Chicago Underground Film Festival Selects

Desolation Center is the previously untold story of a series of early 80s guerrilla music and art performance happenings in Southern California that are recognized to have inspired Burning Man, Lollapalooza and Coachella, collective experiences that have become key elements of popular culture in the 21st century. The feature documentary splices interviews and rare p...Read More

Elaine, a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment she makes spells and potions, and then picks up men and seduces them. However, her spells work too well, leaving her with a string of hapless victims. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved will drive her to the brink of insa...Read More

Dame Darcy Isabelle Bajo, Risque’ Reverie, Gluttony, The Elaborate Empire of Ache, Midnight Mirage w/Dame Darcy, Dutchess and the Doppleganger, The Sirens and The Sailor, The Foundling, Dame Darcy, Doll Craftin’ with Courtney Love -short version, Dame Darcy Banjo + Saw.

A NIGHT FLIGHT PLUS STREAMING EXCLUSIVE: This is the story of Jan Terri, an irrepressible and delightfully perplexing musical personality. As a child, Jan would dance and sing for anyone who would listen. As a teenager, she began writing and performing her own songs. In her 20’s and 30’s, she used the income from her job as a full-time limo driver to hire a freelanc...Read More

John Heyn and Jeff Krulik filmed Judas Priest fans in a concert arena parking lot in suburban Maryland. Thirty years later, Heavy Metal Parking Lot is hailed as one the greatest rock documentaries ever. It’s a definitive cultural touchstone for the 1980s metal scene: spandex, big hair, denim, mullets, muscle cars, and beer. Heavy Metal Parking Lot launched a ...Read More

Decline of Western Civilization III, the final entry in Spheeris’ influential documentary series, follows the lives of the homeless teenagers that made up the Los Angeles gutter punk scene. The film’s harrowing depiction of poverty among teenagers and the relationships she formed during its production moved the director to become a foster parent.

Empty Metal follows five groups of characters, each emblematic of a different extreme political ideology, as they attempt insurrection against the status quo: a queer noise band is coerced into a dangerous assassination plot by a family of militant Native Americans who are aided by a Rastafarian computer hacker who is old friends with a Buddhist hermit whose son is ...Read More

Dame Darcy + Isabelle Doll Banjo Intro, Dame Darcy sings, The Walrus and the Carpenter, I Dream of Jeannie, Dame Darcy Plays, Contorted Poetry, Decombreit, Dutch Dancers, Dutchess and Doppleganger, Stockton

It has been hailed as "extraordinary" (The Guardian), "visionary and haunting" (Rolling Stone) and "a grand work of art, full of symbols and imagery that reach beyond language to something primal and original" (AV Club). Now forget everything you have ever seen as the modern masterpiece from director Alejandro Jodorowsky returns like never before. It is unlike any f...Read More

After Elfie and her nerdy son August successfully proved themselves on their home webcam in MeTube 1, the odd pair venture onto the street to present the biggest, boldest, and sexiest operatic flash mob the internet has ever witnessed!

Knowing that another world is possible, individuals young and old share their hopes and dreams for the future.

Deranged scientist, Baron von Frankenstein, with the help of his bizarre assistant, Otto, is determined to create a new master race, of which he will be the leader. To achieve his objective, he constructs two perfect ‘zombies’ from an assemblage of body parts, intending them to mate. Meanwhile, complications ensue as Nicholas, a farm hand, begins an affair with the ...Read More

Filmmaker Carol Nguyen interviews her own family to craft an emotionally complex and meticulously composed portrait of intergenerational trauma, grief, and secrets in this cathartic documentary about things left unsaid. Carol Nguyen is a Vietnamese Canadian filmmaker, born and raised in Toronto, now based in Montreal. Her films often explore the subjects of cultu...Read More

A monumental documentary about the rise of punk rock in the town that needed it most... Washington D.C. When punk rock erupted in Washington DC, it was a mighty convergence of powerful music, friendships, and clear minds. This film is the first to explore the incredible challenges that this subculture faced when it took root in the Nation’s Capital in the late 1970’...Read More

The Icarus Line Must Die is a dramatic narrative feature set against the backdrop of the current LA music scene. The film tracks Joe Cardamone, front man of The Icarus Line, as he navigates his way through the ups and downs of the modern music landscape.

Dive deep into the psyche of Randall "Junior" Rose (Dustin York), son of a recently deceased rock star and a former priest who has lost faith in the church. Convinced that a fungus is a threat to humanity, and accompanied by his only friend Cherry, an AI enhanced drone (voiced by Isabelle Barbier), Junior slowly gathers evidence to support his bizarre theory, spiral...Read More

A tawdry tale of suburban sexual malaise plus a lesson in arcane film history rolled into one sin-tillating package! In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, when home movie making was at its peak, this nation's newsstands were filled with amateur movie making magazines. The majority of the articles contained therein focused on the technical concerns of filmmakin...Read More

Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead) stars as Carl, a man who launches a full-scale heist to steal mob money from the prison that just released him. With the help of an old friend (Jeremy Roberts, The People Under the Stairs), a driver and a safe-cracker, Carl's attempt to carry out the heist is fraught with incompetence and bad luck. As the clock ticks and the circumstances ...Read More

Out of Print is an ode to the counterculture of the 80s and 90s, a time when unearthing quality culture was a real treasure hunt. 2008.

While the rest of America slept, DIY filmmaker/musician Giuseppe Andrews (a one-time teen actor in Independence Day and Detroit Rock City) has made over 30 experimental features with titles like Doily’s Summer of Freak Occurrences, Trailer Town and Utopia Blues. Set in some demented alternate universe (i.e. Ventura, California), they are populated by real-life alcoh...Read More