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 “punks, mutants, metalheads, and oddballs” plus their off-kilter allies.
“Scumdance 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.”
Like previous iterations of this underground film festival, Scumdance’s programming focuses on “horror, avant-garde, music-based, and experimental films” from around the world. This year’s 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 Giuliani’s “Requiem Espresso.” Francesco once fronted a band that could have made it big. Instead, he’s now a delivery person who regularly couch surfs on his friend’s sofa. But circumstances conspire to give him a chance for a big comeback…but 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 “The Blues Brothers.” However, unlike Jake and Elwood’s adventures, Francesco’s quest will land him on the turf of Edgar Wright’s film “The World’s End.”
The other Scumdance feature film is Lisa d’Apolito’s documentary “Albert Pyun: King Of Cult Movies.” 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 “Alien From L.A.” 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 “Cyborg Overture – Bad Ass Angels And Demons” before he becomes too ill to work further. While the film follows the director’s race against time, the viewer will also learn some amazing facts about Pyun’s life. Who knew the legendary Toshiro Mifune once served as the director’s mentor? Or that female bodybuilders frequently worked with Pyun?
Some of the freaky shorts accompanying the feature films at this year’s Scumdance include:
“Flavedoom 2”–Give it up for Bay Area dancers and choreographers Karla Quintero and Shareen DeRyan. They’ve made the first horror/dance short film to screen at Scumdance.
“Mr. Feets”–This is the type of short which would probably elicit a “no f**king way, no how, no where” response from the average Sundance film programming decision maker. But who wouldn’t like a foot fetish blackmail thriller-comedy?
“BangBang”—Like your sci-fi cinema in the mode of “Barbarella” or “Flesh Gordon?” Then you need to see this French tribute to those films and others like them.
“Valley Of Souls”—It’s not all boundary shoving at Scumdance. This Brazilian film uses beautiful and haunting imagery to tell a tale of “mourning, dread, and horror.”
“Mr. Sun”–There 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 Area’s culture of rebellion.
Scumdance 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.
SCUMDANCE RETURNS!
September 28 2024
@The Lost Church
988 Columbus Ave
San Francisco, CA 94133
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!!
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