12th Annual MUFF or how a writer should not try to define an underground film festival

Those movie-goers not already swayed by the challenges and charms of so-called Experimental Cinema – generally levying charges of pretense and pointlessness – are likely to remain unswayed after the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival (MUFF), which ran Fri 4 May thru Sun 6 May. Unswayed, that is, if they found a path to any of the screenings. The three day event caters to a niche audience, many of whom are already aware of the fest or are seeking the programming MUFF offers. Spread over three venues, UWM Union, KSE, and Walker's Point Center for the Arts, with five lengthy and textured programs, this, the twelfth annual MUFF remained true to the festival's original vision: student organized, curated, and executed; low-key; free to the public; featuring scads of recent film, video, installation, and performance art from around the globe that will likely have no home in any of Milwaukee's other, more mainstream festivals.

That MUFF has a specialized audience is hardly surprising. Though former Faculty Advisor David Dinell described the programming of MUFF generically as “difficult films for difficult people,” experimental film – a term so broad we may as well define it as film that is not anything else, but can be – is not exclusive to the university set, with programming that draws its strength from diversity and texture in length, content, form and country of origin. 

Under the faculty direction of Union Theatre director emeritus, this year's student curated program featured short selections, one to 28 minutes, from across these united states as well as Canada, China, Russia and Australia among others. For as scattered as the geography of the programming, the form and content of the pieces were even more diverse. Among the subjects covered in this year's program were the following: Counterterrorism reports, images from the scrap heap of Hollywood, chatroullette.com conversations, an animated exploration of the grieving process, a cable-access personality, and a hand in repetition.  These and all the other subjects were captured on various video formats, ranging from HD to Hi8, 16 & 8(standard and super)mm film, and one piece that required four projectors and a non-synchronous soundtrack, requiring nearly the entire staff of the festival to attend to the single 5min closing piece.  While such topics and forms may seem out of reach (or perhaps, touch) of (with) the average suburban mall movie goer, MUFF seems to enjoy the shadows and caverns in which it resides.

That the festival moves from venue to small-out-of-the-way venue through out the weekend plays into the elusiveness and community mindedness of an “underground festival,” difficult to define but meaningful to and for those who want to find it.