Unnamed Footage Festival 6(66) - five days!

My friends are back (and this is therefore not a totally objective post) with a new iteration of the Unnamed Footage Festival, a celebration of found footage horror, faux documentaries, narrative films that tell their stories through in-world cameras, and other fascinating narrative/documentary hybrids. 

I noted previously that "more and more movies are being made that confront issues of fantasy and reality in increasingly hybrid and bizarre ways, and UFF continues to cheerfully mutate to embrace them." During a conversation between screenings last year, film programmer Joel Shepard noted that this makes the festival a difficult thing for which to give a simple, elevator pitch, and that's what makes UFF so interesting. And though the designation for this sixth year (UFF 666) is a signal that it is leaning more on the found footage horror sub-genre it was initially largely formed to celebrate, there's still notable and considerable variety in the approaches taken by the filmmakers to make this a more than worthwhile stop for horror fanatics and adventurous filmgoers.

As a preview, I'll go through the five days of UFF666, noting my targets along the way. (Times TBA as of this writing.)

The whole thing kicks off at the Alamo Drafthouse (2550 Mission Street) on Tuesday, March 21, with a prelude screening, if you will, of a 35mm print of Matt Reeves' Cloverfield. One of the more widely-released and seen found footage horror films (and maybe a bit undervalued, thanks to the backlash against its odd viral marketing strategy), the film tells the story of some friends in New York City frantically trying to survive the rampage of a mysterious monster wreaking havoc on the city. It's everything you want in a found footage horror movie, leavened nicely with giant monster carnage, at least one demolished national landmark, and a keenly felt and played romantic subplot. 

UFF666PROPER opens Thursday, March 23 at Artists Television Access (992 Valencia Street). The fest's first feature is Mean Spirited, the first in a string of movies this year in which horrible social media influencers encounter maybe-a-bit-disproportionately-horrible fates. And it's being chased with the second edition of Don't Stop Recording: "This Is Really Happening" Power Hour, a wild and mind-bending collection of the most violent and bizarre moments from favorite and freaky found footage features. You'll want a beer for that one; UFF will provide.

UFF5 offered the theatrical premiere of Robbie Banfitch's far-reaching experimental horror film The Outwaters, and the film went on to become one of 2022's cult favorites. Banfitch cited UFF every chance he got for taking a chance with his film, and on Friday, March 24 he returns to UFF and the Balboa Theatre (3630 Balboa Street), bringing with him a pair of short Outwaters prequels (Card Zero and File VL-624) and his new world premiere, Tinsman Road, which promises a quieter yet engrossing mystery framed as raw miniDV documentary footage.

UFF then jumps to the recently-revamped (and quite lovely) 4 Star Theatre (2200 Clement Street) for a full weekend of screenings March 24 and 25. The final weekend is always a plethora of sensations, and it's well worth parking oneself and just letting the movies happen to one. Saturday/24 you have a pair of short film programs; the Shakespeare-in-Screenlife opus R#J; the politically-charged Lebanese haunted house story What Is Buried Must Remain. Sunday starts strong with the Portrait of Jason-modeled The Gulf of Silence (a feature length interview with fictional UFOlogist Dr. Laura Gale); the day's offerings include 2011 Australian indie sensation The Tunnel (and a new-ish making-of feature, The Tunnel: The Other Side of Darkness) and the Chilean black metal forest horror Invoking Yell.

New festival sponsor Good Vibrations will be on hand to give away a bag of carefully selected toys after Saturday's late show Safe Word, a kinked-up and delightful-looking roman porno from UFF favorite Koji Shiraishi. Similarly spicy is Sunday's marathon-viewing of the Onion's darkly-hilarious, dead-on reality TV spoof Sex House.  And the whole festival ends triumphantly with Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva; the first film in this presumably-ongoing series was one of the most convincing and engrossing faux-docs this writer has ever seen, and director Dutch Marich returns to the Nevada desert to track more mysterious disappearances there, and document the emotional fallout back home.

Marich is but one of many filmmakers who will be present to discuss their work with you. Though I've highlighted the screenings that caught my interest I may well have skipped over what'll turn out to be your favorite UFF offering - the complete schedule, including start times and details on the short films accompanying each screening, can be found at the Unnamed Footage Festival's website. See you in the dark.