Experimental film will always have a home in New York, but the outlet that brought together hundreds of features, docs, and shorts over the past 14 springs will be no more after the 15th and final New York Underground Film Festival. The opening night features Heavy Metal in Baghdad, which documents the plight of Iraqi heavy-metal band Acrassicauda as it keeps trying to play amid the chaos in that city. The closing-night selection, The Juche Idea, takes a South Korean video artist to North Korea, where he encounters the states official religion and political ideology, Juche. Other highlights include Gary LeGaults East of the Tar Pits, which stars Holly Woodlawn as a housewife on a pilgrimage to Barbra Streisands Malibu ranch (to be introduced by the Voices own Michael Musto), and Super High Me, in which stoner and comedian Doug Benson gets baked for 30 days straight.
April 2-8, 2008