Calgary Underground Film Festival promises something for everyone
Week-long festival offers everything from heart-eating mermaids to grandmothers learning to drive
Brenda Lieberman can sum up the 2016 Calgary Underground Film Festival pretty easily.
"We've totally nailed it this year."
The festival director says the diversity of genres, films and storylines has made this year's incarnation of the festival the best one yet.
That's not without a lot of effort. Lieberman said the festival team worked hard to secure some big films for the week.
"The films that are looking to showcase in the festival circuit are looking to get picked up for distribution and sales deals," she explained. "We have to prove ourselves both in our style of programming and how long we've been around in the festival circuit."
CUFF 2016 kicks off Monday and runs until April 17 at the Globe Cinema.
Here are some of Liberman's picks:
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Director: Taika Waititi
Screening: April 11, 7 p.m.
This film tells the story of a young city kid who gets placed in a foster home on a remote farm.
"It was so funny and as I was watching it I thought this has to be our opening film,'" says Lieberman.
The Lure
Director: Agnieszka Smoczynska
Screenings: April 15, 9:45 p.m. and April 17, 9 p.m.
If you're looking for your "horror, mermaid musical from a Polish female director," this is your film.
"It's a little bit more of a punk rock musical," said Lieberman. "It's about two women who take over a night club and try and live on land — it's amazing."
Nuts!
Director: Penny Lane
Screenings: April 13, 9:45 p.m. and April 16, 1:45 p.m.
This mostly-true documentary follows the story of a Kansas doctor named John Romulus Brinkley. His claim to fame?
Allegedly curing impotence by transplanting goat testicles into men.
Men & Chicken
Director: Anders Thomas Jensen
Screenings: April 13, 7:30 p.m. and April 17, 9:30 p.m.
This absurdist, quirky Danish comedy follows the story of two brothers searching for their biological father and discovering a whole lot of bizarre relatives.
Wreck City: An Epilogue for 809
Director: Ramin Eshraghi-Yazdi
Screening: April 15, 7:30 p.m.
In 2013, 150 artists collaborated on "Wreck City," a ground-breaking art experiment along a block of houses slated for demolition in Calgary.
This documentary looks back at the art installation and performance village that attracted 10,000 viewers in nine days in April 2013.