About The V.U.F.F.

The Vancouver Underground Film Festival was initiated as a way to draw attention to the Underground image-maker, and to access an audience that might not otherwise take a chance on the kind of screenings the Blinding Light!! Cinema screened the rest of the year. That is: call it a festival, and they will come! The mandate was never to grow and expand, but rather to maintain an intimacy and accessibility at all times, introducing new works and approaches all the while.
VUFF 1
VUFF 1

Nov 19-22, 1998

Our first festival built entirely of local film and video works featuring an opening night live collaborative performance by Talking Pictures and Phosphene, and screenings of the feature film Brewster McGee, and short film and video programs entitled Collage Extremis, Trailblazers, Documenta, Celluloid Chemists, Strange Parcels, live scratch animation with The Light Fantastic, Ralph and Vie De Nuit, plus installations by King Anderson and Marc Curry, as well as a guerrila filmmaking workshop and panel.
VUFF 2

Nov. 11-14, 1999

Our Second Annual VUFF marked an expansion into all of Canada for content, and featured the return of some of last year's strongest media makers as well as a truckload more - Eye of Newt, The Light Fantastic, The Organization Man, loscil, and Ian Birse graced us with outstanding live performances while workshop/panels on digital technology and hand processing along with a return of Marc Curry in installation kept us busy all day. Screenings were categorized as follows: Visual Trauma, Brilliantine Mind's Eye, Surreal Visionaries, Like the Corners of My Mind, and Strange Bedfellows.
VUFF 2
VUFF 3
VUFF 3

Nov. 23-26, 2000

Expanding to include the US of A in our call for submissions, the Third Annual featured performances by LSD 49, Neosphere, the launch of Bubble World, Inc., many guests including Barbara Sternberg, Lilly Rivlin, and Marcus Rogers, with screenings of both features and shorts as follows: Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Performance Anxiety, Tributary, Smack, Like a Dream That Vanishes, The Widower, Gimme a Kiss, Close Encounters, and The Devil Lives in Hollywood. Panels included To Stream or Not to Stream, Slick and Sloppy as well as the Kinetoscope 2000 installation from Radix.
VUFF 4
VUFF 4

Nov. 22-25, 2001

The first VUFF where Festival Director Alex MacKenzie passed on the poster design duties (new blood!), with a stunning illustration by Marc Bell and Amy Lockhart. For no particular reason, but with inspiration from Stephanie Aitken, every program was named after a line from a Who song (the band The Who!). Featured were Tied to That Chair You Won't Go Anywhere, I see the Millions, Her Daddy Gave Her Magic, Break Your Little Heart, The Shock From Isolation, and See Me Feel Me. Also featured were Meesoo Lee's Crushed video launch, Daniel Bitton's The Daddy of Rock N' Roll, Josh Koury's Standing By Yourself, Peggy Anne Berton's Beat Super 8 Soliloquies and plenty more. Installations by Troy Rhoades, Sarah Abbott, and Marie-France Giraudon/Emmanual Avenel screened daily and panels included Freedom Tastes of Reality (full time media making tactics) and Come on the Amazing Journey (ways to travel with your work).
VUFF 5
VUFF 5

Nov. 21-24, 2002

Featuring a smart poster design by Human Five and a miniaturized catalogue, this final VUFF summed up all VUFFs by mixing live performative works, installation, film, video and more, and for the first time stepping outside the black box and into the streets (and the woods) for Random Huge Projections and Artist-Run Limo, as well as the launch of Paul Levine's CD-ROM Raising the Dead. Screenings included Superman Pornographer, On Vacation or In a Coma, Striking Vocal Chords, Live on All Channels, Fuck the Wonder Years, Heartbreaker Dream-maker, Not Well in the Head, Crack Brutal Grief, Mismanaging My Image and Beauty in the Body.