6th Annual New England Underground Film Festival Coming to Hamden in October

The New England Underground Film Festival, a celebration of the best of underground cinema, will have its sixth annual presentation on October 8 at the Best Video Film & Cultural Center in Hamden, CT. The event will be held from 4:00pm to 10:00pm; general admission is $10 and students with school ID can pay $5.

This year’s festival includes new films from Connecticut filmmakers Kim Mikenis (Hamden) and Manuel Saldana (New Britain), along with a very rare public screening of the 1914 fantasy The Patchwork Girl of Oz, written and produced by L. Frank Baum.

The festival is programmed by Phil Hall, film critic at Cinema Crazed, host of the upcoming podcast The Online Movie Show on SoundCloud, and author of the books The History of Independent Cinema, The Greatest Bad Movies of All Time and In Search of Lost Films.

Best Video Film & Cultural Center is located at 1842 Whitney Ave, Hamden, CT; the telephone number is (203) 287-9286 and the website is www.bestvideo.com.

The festival schedule is as follows:

4:00 pm – Introduction by festival programmer Phil Hall

4:05 pm – Please Punish Me (directed by Chris Esper, Massachusetts). A businessman’s guilt over his seemingly easy success forces him to seek punishment for his “curse.”

4:20 pm – Primitive Technology (directed by Bo Price, California). A group of misfits believe they can make any dream come true by using their imagination and Primitive Technology.

4:35 pm – Glen or the Bride of the Night of the Plan 9 from Outer Space (edited by Jesse Berger, California). The celebrated bad movies of Edward D. Wood Jr. are edited into a new tale of a young man who discovers his father is an evil scientist from outer space.

5:00 pm – Lost and Found (directed by Kim Mikenis, Connecticut). In this experimental narrative short, a paper mache stick and rod puppet is the main character, supported by a cast of plastic puppets.

5:10 pm – The Patchwork Girl of Oz (directed by J. Farrell MacDonald). A very rare screening of the 1914 silent feature, written and produced by L. Frank Baum and based on his beloved Oz stories.

6:30 pm – Intermission

6:45 pm – Behind Closed Doors (directed by Manuel Saldana, Connecticut). A paranoid former soldier who believes the government is responsible for deaths in his family is visited by federal agents.

7: 25 pm – Incarnation Shaped My Life (directed by Andy Lindfield, Great Britain). A documentary on Connecticut’s Incarnation Camp, the oldest co-ed camp in the United States, and the impact it had on those that spent their summers there.

7:55 pm – A Sad Tail (directed by Tyler Sajko, Australia). Two stoners attempt to uncover an Illuminati conspiracy while the housemate just wants the house cleaned.

8:05 pm – She Kills (directed by Ron Bonk, New York). When a young woman’s husband is murdered by a vicious gang called The Touchers, she finds she possesses a strange hidden power to aid her in her quest for revenge.

The New England Underground Film Festival is online at http://newenglanduff.webs.com