Chicago Underground Film Festival Still Eclectic At 20

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 6, 2013 8:15PM

Since its founding in 1993 the Chicago Underground Film Festival has grown to become one of the city’s most highly anticipated film festivals, if not the country, while maintaining an independent streak that runs counter to the commodified nature of larger “independent” festivals like Sundance.

CUFF then and now still focuses on the experimental fringes of film that receive little in the way of distribution and cater to a younger, hipper audience. This makes this year’s festival at the Logan Theatre a marriage made in Heaven. Logan Square is one of the city’s hottest neighborhoods and, as festival founder, programmer and artistic director Bryan Wendorf told the Sun-Times, “a large percentage of our base audience lives, or not far away” from Logan Square.

The 100 films that make up this year’s festival were culled from over 1,500 submissions and range in length from 86 minutes to 11 seconds; most of the selections are short films. CUFF’s afterparties, held at popular watering holes like the Owl and Burlington, are almost as anticipated as the films themselves.

The Chicago Underground Film Festival runs March 6-10 at the Logan Theatre, 2646 N. Milwaukee Ave., Check out the full program here.