Overview
Out with the old, in with the new: that's a running theme at 2023's Sydney Underground Film Festival. The Harbour City's now 17-year-old celebration of weird, wild and wonderful cinema is saying hello to a fresh venue, moving from 2022's Event Cinemas George Street and its past home at Marrickville's Factory Theatre to Dendy Newtown. And, in one of its big program highlights, it's also farewelling Arnie as Conan the Barbarian, embracing an all-female cast instead.
First, the change of location: Festival Director Katherine Berger and her team will be back in the Inner West from Thursday, September 7–Sunday, September 10, this time in King Street's resident picture palace.
Now, the just-announced lineup: as well as Conann from French filmmaker Bertrand Mandico's (After Blue), which follows its eponymous warrior through six female guises and hits Sydney straight from Cannes, SUFF's 2023 bill overflows with past, present and future cult flicks.
Fans of Mandico can get their fest started early, thanks to a screening of The Wild Boys at Pink Flamingo Cinema on Wednesday, August 23; however, the rest of the standouts come during SUFF's usual four-day run. Kicking things off properly is opening night's Ukraine Guernica — Art Not War, George Gittoes' latest, about frontline artists challenging Russia's invasions of both Ukraine and Afghanistan. At the other end of the fest, comedy-horror Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls will close out 2023's event with a bit of satanic worship and black magic from The Weird Satanist Guy Andrew Bowser.
Other must-sees include Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer, an ode to the iconic and inimitable German director (and one-time Parks and Recreation star); Bob Byington's (Frances Ferguson) Lousy Carter, featuring David Krumholtz (Oppenheimer) as the down-on-his-luck titular character; Holy Mother, with Tokyo Gore Police's Yoshhiro Nishimura again splashing around gore, plus neon and laughs; and Poundcake, a slasher-comedy about a New York serial killer that's also a societal satire.
Or, there's modern Frankenstein reimagining Birth/Rebirth; the delightfully named Hundreds of Beavers, about a cider salesman faced with plenty of hungry animals; and the post-apocalyptic vision of Welcome to Kittytown. Among SUFF's full documentary slate, viewers can check out the true crime-focused Citizen Sleuth as it dives into the ethics of the popular genre, enjoy Satan Wants You's look back at 80s-era satanic panic, and revel in Enter the Clones of Bruce's survey of the talents that endeavoured to replicate Bruce Lee after his death.
And, as always, SUFF continues to showcase the most out-there shorts that the fest can find across four separate strands. Here, you might just see tomorrow's Aussie genre filmmakers getting their start — plus tales about possessed sex toys, Udo Kier's (Hunters) many on-screen deaths and curing zombie bites.
Sydney Underground Film Festival will screen at Dendy Newtown, King Street, Newtown, from Thursday, September 7–Sunday, September 10. For further information, or to buy tickets, head to SUFF's website.