Sudbury’s Tiny Underground
Film Festival (STUFF)
Sudbury's Tiny Underground Film Festival is Sudbury Indie Cinema’s
latest edition to the film festival scene in Sudbury, Ontario.
STUFF will run Saturday September 23rd, 2023 @ the Indie, 162 Mackenzie St.
STUFF is for cinephiles, yes - and supporters of Northerners being the key creatives in independent film.
Like our friends at UP HERE FEST like to say: “Keep it weird, Sudbury…” STUFF will incline towards films which don’t follow a tradition structure, or films which are subversive, wild and weird.
We showcase low and no-budget artist-driven film projects from Northerners (all genres considered), as well as experimental, animation, avant-garde from the best.
Given, Sudbury Ontario Canada is a mining giant: also under consideration are films that incorporate mining themes. Rather than exploit natural resources, STUFF will explore the "underground" from a worker, community, or environmental perspective, with at least one feature per STUFF edition.
Sudbury's Tiny Underground Film Festival proudly accepts entries on FilmFreeway, the world's #1 way to enter film festivals and creative contests. Submissions of short films for STUFF 2022 are open on FilmFreeway to September 11th. SUBMIT HERE
Early Bird All-Access Passes and 4-Packs on sale now at Eventbrite for $35/$40!
Buy Tickets/Passes HERE
Proudly sponsored by CKLU 96.7FM
Saturday September 23, 2023
Canadian and International Experimental Shorts Programme
98 min. + 15 min. moderated filmmaker discussion.
Sit back and take in the weird world of experimental film. Current and diverse works, selected from submissions from around the world.
Live conversations with filmmakers follow the screening.
- Kunststudent – Kilian Dellers (6:00)
The impossible, collages, multiple exposures, scraps of images, an organic-seeming something, a pulsating whole, an inner cultural landscape, too dark, a flickering expression. - I’ll Be – Bob Kotyk (16:42)
A modern-day silent film, a city symphony, and a surreal odyssey into the numbing world of work. - A Brand New Hell – David Bragg (11:12)
Two roommates attempt to ride out the zombie apocalypse by playing video games.
- The Forgotten Valley – David Bouthillier (16:06)
In my hometown and surrounding area, the evidence of the past is slowly fading away. - Still – Alison MacDonald (3:58)
A visual poem that provides space for reflection on the quieter moments in life, where we pause to think, to feel, and to breathe. - Strange Excursion – Alan Hiscott (5:30)
A passenger aboard a large cruise ship embarks on an unexpected excursion that tests the limits of their sanity.
- The Voice in Isabel Fleiss's Office – Jim Haverkamp (6:24)
A woman with an unusual malady--cobweb buildup in the throat--receives an even more unusual treatment. - Fragments – Marie-Lou Béland (8:30)
A reappropriation of the female body in order to offer it a place as a body-subject and never again as a body-object. - L’hiver de eternitié – Patrick Müller (8:10)
How do I find my way? In his existential philosophy work CITADELLE, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry posthumously gives us uncomfortable answers. - Goodnight Dream – Andrew Michalko (15.51)
During a night of sleep, a young dreamer wanders, confronting the nostalgia of his memories.
STELLAR
by Darlene Naponse
2:15 pm
2022, Canada, Experimental, Drama/Romance, 87 mins English
Anishinaabe writer/director Darlene Naponse’s singular film focuses on the dreamy romantic connection of She (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) and He (Braeden Clarke) amid a natural catastrophe happening outside their peaceful Northern Ontario bar.
Focusing on touch, connection to one another, and the land, with nods to the context in which Indigenous people have endured and flourished, STELLAR is a contemporary Indigenous romance unlike any other, with layers of subtext you’ll be grappling with for days.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 23, 2023
Local Northern Ontario Shorts Programme
4:30 pm
Northern Ontario filmmakers and video artists were invited to submit their no-low budget artist-driven shorts. This programme is 60 minutes of shorts followed by live discussion with some of the key creatives: Northern Ontario’s indie filmmakers.
- Unseen – Alexandre Fishbein-Ouimette (16:30)
Kelsey loses touch with her partner (Nathan) to a gambling addiction that costs him his sanity. - Sober – Ty Reinhardt (4:50)
A man resists the desire to drink the proverbial Kool-Aid, in an attempt to remain sober.
- Liv & Adam – Emma L.R. Hogg (10:51)
For Liv and Adam, just because their relationship didn't work out, it doesn't mean it didn't matter. - FTW – Matt Connors (2:05)
What's he gonna do? - A Bunch of Junk – Ian Johnson (9:00)
A quirky frolic through the button artwork and personality of Paula Naomi Johnson.
- Jade and Konni – Oaklee Dumont (7:56)
Two Good Stuff employees devise a plan to save Konni's job, after she mistakenly gives her boss the wrong gift for his birthday. - Malik: A Sonic Short Story S4 ep 1 & 2 – writer/creator Eric Miron/ directors Dustin Moore and Richard Barlow (11:00)
Malik’s sobriety path takes many twists and turns coming full circle in 2023 from 2015.
HARLAN COUNTY USA
by Barbara Kopple
7:00 pm
1976, USA, Documentary, 144 minutes
STUFF is proud to present this magnifient classic on the mining strike in Kentucky, thus filfulling our mission to approach “UNDERGROUND” from all the relevant angles for Sudbury. Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award-winning HARLAN COUNTY USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. Featuring a haunting soundtrack, with legendary country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning, and Florence Reece, the film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.
Farewell My Concubine
by Chen Kaige
9:00pm
1993, China, Hong Kong, Historical Drama, 170 min. Mandarin w/ English subtitles
Hailed as a “cultural achievement” (The New York Times) and widely considered one of the most important motion pictures ever made, FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE is a “gorgeous, intoxicating epic” (Los Angeles Times) that is both “visually spectacular” and “sumptuous in every respect” (Time Out). Spanning 50 years from the early 20th century to the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, Chen Kaige's passionate, exquisitely shot film captures the vast historical scope of a changing country while revealing the intimate and touching details of a unique, tender, heartrending love story. Based on the bestselling novel by Lillian Lee, it was selected as one of the “100 Best Films in Global History” by TIME Magazine, was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and remains the only Chinese-language film to ever win the Palme d’Or.
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