Festival Directors Statement >>

The Melbourne Underground Film Festival [MUFF] is an independent and non-profit organisation that showcases a diversity of film and video based works in the areas of underground, independent, guerrilla and exploitation. MUFF presents both new features and shorts, as well as presenting an innovative selection of curated programs and retrospectives.

MUFF will be running from Thursday 8 th July to Sunday 18 th July 2004 , in Melbourne, Australia .

MUFF is driven to make a significant contribution to the cultural enrichment of the community by illustrating the vibrancy, vitality and enthusiasm of the free-thinking, alternative, independent filmmaking scene in Australia and overseas. Particularly a young vital voice distinct from the errors and entropy of other larger festivals.

To also provide a dynamic forum for independent filmmakers and screen artists to come together, experience, network, and participate in forums and screenings, promote discourse and to debate screen styles and content.

And to develop an event which embraces new ideas and cross-disciplinary art forms incorporating aspects of underground culture including music, fashion, art, photography and digital media, to highlight the changing environment of independent filmmaking and the culture that surrounds it.

The Melbourne Underground Film Festival was realised in July 2000, when a small group of filmmakers and dedicated cinephiles screened works concurrent with the Melbourne International Film Festival. What was inspired by a reaction against conservative and mainstream programming quickly grew into an opportunity and support system for previously untapped films and their makers to afford local and valued screenings.

Highlights of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival include our retrospective spotlight on New Zealand film director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings trilogy); our retrospective spotlight of American avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas and of surrealist Polish maverick Walerian Borowczyk; our Dogme 95 focus including Harmony Korine’s Julian donkey-boy; spotlight programs of horror filmmakers Dario Argento and Jess Franco, and guerrilla fi lmmakers Craig Baldwin, Harun Farocki and James Fotopoulos; the retrospectives of Australian Cult Cinema – including works by Peter Weir, Rolf de Heer and Jon Hewitt; programs of street culture films and documentaries; last year’s Free Radicals section featuring uber-modern, post-punk, ugly-cool subversions and pop-culture classics; International and Australian premieres; award winners such as Four Jacks and The Magician; Last year’s infamous head of the jury Mark “Chopper” Read; In addition, the popularly attended shorts programs, 2001’s controversial and lively censorship debate, 2003’s even more controversial political focus and the overwhelmingly popular Sexy MUFF program.

The Melbourne Underground Film Festival has premiered 52 new features, unspooled over 110 features in the retrospective and spotlight programs, and more than 325 shorts in its previous four years running. In it’s celluloid slate MUFF has hosted forums, featured appearances by local and international directors, assembled an independent and underground celebrity jury panel for the festival’s closing night awards, as well as celebrating with after parties each night at some of Melbourne’s most uber-chic venues.