For the second year running, Sudbury Indie Cinema, the region’s arthouse cinema, is presenting STUFF: Sudbury’s Tiny Underground Film Festival.
The festival runs Saturday, Sept. 23 at 162 Mackenzie St., in Uptown Sudbury.
Sudbury Indie Cinema is a not-for-profit co-operative with nearly 2,000 lifetime members and is unique to the region as playing top festival films on a year-round basis.
Sudbury’s Tiny Underground Film Festival is a one-day event focused on no- and low-budget, experimental, local, Canadian and international films.
This second edition of STUFF features three full-length films, two shorts programmes including a local filmmaker and video artist programme.
All STUFF programmes have panels, artist talks or live Q&As.
All daytime screenings at STUFF 2023 are free to those 60+, thanks to a community grant from The Co-operators.
“We are so thrilled to be able to extend these tremendous screenings for free thanks to a generous grant from a giant in the co-operative sector here in Canada,” said Beth Mairs, the festival founder.
STUFF also solicited experimental short film submissions from around the world, and from local indie filmmakers with low budget projects.
From the submissions, two shorts programmes are among the daytime offerings. For our Canadian and International Experimental Shorts Programme, we are premiering several films with works from across Canada, in addition to the USA, Germany, and Switzerland. So far, three filmmaking teams have confirmed their attendance.
For the local shorts programmes, there are 60 minutes of shorts with works from Alexandre Ouimette, Ty Reinhardt, Matt Connors, Emma Hogg, Oaklee Dumont, Eric Malin with Dustin Moore and Richard Barlow.
“Both shorts programmes present a wide range of film styles and genres. It’s going to be a wild ride of film creativity,” said Mairs. “And so exciting, especially for the many filmmakers enjoying their festival premiere in Sudbury at STUFF to have a live audience to react to their work and foster dialogue.”
Of the features programmes, Darlene Naponse’s “Stellar” is returning to the big screen. Naponse is arguably the city’s top independent filmmaker, and this work maintains the artist’s tendency towards experimental projects.
Following in the festival’s tradition of also extending the terms “underground” to the very literal mining theme, this year’s STUFF has announced the classic “Harlan County, USA” in its coveted 7 p.m. slot.
True to the festival’s aim to bring cinema which showcases films with mining themes from a labour perspective, “Harlan County, USA,” with a rating of 100 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, is a powerful documentary of a long and brave struggle of coal miners in Kentucky. But it also shows the lack of theoretical foundations in the American labour movement, with several thematic echoes here in Sudbury region in terms of labour struggles.
Closing out the festival is the cinematic marvel, “Farewell My Concubine,” enjoying its 30th anniversary re-mastered 4K restoration.
The North American premiere is set for this Friday Sept. 15 at TIFF; then Sept. 22 the film opens at Film Forum in New York; and on the 23rd, it plays exclusively in Sudbury at STUFF. Winning both the Palme d’Or at Cannes and garnering two Oscars nominations, this landmark film of China’s Fifth Generation, Chen Kaige’s 1993 historical epic encompasses 50 turbulent years of Chinese history in a riveting backstage drama about the stars of the Peking Opera.
All Access Festival passes are on sale for just $35 until Sept. 15, and then sell for $45.
Individual tickets are available at the door or online for $12.50. Seniors may also reserve in advance or show ID at the door for rush seating. Tickets and passes are available online here.
