Sydney Underground Film Festival (SUFF)

Welcome to the 17th edition of the Sydney Underground Film Festival!

It’s with great pleasure and excitement that we present the 17th program for The Sydney Underground Film Festival! This year we have a jam-packed program full of filmic oddities, hidden gems and of course, a collection of the unforgettably zany and mind-melting moments that have become the hallmark of entering the cinema at SUFF.

Coming into our second in-cinema festival, post-lockdown, much has changed across the film landscape both in Australia and abroad. While funding cuts and pay disputes present constant challenges for creatives, scripts conceived in lockdown are finally seeing the light of day, working through the collective anxiety we’ve been experiencing as a community for the past several years. But rather than reflecting austerity and restriction, these films exhibit the creativity and revolutionary spirit we’ve long championed at SUFF. Often shot in single locations, with limited budgets and using guerilla casts and crews, independent filmmakers are responding with ingenuity and a creativity of spirit that will be right on display across the entire festival.

We’ll be kicking off with the timely and incredibly eye-opening UKRAINE GUERNICA - ART NOT WAR. SUFF is incredibly honoured to have daring filmmaker George Gittoes back in the opening night seat (it’s been over ten years since we opened with his THE MISCREANTS OF TALIWOOD!) Then over the next couple of days it’s a cinematic smorgasbord of must-see films. There’s transgressive black comedies with HIPPO, LOUSY CARTER and POUNDCAKE, a Japanese candycoloured gore extravaganza with HOLY MOTHER, films about thwarted ambitions, where everythings wrong goes wildly, insanely wrong, like KICK ME and SOUR PARTY, unique film docs, plus there’s films involving cats, Satan, Bruce Lee and an army of angry Beavers! Not to mention a tonne of incredible shorts films including the return of our Take48 filmmaking competition! Last but certainly not least, we’ll be closing the festival with a bang with the hilarious ONYX THE FORTUITOUS AND THE TALISMAN OF SOULS starring the Writer/Director Andrew Bowser.

SUFF is truly a festival for film lovers of all walks, so if you love watching them, making them or just plain talking about them, we look forward to seeing you at this year’s festival. Come, celebrate cinema, community and let your film freak flag fly at SUFF!