Series

Underground Film Series

The Underground Film Series, curated by IU graduate students, explores the artistic and subversive possibilities of film through the unique vision of noncommercial or otherwise marginalized filmmakers. The series encompasses modes of filmmaking from full-length feature films to documentaries, to short films, to video art.

Underground works to bring unconventional films that are not easily accessible by other means to the attention of the IU and Bloomington communities. By screening avant-garde and experimental films, the Underground Film Series brings audiences to films in danger of being lost or forgotten.

This semester’s Underground Film Series includes iconic works that explore themes of cultural taboo, sexuality, and  spirituality. L’Inferno (1911), based on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy was the first full-length feature film in Italy and the first feature horror film released. The genre-bending indie chamber band Montopolis provides a live score to this dazzlingly bizarre epic. The films of Su Friedrich and Paula Gauthier explore sense and purpose, and explore the alienation felt on the margins of institutions. Finally, the poetic and transgressive films of Charles Henri Ford and Nick Zedd take on sex, myth, and filmmaking as a medium with poetic and sardonic outlooks. 

Thanks to the Underground programming team which includes Justin Bonthuys, Alex Brannan, Pragya Ghosh, Joan Hawkins, Richard Jermain, Ruth Riftin, Anna Stamm, and Ella Todd. 

Curated by Richard Jermain, Pragya Ghosh, and Justin Bonthuys, with support from IU Cinema, The Media School, and Cinema and Media Studies.