Sydney Underground Film Festival Director Stefan Popescu talks 10 years of SUFF

Starting this Friday the Sydney Underground Film Festival will make its return to celebrate 10 years of being one of the most interesting, thoughtful, and provocative events of its kind in Australia. Throughout the years, SUFF has been a controversial program for cinephiles in Sydney, regularly engaging the local film community to showcase some of the world’s most unique and inventive (or just downright disturbing) works, always encouraging an open-minded approach to a variety of genres and forms with an infectious enthusiasm for underground art and the agitators who keep it thriving.

With the successful introduction of film masterclasses last year, SUFF has never been in a stronger position, so heading along this weekend to fully immerse yourself in a program that includes more than 100 films sourced from across Australia and around the world is an absolute must. The Iris recently caught up with the man who oversees that program each year, Festival Director Stefan Popescu, to reflect on SUFF’s long history, it’s connection to Sydney’s film community, memorable audience reactions over the years, and more.

First, how does Stefan and his team curate this whole thing? It’s surely a monstrous task uncovering all these hidden gems, which were found this year after Stefan and his team went through 700 films (a number they – give or take – average each year).

“It is quite tricky”, Stefan laughed. “Some stuff is very obscure, and a Sydney audience is very particular. Sometimes there are legal issues too, there are all types of convoluted stuff that come up. It’s been really trying, but rewarding of course, and I think our audience appreciates that; they are a very grassroots sort of audience. They appreciate the effort we take to go that extra mile, taking on titles that are a bit more challenging, more troubling, more contentious.”

Four days seems quite short for a program that encompasses so much, but being such a small format film festival has it’s benefits too. When The Iris asked if the intimacy makes it easier for the team to define their audience and curate accordingly, Stefan was quick to confirm.

“Yeah, absolutely! You always have to think your audience. Sydney does have a very particular underground history which has to be completely respected, because we do have that tradition of more experimental cinema here with the Ubu Filmmakers. In saying that too, we sort of pull together all the little niches – a little bit of horror, a little bit of documentary – weirder documentary stuff – oddball…particularly Japanese oddball, we definitely celebrate shorts too, a lot of shorts because that’s a big part of the Sydney landscape, there’s a lot of short filmmakers in Sydney.”

“We just generally celebrate independent filmmakers”, Stefan said. “Whether or not they were independent at a certain point and never changed their ethos, like Todd Solondz or John Waters“.

“We are quite integrated into the Sydney film community so we get a sense of our audience all the time, we’ve worked to understand our regulars. I work at two films schools and we are kind of connected to the university who know all the distributors and know all the production houses, so we try to get a general sense of the entire landscape”.

That sense of the landscape has obviously put the SUFF time in a good position to notice the changes in filmmaking and what is being demanded by a more underground crowd. As such, Stefan is confident that short filmmaking has seen the biggest evolution in Australia over the years.

“Definitely short film production has gotten way more daring in Sydney out from when we first started. I think short films used to be seen as a platform into getting a feature for people planning very safe features, no one was really screening more oddball stuff. When we came along we kind of went ‘no, we want the crazy stuff, we want you to let loose’, so people started to really let loose. On short films it’s not much of a consequence if you’ve spent something like three months making a weirdo film!”

That’s not to say that unique features aren’t coming out of Sydney though, which Stefan says edge towards completely guerrilla or independent approaches, recent examples being Snow Monkeys by George Gittoes, 57 Lawson by Ben Ferris, and Dead Hands Dig Deep by Jai Love – all of which are screening as part of SUFF this weekend.

“Australians are becoming far more daring with their content. Across the board we’ve always had huge number of Aussie short film entrants but over the past 10 years you can see an unbelievable courage in experimenting with content and form, and letting loose in Australia. That’s a definite. Another one, on a more global scale, is documentary. Documentary and alternate forms of documentary like maybe gonzo documentaries or hybrid documentaries, or doco-dramas. Documentary form is really big now, if you kind of have a look at the split between documentary and narrative features, some things we just didn’t know how to categorise them. I kind of like that we didn’t know how to categories them – like Snow Monkey it’s kind of a love story but it’s not, it’s a documentary. There’s also A A A Crack Up at the Race Riots: its kind of like a documentary but it’s based on Harmony [Korine’s] book. It’s definitely documentary that is the form that everyone is exploring in new ways now.

Kicking it all off will be the Opening Night film on Thursday, which this year is Weiner-Dog, a black comedy about a dachshund puppy that is passed from owner to owner, starring the likes of Danny DeVito and Greta Gerwig. It’s the latest from famously oddball director Todd Solondz, whom to date is perhaps best known for Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse.

“We knew we’d like it straight away”, said Stefan. “But I think the whole thing was when initially we got knocked back [for Weiner-Dog], and then we found out that everyone in Australia got knocked back on this film. Anyone who wanted to screen it was denied, so whenever that happens we become more determined”.

There’s also the appeal of Solondz himself, whom Stefan describes as the “joker of the film world..since everyone loves to hate him, but at the same time he is so talented that you can’t help but give him money to make his next film”.

Of course, Weiner-Dog isn’t the only ‘must-see’ of the program this year. When asked what others he would recommend above all others, Stefan replies:

“Definitely Multiple Maniacs because that was a bit of a lost film that we found. Apart from that, there’s some really crazy ones this year, contentious ones like We Are The Flesh – that’s a really full-on, batshit crazy film…there’s even some necrophilia in it. It’s one of those films where I was watching really late at night and was like ‘oh, it’s just another weirdo film’ but then all this stuff started happening and it completely woke me up at 3 in the morning, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

In terms of films that are a bit more accessible: “something like the Brian De Palma documentary, which is really interested because it’s about his own issues with censorship. I think Antibirth is a nice balance, because it’s kind of like a thriller, but it becomes so off-the-wall so I think it’s a really good one for audiences who want to try something weird, but test the water first. The Love Witch too! That’s a wonderful film, shot on old school 35[mm] in that Grindhouse tradition.

Getting involved in the masterclasses this year brings another reason to stick around the SUFF hub – The Factory Theatre – for more than just a few screenings. For the program’s second year, the team have decided to let some of the showcasing filmmakers lead topics, so discussing screenwriting with Phillip Seymour-Hoffman’s brother Gordy, or learning how to develop concepts for cinema with Fight Club producer Ross Grayson Bell are just some of the possibilities for any aspiring creatives or curious guests this weekend.

While this year is sounding incredible, Stefan also took a chance to reflect on some of the most memorable moments of SUFF over the past decade – and it seems that negative reactions take the cake.

“I don’t think it was last year, I think it was the year before – this one is the most memorable for me – we were screening Wetlands (David Wnend) as the closing night film, I was up back keeping an eye on audio and stuff, then I noticed a bit of commotion up front and the curtains opened so I walked down there and someone was passed out right at the emotional climax of the film…I got the venue people to get first aid out, and then I noticed someone else try to get up to help that person and then they passed out. I was like ‘are you kidding me!? What do we do? Do we keep the film going or stop it?’. There were people crowding around so I stepped back and I accidentally stepped on someone’s hand, I turned around and someone else had passed out behind me. Three people passed out in the emotional climax, we had no idea what happened. So the Closing Night Party had an ambulance there taking people away, that was certainly memorable.”

“There was also the [Princess] Diana documentary that we were certain we were going to get shutdown for because it was banned in the UK and shelved by the distributor. But we decided to defy any legal consequences in the interest of a public screening, and then worked out surprisingly well.”

“We also did a Pink Flamingos scratch ‘n’ sniff screening one year. We were the only people in the world do that, because we just thought it was such an horrendous film so it was a way to make it a bit more fun. And lastly, [Mr] Doodleburger, there was quite a stir over that, there was lots of press…lots of lawsuits and threats.”

And you better believe SUFF has seen it’s fair share of angry walk-outs.

“Every year we’re not doing our job if we don’t make someone walk out”, Stefan laughed. “We kind of see it as a badge of honour. There were two particularly memorable ones I can think of. One was during Harmony Korine‘s Trash Humpers, it sold like crazy, we sold two sessions full of that. And I just remember everyone being so excited, and then mid-way through almost half the audience had walked out. The other half left behind absolutely loved it though. I thought that was hilarious because it was so contentious.”

“The other one was someone who went on their first date and decided to come to our festival and decided to go to a screening calling Love Sick. If you read the brief for it, it’s ‘sick’ as in twisted, but they were so mortified by what they saw. They walked out and he demanded his money back, we happily would send him to any other session but on principle we weren’t going to give his money back because the brief was pretty clear!”

For more information on Sydney Underground Film Festival (15th-19th September 2016) and to book tickets for this weekend head to the official website HERE.

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Chris Singh

Chris Singh is an Editor-At-Large at the AU review, loves writing about travel and hospitality, and is partial to a perfectly textured octopus. You can reach him on Instagram: @chrisdsingh.