Unusual Underground Cinema in SF: The Scumdance Film Festival
The Scumdance Film Festival makes a glorious return visit to the Bay Area on September 28, 2024. The Lost Church SF (988 Columbus, SF) plays host once again to a film festival that would cause the prestige seekers, deal makers, and other wannabe A-listers who haunt the Sundance Festival to run back to their chalets in fear, from the target Scumdance audience of โpunks, mutants, metalheads, and oddballsโ plus their off-kilter allies.
โScumdance is a celebration of the best & weirdest underground films. We champion mutants, misfits & maniacs. Our festival focuses on horror, avant-garde, music-based, and experimental films.โ
Like previous iterations of this underground film festival, Scumdanceโs programming focuses on โhorror, avant-garde, music-based, and experimental filmsโ from around the world. This yearโs smaller program presents two programming blocks, each consisting of 10 shorts and a feature-length film.
The Films
One of these feature films is Gil Giulianiโs โRequiem Espresso.โ Francesco once fronted a band that could have made it big. Instead, heโs now a delivery person who regularly couch surfs on his friendโs sofa. But circumstances conspire to give him a chance for a big comebackโฆbut only if he gets his old band back together and repairs a lot of the bridges he torched earlier. Yes, this film sounds like an Italian iteration of โThe Blues Brothers.โ However, unlike Jake and Elwoodโs adventures, Francescoโs quest will land him on the turf of Edgar Wrightโs film โThe Worldโs End.โ
The other Scumdance feature film is Lisa dโApolitoโs documentary โAlbert Pyun: King Of Cult Movies.โ Depending on who you ask, director Albert Pyun was either the reincarnation of terrible director Ed Wood or a visionary filmmaker whose work was far ahead of his time. Over 40 years, Pyun worked on low-budget genre films with such stars as Kris Kristofferson, Charlie Sheen, and Jean-Claude van Damme. Then again, the notorious MST3K staple โAlien From L.A.โ with supermodel Kathy Ireland in the title role was also helmed by Pyun.
When the cult director gets diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and dementia, he sets out to finish his final film โCyborg Overture โ Bad Ass Angels And Demonsโ before he becomes too ill to work further. While the film follows the directorโs race against time, the viewer will also learn some amazing facts about Pyunโs life. Who knew the legendary Toshiro Mifune once served as the directorโs mentor? Or that female bodybuilders frequently worked with Pyun?
Some of the freaky shorts accompanying the feature films at this yearโs Scumdance include:
โFlavedoom 2โโGive it up for Bay Area dancers and choreographers Karla Quintero and Shareen DeRyan. Theyโve made the first horror/dance short film to screen at Scumdance.
โMr. FeetsโโThis is the type of short which would probably elicit a โno f**king way, no how, no whereโ response from the average Sundance film programming decision maker. But who wouldnโt like a foot fetish blackmail thriller-comedy?
โBangBangโโLike your sci-fi cinema in the mode of โBarbarellaโ or โFlesh Gordon?โ Then you need to see this French tribute to those films and others like them.
โValley Of SoulsโโItโs not all boundary shoving at Scumdance. This Brazilian film uses beautiful and haunting imagery to tell a tale of โmourning, dread, and horror.โ
โMr. SunโโThere are genre mash-ups and then there are genre mash-ups. This one shows what happens when you take the existential dread of sentient cosmic bodies and splice that discomfort to beach party movies.
We are looking forward to September 28 and enjoying a cinematic f**k you to the rich a**holes who feel they have enough money to flatten out of existence the Bay Areaโs culture of rebellion.
Scumdance is a celebration of the best & weirdest underground films.
โWe champion mutants, misfits & maniacs.
Our festival focuses on horror, avant-garde, music based, and experimental films.
SCUMDANCE RETURNS!
September 28 2024
@The Lost Church
988 Columbus Ave
San Francisco, CA 94133
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!!