unsettling plot is worth discovering on your own.) On their nightmarish road trip, their paranoia, frustration, and fatigue slowly drives them crazy as they wrestle with their demons, and one another (literally.) Crystal is a combustible open book, never hesitant to vocalize her emotions on the loudest volume possible. Leo is the opposite, constantly trying to suppress the fears that eat away at his psyche. As they fight and tumble across Florida, their love is tested, and they learn that they are forever tethered to each other, whether they like it or not.

Seimetz, Audley, and Sheil work together to create one of the most mesmerizing on-screen relationships of the year. Watching Crystal and Leo poke and tug at each others’ emotions is simply riveting. Kate Lyn Sheil puts on a spectacle of a performance, being at once psychotic and adorable, somehow. Some of Sheil’s quiet scenes are jaw-dropping. Audley perfectly balances Sheil’s openhearted performance with his wound-up, quietly violent demeanor. The tension the two create together is thick, and when it snaps, it’s explosive. There are some pacing issues, but overall, Seimetz makes a big statement in her debut, and I look forward to seeing what she serves up next.

RATING: 8.7

Funeral Kings

A coming-of-age film with a larger-than-life attitude, Kevin and Matthew McManus’ feature debut, Funeral Kings, follows a trio of 14-year-old boys who crave nothing more than to leapfrog their teenage years straight into cigarette-smoking, foul-mouthed, gun-toting, sex-filled “adulthood.” Charlie (Alex Maizus) and Andy (Dylan Hartigan) are weekday altar boys (a dream job for them, as it gets them regularly excused from class.) Late one night, their older friend Bobby drops off a large trunk at Andy’s house which he asks Andy to hold and promise never to open. Naturally, Andy, Charlie, and their new friend David (Jordan Puzzo) open the chest, and find a veritable goldmine of forbidden paraphernalia (cigarettes, pornography, a gun) to abuse. Chaos ensues as the friends fight over the coveted gear.

Funeral Kings plays out like a rough-around-the-edges, testosterone overloaded Superbad. The narrative structure is a little scattered, and some of the plot lines receive underwhelming resolutions. The story does have heart and substance, however, and the Mcmanus’ depiction of male adolescence is right on the money. The three leads carry the film well and have genuine chemistry. Maizus in particular shows a lot of range and delivers his lines with bravado beyond his years (all three leads were the age they played.) What’s most impressive about the trio is that they can handle heavy, dramatic scenes with as much confidence as they do comedic ones. The excellent hip-hop soundtrack represents the bad-ass swagger the trio aspires to attain. The film disappointingly goes out with a ‘poof’ instead of a ‘bang!’, but all in all, Funeral Kings is a hugely enjoyable film with a gifted cast and giant cajones.

RATING: 8.1

There were loads of fantastic independent shorts shown at this year’s SF Indiefest, and while I wasn’t able to watch all of them, the ones I did see (I still saw a lot) ran the gamut from exciting, to comedic, to thought-provoking, to emotionally devastating. These were my favorites from the festival, though almost all of the shorts I saw are worth watching.

Top 10 Short Films from SF IndieFest

#1 The Beginning

A flurry of hilarious dialogue delivered rapid-fire, Brian Tolle’s The Beginning is a polished, funny, captivating short that grabs you by the ears and never lets go. We join Daniel and Richard immediately after a sexual adventure, as they awkwardly try to suss out each other’s intentions, wants, and needs. Within minutes, we watch them go from strangers to lovers, and the dialogue that takes us on this mini-journey is sharper than sharp. Nothing bad to say about this one. Everything is pitch-perfect here, and the audience absolutely ate it up.

#2 Best if Used By

Maggie’s husband, Max, just died. She smuggles his body out of the morgue and carts him to the grocery store she works at. Gradually, more and more people discover what Maggie has done, and instead of calling the police, they participate in hilarious existential conversations as they pow-wow around Max’s lifeless corpse. The dialogue and comedic timing are spot-on here, which is key as the morbid premise can be difficult to laugh with. It’s a good-looking film, to boot.

#3 Desire Inc.

Experienced filmmaker Lynn Hershman provides a thought-provoking look into technological fantasy Desire Inc. Filmed in 1985 before the internet had taken over the world, Hershman shares a set of ads she created and ran in the Bay Area, in which a seductive model urges viewers to call her. We are then shown footage of actual men who responded to the ads and the fascinating effects the ads had on their minds. It’s a deeply explorative work of art that contemplates the “phantom limb” we all utilize to reach into our television screens and interact with our most personal fantasies. When asked in the Q&A that followed the film if she would have made the film differently in the internet age, Hershman stressed that Desire Inc. and all films are portraits of their time and forever live just in that place.

#4 The Missing Key

A touching tale about inspiration, determination, and friendship set in a wholly unique, gorgeously realized version of 1920’s Venice, Jonathan Nix’s The Missing Key blew me away. Hero Wasabi (adorable) is a composer who aspires to win the grand prize at the Abacus Scroll musical competition, but standing in his way is a greedy veteran composer who will step on and over anybody who crosses his path.

The character and set design are amazing. Each character has a different mechanical device in place of a head, like a record player (Hero), telephone, or radio. The Venice Nix and his team imagine is lush and deeply colorful, almost like a G-Rated Bladerunner. The animation is a seamless combination of both 3-D and hand-drawn images that works so well together, you forget that it’s a movie and completely lose yourself in the world. It’s easy to root for Hero, a beautifully animated character, whose journey of musical discovery and triumph give the pretty images substance.

#5 Foxed!

A young girl, Emily, has been enslaved by foxes in a cave underneath her house. She manages to evade the foxes long enough to discover that she has been replaced in her home by…a fox! Frighteningly, she also discovers that her mother is unaware of the swap, fooled by the foxes’ illusion.

3-D cinema advocate and pioneer James Stewart and director/writer Nev Bezaire present a gorgeous stop-motion animated film with a dark twist. The meticulously crafted figures and sets are enchantingly dark and photographed cinematically, with minor digital effects used appropriately, creating a rich atmosphere. The sinister tone of the film works well without being alienating or off-putting, evoking childhood fears of the big bad wolf and the boogeyman. The final moments are very effective. The prospect of Foxed! becoming a full feature is exciting, and I look forward to delving into Stewart and Bezaire’s world even deeper.

#6 DeafBlind

A deaf-blind woman, Maggie, feels a deep connection with Christ that she discusses with a priest. Though she is strong spiritually, she is devastated by depression and loneliness. One day, a mysterious man starts following her around her house and watching over her, though his intentions are nebulous. Director Ewan Bailey uses just the right amount of ambiguity in this stirring tale, and the cinematography is haunting and cold-as-ice. A very resonant piece.

#7 Manhole 452

In the vein of Chris Marker’s classic La Jetee, Manhole 452 sets well-acted, cryptic narration by an anonymous man over footage of manholes erupting with water and fire on San Francisco’s Geary Street. The man describes an incident in which his car was split by an exploding manhole cover and the paranoia and obsession with probability that resulted. The combination of the dialogue and imagery is riveting, and had me shaking in my boots as I rode on the bus down Geary Street the day after I saw the film.

#8 Retrocognition

A moving tapestry of fragments from 50’s golden age radio and sitcoms, Retrocognition is one of the most visually striking things I saw at the festival. Using retro sound clips and images stitched together, director Eric Patrick tells a disturbing (a baby is murdered) tale of a man and wife that looks and feels like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You need to see this.

#9 La Storia di Sonia (Sonia’s Story)

A surrealistic journey of perseverance, we follow Sonia from childhood to adulthood in a politically turbulent 1970’s Italy. The cinematography and sound design are highly-stylized, recalling the great Sergio Leone and surrealist art. Director Lorenzo Guarnieri really takes his time to let the images sink in to our brains, and some of the images (particularly one in which Sonia emerges from a wall of water) are incredibly poignant and unforgettable.

#10 Keep the Fire

The funniest film of the festival, by far. In Keep the Fire, a Keeny Loggins fan describes the legend behind the cover art of Loggins’ classic album, Keep the fire, to a group of music snobs at a listening party. That’s funny already. We are then transported back to the days when the album art was conceived, in a ridiculously embellished false reenactment. The crowd at the Roxie was dying with laughter, and the film’s absurdity and sense of humor are undeniable. Better than Saturday Night Live’s Blue Oyster Cult sketch. Yes, I said it.

Capsule reviews of several documentaries shown at the 2013 SF IndieFest.

The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus

In Weymouth, England, there was an octopus named Paul. He correctly ‘predicted’ eight straight games in the 2010 World Cup, an astonishing anomaly. All over the world, people viewed the simple cephalopod as everything from a mascot, to a prophet, to a genius, to a god. Paul became a veritable phenomenon, permeating the pop cultures of multiple countries. Some people loved him and traveled for miles to crowd around the tiny tank he called home. Others hated him (typically people whose national soccer team Paul predicted would lose.) Though Paul is not with us any longer, he’s the most famous octopus of all time, and his story is one of the most unique in the world.

The film, directed by Alexandre O. Phillipe, is a concise, well-polished, entertaining chronicle of the amazing life of Paul. As a documentary, it works well because it humanizes Paul, as the world did a few years ago, though it does take time to analyze the mind-blowing improbability of Paul’s ‘predictions’. The absurdity of the fact that the film includes an interview with a dead octopus’ publicist is irresistibly humorous and endearing. The film uses cartoons and playful editing to keep the mood light, and the film flies by, though mostly due to how fascinating and surprisingly heart-warming the subject matter is. Phillipe’s film doesn’t simply rattle off statistics and fun facts; it tells a story that is interesting in that it says more about us than it does the ‘psychic’ sea creature.

RATING: 8

Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp

Iceberg Slim (real name Robert Beck) was one of the greatest pimps of all time because he was uncompromising and emotionless (Iceberg), charming, and impeccably dressed (Slim). In black culture, there is no one more synonymous with the pimp game as Slim. Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp takes an in-depth look into the dark, troubling path Iceberg ventured down, from witnessing his mother manipulate men, forever altering his view on women, to becoming “street-poisoned” by the devilishly dangerous world of pimping, to becoming one of the most influential and heralded black authors of all time.

Interviews with Beck himself show just how intelligent and articulate he was, and make it clear why his work has been so influential for so many generations. It’s riveting to watch interviews with his daughters and ex wife (who do not get along, to say the least) cut together along with Slim’s admirers who revere him as a revolutionary; this ‘portrait’ is deep and complex. Director Jorge Hinojosa utilizes illustrations to aid in telling Slim’s story, and the colors and sounds Hinojosa chooses make you feel the culture Slim was birthed from, not just watch it.

The film illustrates what pimp life is like with complete and utter honesty and accuracy, detailing the ugly nature of the life, much like Slim’s famous books. It would have been nice to spend less time with the celebrities (most of them essentially say the same thing; that they love and are knowledgeable of the legend of Iceberg Slim) and more time with his family, who provide the most probing and personal insight. Nevertheless, it’s an incredibly illuminating film about the life of an enigmatic and legendary figure.

RATING: 8.5

Faceless

Faceless is an important movie in that it looks at the tragedy of September 11th, 2001 from a perspective not previously explored. We follow the journey of a Mexican man who leaves his family, crosses the US/Mexico border illegally, and takes a job as an undocumented worker in the United States, supporting his family from thousands of miles away. This journey is a commonality for Mexicans, but what is not so common is that this man worked in the World Trade Center, and was a victim of the tragic terrorist attacks. He was faceless; no ID, no social security number, no address. After the attacks, families mourned their lost loved ones, but this man’s family was faced with the burden of searching for their beloved father, who, in this country, didn’t exist.

The film presents interviews with people with wildly different vantage points to the tragedy: The man’s family, border patrol volunteers, a man who plants water bottles Johnny-Appleseed-style along the border for illegal immigrants to find, an immigrant from a different country, France, and more. The decision to present such incredibly diverse viewpoints of this starkly relevant story is one that pays off; the film is frighteningly sobering and thought-provoking. Unbelievably disturbing real-life footage captures the brutality and violence of the dangers of illegal immigration and the attacks themselves.

The film occasionally pauses to meditate on the frightening events with a reading of a somber poem set to beautifully staged imagery. Director Tristan Albrecht should be commended for being mindful of the weight of the subject matter while simultaneously being conscious of filmmaking and storytelling.

RATING: 8.9

Inside Lara Roxx

Director Mia Donovan presents the tumultuous process of documenting the titular Lara Roxx over the course of five years in Inside Lara Roxx. Lara, a Montreal native, was told that if she moved to Los Angeles and let people film her having sex, she could make thousands of dollars a week. Giving in to the allure of the almighty dollar, Lara traveled to LA and started working in the adult film industry. Within two weeks, she contracted HIV and became the subject of a media storm. After the storm died down, Donovan started filming.

Inside Lara Roxx takes the approach of simply placing Lara in front of us and inviting us to watch as she breaks down mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in the aftermath of her disastrous experience in the porn industry. Donovan shows footage Lara in different stages of mental and physical decay, and what results is a saddening, cautionary look into the dark side of the porn industry. Donovan isn’t a silent director throughout the film, and periodically we hear her have conversations with Lara. The scenes in which we witness the relationship between subject and director are the film’s best. What hurts the piece is that the structure is mostly shapeless, with nothing to tie Lara and Donovan’s story together. It’s just a string of footage and interviews that lacks cohesion. However, Donovan’s film is always intriguing and sheds light on an important issue.

RATING: 7

It was a huge weekend at SF Indiefest, and we’ve got some equally huge coverage from the festival to bring to you all week. Stay locked-in to Way Too Indie this week for reviews, interviews, and our top 10 lists for best features and best shorts. There are only four days left in the festival, and we’re going to keep the train rolling until the fat lady sings!

Friday night at SF Indiefest provided a ton of retro-centric fun to kick off the second weekend of the festival. I popped into the festival’s popular Roller Disco party at the Women’s Building just a couple blocks away from the festival’s epicenter, the Roxie, and found a group of enthusiastic roller-skating machines having a hell of a time skating circles around me (my uncoordinated ass had big-time roller-skating envy.) Dressed in sharp 70’s garb, the disco-skating crowd continued to keep the party rolling as I headed back over to the Roxie to catch a screening of The Ghastly Love of Johnny X.

I was greeted at the box-office by a large camera and boom mic stuck in my face, and a man dressed in 50’s-esque attire (at this point I felt like I was falling backwards inside a time warp) who asked me what movie I was going to watch. I told him I was there to see Johnny X, he smiled, shook my hand, and introduced himself as the director of the film, Paul Bunnell! He was a very nice guy and I told him I looked forward to watching his film. The 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s-inspired film turned out to be a lot of fun and was projected for us in gorgeous 35mm. After the film, Paul and a few members from the cast participated in a playful Q&A that kept the crowd laughing. All in all, the night was a fun blast from the past that turned out to be the most unique evening of the festival so far.

One of my favorite moments of the festival so far was on Sunday when a huge group of local Bay Area filmmakers took the stage for a Q&A after a presentation of their short films. As a Bay Area native, it was a proud moment to see such an impressive array of home-grown talent on display. There was a huge turnout for the program, which made it a lot of fun to be a part of.

I saw a TON of films this weekend, which included the festival’s centerpiece film, Days of Grace, a violent look into Mexico City’s seedy underbelly, Amy Seimetz’s bittersweet (mostly bitter) Sun Don’t Shine, the McManus brothers’ hilarious coming-of-age story, Funeral Kings, Leslie Zemeckis’ documentary about a couple of famous Siamese twins, Bound by Flesh, a cautionary tale of the dark side of the porn industry in Mia Donovan’s Inside Lara Roxx, mumblecore king Joe Swanberg’s All the Light in the Sky, and MANY more.

We’ll have reviews for all of these films coming up in the next few days, but we’ll start off with our review of Paul Bunnell’s The Ghastly Love of Johnny X.

The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (capsule review)

A decade in-the-making, The Ghastly Love of Johnny X is a retro-tinted window into the mind of director Paul Bunnell, mashing together influences from sci-fi B-movie flicks like Flash Gordon and musicals like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Grease. The combination of the two genres (with touches of various other eccentric influences) works well, though it’s not quite as explosive as it should be. There are some pacing and narrative issues, but ultimately Johnny X is an enjoyably wild and surprisingly slick-looking adventure that is worth a look, especially if you’re a fan of over-the-top, genre filmmaking.

Read full review of The Ghastly Love of Johnny X

Also, STAY TUNED to Way Too Indie for an extended interview with director Paul Bunnell incoming soon!

ATTENTION BAY AREA READERS! As the 2013 Academy Awards approach, you might be prepping yourself for the star-studded event by making plans to throw an Oscar-themed party, maybe making bets on who the big winners will be with your friends, or perhaps preparing to pack up the car and drive to Hollywood to catch glimpses of your favorite stars and starlets on the red carpet. We here at Way Too Indie have a much better, infinitely more exciting way to pump yourself up for the biggest event in Hollywood:

Attend a screening of the lowest grossing movie of 2012, The Ghastly Love of Johnny X!

This Friday, February 15th at 9:30pm at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco as a part of SF IndieFest, director Paul Bunnell and the film’s cast will be in attendance to present this glorious black-and-white sci-fi musical melodrama in a celebration of all things wacky and weird. Johnny X and his band of misfits are exiled to earth from the far-reaches of outer space. Johnny’s ex, Bliss, has stolen his Resurrection Suit, which grants its wearer powers, and Johnny and his gang are out to retrieve the cosmic suit!

After being bombarded with big-budget films optimized to attract Oscar attention, we escape to independent film. After bombarding ourselves with artsy, emotionally draining indie films, we escape to retro, silly, melodramatic, outrageous films like Johnny X. As added incentive for film geeks, the movie was filmed with the recently discontinued black and white Kodak Plus-X film stock. Very cool.

Way Too Indie will be there to partake in the sci-fi epicness, and we hope to see you there too!

Before covering SF Indiefest, I expected that by now, the 4th day of watching films for 10 hours straight, I would be starting to fade a little. At this point, I have seen over 40 films in under two weeks, a number I’d never approached before. My brain should be fried by now (my sleep-deprived body sure is), but the films being shown here at SF Indiefest are so varied, fascinating, and of such high quality that my sprint through the festival’s lineup has been nothing but pleasurable. All I heard when walking around the festival was how strong this year’s lineup is, and I totally agree.

On the docket for day 4 of the festival were two shorts programs: Defying the Limits, a collection of boundary-shattering films that push the medium in new directions, and An Animated World, which, as the title would suggest, showcased several animated pieces. Next up was Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson’s I Declare War, in which we watch a group of kids play a pretend game of “war” in the woods that begins to feel more real than they’d planned. The final film of the day, Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer, takes an unsettling look at a young man’s descent into madness.

Stay tuned to Way Too Indie for an incoming review bonanza of the shorts from the festival. For now, here’s a preview of the shorts shown on day 4.

Defying the Limits (Shorts Program)

To watch experimental film is sometimes uncomfortable, often confrontational, and always enlightening. These films can be difficult to watch, as they typically aren’t clear in their intentions and ask us to interact with them on a high emotional and intellectual level. They seldom cater to a popcorn-eating, blockbuster consuming audience; these films tell their stories on their terms, without compromise. The short films in the Defying the Limits program play by their own rules and urge us to look at film from a new perspective.

In Ewan Bailey’s DeafBlind, a deaf-blind woman explores her relationship with god when, unbeknownst to her, a mysterious man with unknown intentions appears in her home and begins to watch her. Sonia’s Story, a Sergio Leone inspired short by director Lorenzo Guarnieri, follows the titular character on her journey from childhood to adulthood in a politically turbulent 1970s Italy. In Christopher Graybill’s strange and enigmatic The Great Gastromancer, we observe Charlie, a ventriloquist, and his dummy, Rudy, as they struggle to fit into a world that doesn’t need or want them. All three movies are definitely worth keeping an eye on.

An Animated World (Shorts Program)

The second shorts program for the day focused entirely on animated films, and the selection presented was top-notch. Some shorts were wacky and comical, some were just plain gorgeous to look at, and some were irresistibly heart-warming.

The two claymation shorts in the program, Alex Bruel Flagstad’s The Hopper, and James Stewart’s Foxed! both packed an emotional punch, but differed greatly in tone and setting. The Hopper is a cautionary tale about two kids in the murderous streets of west Baltimore who try to rip off some local drug dealers and find themselves in deeper trouble than they were prepared for. Foxed!, is a gorgeous, nightmarish nugget about a young girl enslaved by foxes who makes a last-ditch effort to escape their clutches and return to her home, but discovers that her mother, bizarrely, hasn’t missed her at all.

Evlyn Mcgrath’s dark, digital playground, Here to Fall, Rosa Peris Medina’s hand-drawn tale of physical discovery, Libidinis, and Alessia Travaglini’s haunting Silenziosa Mente are all drop-dead gorgeous. If you were to ask me to explain exactly what these shorts are about, I would be evasive, but their visual beauty alone warrants a second look.

Retrocognition, by Eric Patrick, the most visually striking short in the program (that’s saying a lot), takes different images, sounds, and tropes from retro American sitcoms and radio dramas, and cuts and pastes them together to unsettling (and often darkly funny) effect. Fernando Maldonado and Jorge Tereso’s Shave It is a charmingly fun story about a monkey who is driven out of his jungle home, shaves off his body hair to resemble us, and works his way to the tip-top of society. The final short of the program, The Missing Key by Jonathan Nix, is one of the most heart-melting movies I’ve seen in a long time. It follows a young musician and his cat in a lushly rendered 1920s Venice as they compete for the top prize at the prestigious Abacus Scroll musical competition. To describe it as eye candy would be an understatement. Absolutely a must-watch, please seek it out.

I Declare War

A group of kids play a fiercely competitive fantasy game of “war” in a forest, after school. Their “game” is played with sticks in place of guns and water balloons in place of grenades, but their artillery is very real in their minds, as real as the strong emotions they carry into the “game” from the real world. As their real-life feelings of jealousy and resentment toward each other begin to dictate the decisions they make, their fantasy game escalates to very real, dangerous levels.

Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson’s I Declare War stars a very talented young cast, much like SF Indiefest’s opening night film, Michel Gondry’s The We and the I, and tells a coming-of-age story that is refreshingly intelligent, savvy, hilarious, and universally relatable. More importantly, it’s pure, unbridled fun at the movies. We occasionally see the sticks and slingshots the kids hold in their hands as the kids see them in their minds, and the image of kids in print t-shirts and shorts running around with real-life bazookas and automatic rifles is as entertaining as anything I’ve seen at the festival thus far. The action is shot much like the classic war movies the characters love (Patton, Full Metal Jacket). The comedy works quite well, and the clever one-liners are genuinely funny, not overly cute like typical kid-movie zingers. The performances by the actors are impressively sincere. When the kids argue, the urgency and fire behind their cutting words feels very real, and the scenes unfold organically.

Like in The We and the I, the dynamic between the different groups of kids is constantly shifting and evolving, and the escalation of emotions is handled with care so that every moment is earned. Though the premise at first seems innocuous, the stakes become very real by the end, which is the key to making a story work, and separates good movies about kids from the bad ones. The news that I Declare War has been picked up by Drafthouse films for distribution is fantastic, as fans of movies like The Goonies and Stand by Me would be cheating themselves to miss it.

RATING: 8.8

Simon Killer

Writer/Director Antonio Campos was in house at the Roxie to present his unnerving meditation on loneliness/madness, Simon Killer. Simon, played by the uber-talented Brady Corbet (Martha Marcy May Marlene), is a recent college graduate who, reeling from a recent break-up, travels to (a beautifully photographed) Paris and bums around looking for love to fill his void. He meets a prostitute named Victoria and the two fall hatch a dangerously risky plan to extort Victoria’s clients. Corbet commits himself to the role completely, and I defy you to not have nightmares about him after the credits roll. This could possibly end up being my favorite film of the festival, though I’ll bite my tongue until I see the rest of the films.

STAY TUNED: to Way Too Indie for our full review of Simon Killer which will be posted around the film’s release, April 26th. PLUS, Antonio Campos was nice enough to give us an interview about the film, which we will be posting around the release date as well. Campos gives fascinating insight into his filmmaking process, and any aspiring filmmakers and film geeks shouldn’t miss this look inside the techniques and influences of an incredibly talented director.

The second official day of SF Indiefest was also the first day to take place in San Francisco’s historic Roxie Theater, which will act as the hub for the rest of the festival. The night’s films were a pair of black & white, darkly funny and outrageous films: The Legend of Kaspar Hauser and Not in Tel Aviv.

The Legend of Kaspar Hauser

An endlessly odd and trippy interpretation of the life and times of the titular historical oddity, Davide Manuli’s The Legend of Kaspar Hauser takes place on the island Sardinia where a blond-haired boy (played by actress Silvia Calderoni) washes up onto a beach and is found and fostered by a DJ/Sherriff (Vincent Gallo.) The Duchess of the island becomes threatened by the influence of Kaspar on her people (of which there are only a handful), and employs a criminal by the name of Pusher (also played by Gallo) to eliminate the boy.

Manuli’s take on the events surrounding the real-life Kaspar Hauser is weird in the most fantastic way. The film is presented in gorgeous black and white, looks like an old desert western, and is set to a must-hear (listen here) electronic soundtrack that transcends and elevates the story in a way that is so out-of-place, it’s perfect. Gallo is a joy to watch and chews it up big-time, barking and spitting his way through the film. His interactions with the equally captivating Calderoni are off-putting, yet totally entertaining. There isn’t an uninteresting shot in the movie, and some of the scenes are drawn out to such uncomfortable lengths that you’ll ask yourself “Why am I watching this weird bullsh*t?” to which you’ll answer “Because I love it.”

RATING: 7.5

Not In Tel Aviv

Micha, a high school teacher, kidnaps one of his students and uses her to reconnect with his high school crush. Together, they form a tight (albeit unusual) bond as they go on mini-adventures throughout their boring, small town. Murders, angry feminists, movie stars, escapes from the police, pizza, and basketball make up the strange days the trio shares as Micha’s learns what it is to be loved.

First time director, writer, and star Nony Geffen offers up a film that adeptly conveys the endearing spontaneity of its characters cinematically. There are definite traces of the French New-Wave here, though the tone is certainly contemporary. Nony and his female counterparts (Romi Aboulafia and Yaara Pelzig) have potent on-screen chemistry and play off each other well, demonstrating the evolution of their relationships like pros. The editing and pacing of the film keeps you on your toes, and the quirky spirit Geffen brings to the indie film scene with Not in Tel Aviv is as refreshing and startling as a bucket of ice water to the face.

RATING: 8.7

As a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and a humble film lover, I am almost ashamed to say that this year’s SF Indiefest, which is celebrating its 15 year anniversary, is my first. After researching the history of the festival and sampling some of the films on deck, my expectations for the two-week-long indie-film celebration were sky high. The lineup of films for this year’s festival made me incredibly excited, and the off-the-wall parties SF Indiefest is known for had me anxious to dive in to the festivities. After the opening night screening of Michel Gondry’s fantastic The We and the I and the super-fun “Quinceanera” after party, I’m happy to say that my first SF Indiefest experience has gotten off to a wonderful start.

As I walked in to the charming Brava Theater, I immediately felt the strong sense of acceptance and community that San Francisco is known for. People ducking into the theater out of the cold rain were greeted with friendly handshakes, big hugs, kisses, laughter, and smiles that kept everybody warm. Everybody I spoke to was openly excited about Gondry’s film and the festival in general. As we took our seats, Sf Indiefest founder Jeff Ross took the stage to welcome us and thank the community for embracing the festival for 15 years. I was happy to be there to support what is a very special event.

The We and the I

After Mr. Ross’ introduction, we were plopped on a city bus in the Bronx with rowdy high-schoolers on their last day of school in Michel Gondry’s The We and the I. The film takes place inside the bus as we observe the teenagers’ relationships evolve as they roll through the city. It’s fascinating to watch the dynamics shift as passengers come and go, argue and reconcile. Gondry has fun with his camera in the tight space, and he finds a way to inject his signature whimsical flourishes while keeping the film grounded in reality. One of the best “hang-out” films I’ve seen in years. (Full review to follow)

After the film, we moved from the theater into the lobby where we celebrated the festival’s Quinceanera. Everybody shared more hugging and smiles, drank beer, ate cake, and had an all-around great time. Next up, we were drawn back into the theater by the driving, gritty music of Oakland’s Ghost Town Gospel who were joined by Boyd Tinsley of Dave Matthews Band.

My first San Francisco Indiefest experience could not have gotten off to a better start, and we’ll have more coverage of the festival in the coming days.

From February 7-21, a giant celebration of independent film will be running wild across the San Francisco Bay Area in the form of SF IndieFest, an independent film festival which will be celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, and Way Too Indie will be there to give you comprehensive coverage of the festivities. San Francisco exhibits an open-mindedness, advocacy of cinematic experimentation and innovation, and general artistic acceptance that no city in the world can match, making it the ideal environment for a festival like SF IndieFest to thrive in.

San Francisco hosts a slew of film festivals throughout the year, but what makes SF IndieFest unique are its special events, which include a The Big Lebowski -themed party (to be followed with a 35mm midnight screening of the film), a Roller Disco party (because, why not?), a Valentine’s Day 80’s Power Ballad Sing-Along, a Quinceanera-themed opening night party, and much more. These events are sure to provide a hell of a time for the thousands of festival-goers, but it’s the stellar lineup of films that has attracted independent filmmakers and enthusiasts from around the world to the city by the bay since 1998.

Our coverage will include: Film reviews and impressions, photos, video blogs, and coverage of the various special events and parties.

The films on deck this year are phenomenal; any and all lovers of independent film (that means you) should be getting very, very excited. Here are some films from the festival to keep an eye on, with reviews to follow as the festival commences.

The We And The I

(Director Michel Gondry)

In the festival’s big opener, the endlessly imaginative Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind, The Science of Sleep) plants us on a bus sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of mischievous Bronx teenagers on their last day of school and watch as their relationships evolve, or perhaps dissolve. It will be interesting to see what kind of imagery and situations Gondry, with his surrealist visual style and mad-scientist flare, will offer up with such a small, cramped space to play with. We watch Gondry’s films to see just how far he can stretch his imagination, and The We And The I looks to be an inventive, humorous, emotional, and wholly unique showcase of his one-of-a-kind creativity.

The We And The I trailer:

Days of Grace

(Director Everardo Valerio Gout)

Set in Mexico City, Days of Grace follows the intertwining destinies of three men, who fight for their lives inside the vicious, corrupt, wicked environment that envelops them. Jumping between the years 2002, 2006, and 2010, Everado Valerio Gout tells a relentless tale of deception and vengeance that puts its characters through hell to see who comes out in one piece.

Days of Grace trailer:

All The Light In The Sky

(Director Joe Swanberg)

In All The Light In The Sky, the festival’s closer, Joe Swanberg invites us to spend time with Marie (Jane Adams), an actress in her 40’s who lives on a house by the sea in Malibu. Marie feels there is something missing in her life, and we watch as she contemplates which direction to go in to find what she’s looking for.

(No trailer yet for All The Light In The Sky)

Antiviral

(Director Brandon Cronenberg)

In this gruesome, thrilling take on body-horror, director Brandon Cronenberg delivers a fantastic feature debut that channels his father’s legacy while successfully establishing his own cinematic style. Antiviral follows Syd March, played by the gifted Caleb Landry Jones, as he uses his own body as a vehicle to smuggle viruses harvested from celebrities to sell to rabid fans who want to make a connection with their favorite stars on a biological level.

Antiviral trailer:

Wrong

(Director Quentin Dupieux)

Dolph Springer (Jack Plotnick) wakes up to find he has lost the love of his life: his dog, Paul. He embarks on a strange, wacky, comical quest to reunite with his beloved canine friend, and uncovers an unexpected spiritual conspiracy along the way. In Wrong, the follow-up to the outrageously absurd Rubber, director Quentin Dupieux creates a weird, nonsensical world where it rains indoors, dog sh*t has memories, and clocks read “7:60.”

Wrong trailer:

There are a lot more wonderful films to look forward to at the festival. Here is the rest of the lineup.

SF IndieFest 2013 Lineup:

28 Hotel Rooms (Matt Ross)
Be Good (Todd Looby)
Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland)
Blue Dream (Gregory Hatanaka)
Born Innocent (Donald Wrye)
Bound By Flesh (Leslie Zemeckis)
Days of Grace (Everado Gout)
Faceless (Tristan Albrecht)
Faces in the Mirror (Boyd Tinsley)
Funeral Kings (Matt & Kevin McManus)
The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (Paul Bunnell)
Ghosts With Shit Jobs (Chris McCawley)
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp (Jorge Hinojosa)
I Declare War (Jason Lapeyre & Robert Wilson)
Inside Lara Roxx (Mia Donovan)
It’s a Disaster (Todd Berger)
The International Sign for Choking (Zach Weintraub)
The Last Elvis (Armando Bo)
The Legend of Kaspar Hauser (Davide Manuli)
The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus (Alexandre Phillippe)
Manborg (Steven Kostanski)
Not in Tel Aviv (Nony Geffen)
The Other Side of Sleep (Rebecca Daly)
The Revisionaries (Scott Thurman)
Sightseers (Ben Wheatley)
Simon Killer (Antonio Campos)
The Story of Luke (Alonso Mayo)
Sun Don’t Shine (Amy Seimetz)
Toys Are Not For Children (Stanley Brassloff)
Video Diary of a Lost Girl (Lindsay Denniberg)

Shorts Program

An Animated World
Bouquet of Pleasures & Pains
Cults, Manholes & Slide Rail Riders
Defying the Limits
Hilarious & Entertaining Adventures
Innocence Bursting
Uncanny Shorts-Past & Present