The Slamdance Film Festival Announces Its 2016 Lineup

Can’t get into the Sundance Film Festival? Or perhaps you can but don’t want to see a bunch of sappy indie movies where everyone’s either crying, screaming at each other, or both? Never fear! There’s always the Slamdance Film Festival.

Taking place in Park City, Utah alongside the Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance is all about films that usually fly below the somewhat fancier Sundance’s radar yet deserve just as much attention. The festival has announced this year’s competition lineup, and many of the entries are intriguing to say the least:

NARRATIVE FEATURES PROGRAM

All the Colors of the Night
Director: Pedro Severien; Screenwriter: Luiz Otávio Pereira
(Brazil)
Iris wakes up in her spacious seafront apartment, discovers a body in the living room and enlists the help of other women, setting off a spiral of redemption in an atmospheric drama of dark imagery and questionable reality.
Cast: Sabrina Greve, Sandra Possani, Brenda Ligia, Giovanna Simões, Rômulo Braga

Alvin’s Harmonious World of Opposites

Director & Screenwriter: Platon Theodoris

(Australia/Indonesia) North American Premiere

Agoraphobic Alvin prefers stuffed pandas and online shopping to the aggressive rantings of his neighbor Virginia, until the sludge seeping from his ceiling forces him to search for answers in this offbeat comedy with a tender heart.

Cast: Teik-Kim Pok, Vashti Hughes, Dessy Fitri, Ailis Logan, Nitin Vengurlekar, Tina Andrews, Alicia O’Donnel

Chemical Cut
Director & Screenwriter: Marjorie Conrad
(USA) World Premiere
23-year-old Irene is an artistic misfit turned LA model busy searching for identity, inspiration and a kindred spirit while surrounded by competition, absurdity, and so many nude bras.
Cast: Marjorie Conrad, Ian Coster, Leah Rudick, Michael Lucid, Stephen Saban, Deven Green, Nicolas Coster, Vicki Marlane

Driftwood
Director & Screenwriter: Paul Taylor
(USA) World Premiere
A young woman washes ashore and is claimed and conditioned by an older man in this intricately layered, dialogue-free exploration of familial roles, isolation and captivity.
Cast: Joslyn Jensen, Paul C. Kelly, Michael Fentin

Honey Buddies
Director: Alex Simmons; Screenwriters: Alex Simmons, David Giuntoli, Flula Borg
(USA) World Premiere
Jilted groom David is convinced by his excitable best man Flula to continue with his planned honeymoon, a backcountry trek in the mountains of Oregon, in a highly comedic ode to friendship and the great outdoors.
Cast: David Giuntoli, Flula Borg, Brian T. Finney, Claire Coffee, Jeanne Syquia

Hunky Dory
Director: Michael Curtis Johnson; Screenwriters: Michael Curtis Johnson, Tomas Pais
(USA) World Premiere
After his ex disappears, Sidney, a dive bar drag queen, is forced to look after his 11-year-old son in a tale of unconventional fatherhood, the fear of mediocrity, and the pulsing reality of dreams deferred.
Cast: Tomas Pais, Peter Van Norden, Jeff Newburg, Joy Darash, Edouard Holdener, Nora Rothman, Chad Borden, Chad Hartigan

If There’s A Hell Below
Director: Nathan Williams; Screenwriters: Nathan Williams, Matthew Williams
(USA) World Premiere
In a desolate landscape, an ambitious young journalist in a dusty car meets covertly with a national security whistleblower, and their roving exchange becomes increasingly cloaked in paranoia, tension and escalating threat.
Cast: Conner Marx, Carol Roscoe, Paul Budraitis, Mark Carr

Last Summer
Director: Leonardo Guerra Seragnoli; Screenwriters: Leonardo Guerra Seragnoli, Igort
(Italy) US Premiere
Set on board a luxury yacht in sparkling international waters, this tense and stylish drama captures the four final days a mother is granted with her 6-year-old son to say goodbye after losing a custody battle.
Cast: Rinko Kikuchi, Yorick van Wageningen, Lucy Griffiths, Laura Bach, Daniel Ball, Ken Brady

MAD
Director & Screenwriter: Robert G. Putka
(USA) World Premiere
A matriarch past the point of a nervous breakdown, her two daughters that don’t give a damn, and the heat-seeking missiles of resentment they toss at each other create a lively backdrop for this dark and dramatic comedy.
Cast: Jennifer Lafleur, Maryann Plunkett, Eilis Cahill, Mark Reeb, David Sullivan, Conor Casey, Shaun Weiss, Chris Doubek

Neptune
Director: Derek Kimball; Screenwriters: Derek Kimball, Matthew Konkel
(USA)
Set in the late 1980s on an island off the coast of Maine, an orphan girl raised by the church becomes obsessed by the disappearance of a classmate, and her haunted dreams and visions propel her to push past her sheltered life.
Cast: Jane Ackermann, Tony Reilly, William McDonough III, Christine Louise Marshall, Dylan Chestnutt, Maureen Butler

The Tail Job
Directors & Screenwriters: Bryan Moses, Daniel Millar
(Australia) World Premiere
Nicholas hires a taxi driver to follow his fiancé when he suspects her of cheating in this micro-budget comedy action tale that makes every wrong turn crackle with genuine humor and unexpected insight.
Cast: Blair Dwyer, Craig Anderson, Laura Hughes, Kellie Clarke, Dorje Swallow, Grant Dodwell, Gary Waddell, Ursula Mills

DOCUMENTARY FEATURES PROGRAM

1ha 43a
Director & Screenwriter: Monika Pirch
(Germany) North American Premiere
After inheriting a plot of farming land near Dusseldorf, Monika explores the potential of her field through administrative, historic and poetic methods and manages to reconnect with the land and her ancestry in a beautiful and unexpected way.

Art of the Prank
Director & Screenwriter: Andrea Marini
(USA)
Legendary funny man Joey Skaggs has been pulling Americas chain since 1965. His next hoax? Film festivals.
Cast: Joey Skaggs, Robert Forster, Peter Maloney, Charlie Todd, Richard Johnson, Buck Wolf, Sarah Farrell, Jeff Cohen

Dead Hands Dig Deep
Director: Jai Love; Screenwriters: Jai Love, Spencer Heath
(USA/Australia ) World Premiere
From the isolation of his secluded desert compound Edwin Borsheim, founder of the shock metal band Kettle Cadaver, ruminates on a life of violence, mayhem and personal destruction lived on the absolute edge of the known musical universe.

Fursonas
Director & Screenwriter: Dominic Rodriguez
(USA) World Premiere
Like any community, the Furry world is one with gossipers, dreamers, followers, whistleblowers and the one guy who wants to rule them all.

Los Punks; We Are All We Have
Director: Angela Boatwright; Screenwriter: Christine Triano
(USA) World Premiere
A cobbled-together family of Hispanic youth comprise the thriving backyard punk scene of South Central and East L.A.: bands, fans, and production are interwoven into a sub-culture of thrash, noise and pits.
Cast: Gary Alvarez, Nacho Corrupted, April Desmadre, Jennie Oi, Alex Pedorro, Natalie Rodriguera

The Million Dollar Duck
Director: Brian Golden Davis; Screenwriter: Martin J. Smith
(USA) World Premiere
Artists from different walks of life vie to win the Federal Duck Stamp Contest, the only art competition of its kind sponsored by the U.S. government.
Cast: The Hautman Brothers, Rebekah Nastav, Tim Taylor, Dee Dee Murry, Rob McBroom, Adam Grimm

Myrtle Beach
Directors: Neil Rough, Michael Fuller
(Canada) World Premiere
Myrtle Beach is a disturbingly intimate peek into the lives of the deviants, outcasts and forget-me-nows that inhabit this deformed stepsister of Coney Island.

Peanut Gallery
Director & Screenwriter: Molly Gandour
(USA)
An intimate and unflinching exploration of one family’s tragic loss and their attempt to heal after decades of silence.
Cast: Jackson Gandour, Mary Jane Gandour, Molly Gandour, Aimee Gandour

Out of all these, I’m most intrigued by the documentary selections, particularly Art of the Prank and this goddamn Furry movie, Fursonas.

For those who can make it, the Slamdance Film Festival runs January 22 -28 in Park City, Utah.