The 4th Drunken Film Festival Is Coming!

Watching short indie films: fun.  Getting drunk with friends: Also fun.  Put the two together, and you’ve got the filmgoing world’s version of chicken and waffles: the Drunken Film Festival (hereafter DrunkenFF)!

DrunkenFF returns for a 4th edition after a horrible year of involuntary bar closures.  From October 3-8, 2021, viewers can visit a different Oakland bar each night to catch in-person screenings of independent short films from around the world.  For viewers still understandably nervous about doing the in-person gathering thing, Twitch will stream most of the festival offerings under the DrunkenFilmFestOakland channel from October 9-10, 2021.  Viewers who live outside California or even outside the U.S. can take advantage of the Twitch option.   

What makes DrunkenFF a must for Broke-Ass viewers is that the admission price is Free!  Whether you show up in person or watch the films on Twitch, there’s no charge whatsoever.  

That said, DrunkenFF does give the bars serving as festival venues a ready customer base.  So help these bars back by buying food or something a lot more expensive than a Coke.  That way, the festival will have a place to come back to in the future.

Stay Gold Deli offers this reason to have one of its sandwiches while watching the Drunken Film Festival

So which bars are serving as screening venues for the Drunken Film Festival?

Here’s the schedule:

October 3–The Lot at Tribune Tower

October 4—Stay Gold Deli 

October 5—Luka’s Taproom

October 6—Telegraph Beer Garden

A Telegraph Beer Garden sandwich to nosh on while watching the Drunken Film Festival

October 7—Eli’s Mile High Club

October 8—Classic Cars West      

And what’s even better is that some of these bars are in the Oakland & East Bay Beer Passport, which is $10 off for the month of October with the code: Oktober10. So you could be getting 2-for-1 beers at the DrunkenFF!

COVID Precautions:

Wear masks to any of the listed venues you visit in-person.  But if you’re going to The Lot, Eli’s Mile High, and/or Classic Cars West, you’ll also need to bring proof of vaccination.  (If you won’t wear a mask or if you want to present fake vaccination proof, take your germ-ridden business elsewhere.)

In your face preaching aside, what are some of the films viewers can expect to see?

About the Films:

In Navid Sinaki’s autobiographical avant-garde short “Rumi And His Roses,” the filmmaker recounts his relationship with his first boyfriend using the unlikely medium of bootleg DVD menu screens.  But once the viewer learns that the boyfriend lived in gay-unfriendly Tehran, Sinaki’s story goes from novelty to something more moving. 

“I’m Free Now, You Are Free” is Ash Goa Hua’s documentary about a mother-child reunion delayed by 40 years.  In 1978, 8 months pregnant Debbie Africa got arrested by the Philadelphia Police Department and became part of the political prisoner group known as the MOVE9.  Mike Africa Jr. was thus born in a prison cell.  He spent just three days with his mother before being forcibly separated from her.  The son would not be reunited with his mother for decades. 

In Kristen “KD” Davila’s near future narrative short “Please Hold,” young Mateo gets arrested by a drone and imprisoned in an automated jail run by an artificial intelligence.  He tries to find out what are the charges against him or even a human being who can fix this situation.

Leah Shore’s semi-autobiographical narrative short “Puss” concerns Gabriela, who has been left by pandemic lockdown bored, hungry, and craving close human contact.  But where will her pent-up desire go if there’s no one else around?

Sasha Lee’s animated short “Misery Loves Company” can only be seen at the Luka’s screening.  Melancholic Seolgi watches with her friends as a shooting star falls.  While one of the friends sees nothing special in the event, the unhappy student wishes on the star for a big meteorite to come along and end the world.

Bikers protest for more optimism in Mar Sudac’s avant-garde narrative “Astonishing Horizon!”

Nuevo Rico

Kristian Mercado’s SXSW award-winning animated short “Nuevo Rico” tells the story of a brother and sister who steal from the gods to become reggaeton stars.  But they’re about to find out that such a theft carries a huge price.

Other Native American tribes may rely on operating gambling casinos to survive.  But for over a century, members of the Seminole Tribe rely on alligator wrestling for the tourists to keep going financially.  Adam Piron and Adam Khalil look at the hazards and history of this spectacle in their documentary “Halpate.”

The documentary “Strikers” from Amber Love and Andrea Raby takes viewers to the Illinois’ Affordable Assisted Living Coalition’s annual Wii bowling competition.  Can reigning champs Eden Supportive Living defend their title against their rivals from Bolingbrook?  A look at gaming in the golden years. 

In Jan Van Dyck’s narrative “The Nipple Whisperer,” Maurice “Sandy” Sanders (Denis Lavant) has a special talent: whispering to a woman’s naked breasts.  Despite being retired, the titular whisperer gets called upon to help a couple of ingenues.

It looks like the cops are “on hold for accountability” in Travis Wood’s narrative “Department Of Injustice,” which only screens at Classic Cars West.

Louis Bryant and AmaYah Harrison direct local artist Darien Dorsey’s music video “19Seventy Free,” a celebration of black love and artistic freedom.

There are of course many more shorts to be screened over the course of DrunkenFF.  Hopefully, these teasers will make you hungry and thirsty enough to visit the festival in-person and order a drink (or two) and/or a meal from the hosting bar.

(All DrunkenFF shows start at 7 PM.)