17th-Annual Chicago Underground Film Festival, Day One: ‘The Wild Hunt’

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CHICAGO – In a summer where even the most mainstream sect of the moviegoing public has begun turning its back on lazy mass-marketed mediocrity, it’s especially refreshing to be faced with the 17th Annual Chicago Underground Film Festival. The edginess, unpredictability, and even sporadic clumsiness of this festival’s offerings sharply contrast with the slick, routine pictures that often pass for “independent” filmmaking these days.

The films at CUFF are always exhilaratingly alive and defiantly uncommercial. This year’s festival offers a typically diverse smorgasbord of independent, experimental and documentary features, including several titles that are already gaining buzz as potential cult classics. Filmmakers and film lovers will unite at The Gene Siskel Film Center during the festival’s week-long run, from June 24th to the 28th, with repeat screenings continuing through July 1st. We’ll be providing coverage of the festival until closing night, so make sure to tune in to Hollywood Chicago for daily breakdowns and highlights.

Kaniehtiio Horn stars in Alexandre Franchi’s The Wild Hunt, the opening night selection for the 17th Annual Chicago Underground Film Festival.
Photo credit: The Silverman Group

Among the many visiting filmmakers this year scheduled to participate in audience discussion is the celebrated avant-garde critic and artist Jonas Mekas, this year’s recipient of the CUFF Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also the subject of director Chuck Workman’s documentary, “Visionaries: Jonas Mekas and the (Mostly) American Avant-Garde,” which will be screening at the festival. Mekas will also attend a retrospective of his work entitled, “Life is Unpredictable.” There’s also six programs of short films that are not to be missed, culminating in a screening of Guy Maddin’s “Night Mayor.” While many local artists are featured this year, Chicago itself provides the setting for “Scrappers,” a documentary about two metal scavengers.

These LARPers take their role-playing very seriously in Alexandre Franchi’s The Wild Hunt. Photo credit: The Silverman Group

On the evening of Thursday June 24th, this year’s CUFF opens with a skull-bashing bang, thanks to the audacious opening night selection, “The Wild Hunt.” This is the feature debut of Alexandre Franchi, who is a director bursting with energy and intensity. His film aims to leave an impression on its audience, and in that regard, it may be too effective for its own good. Festival audiences certainly have responded strongly to the film, which was named best Canadian feature at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. It even garnered the Audience Award for best feature at this year’s Slamdance. But I’ll be surprised if some viewers at CUFF won’t leave this screening feeling shaken and disturbed—and not necessarily in a good way. Nevertheless, “Hunt” is guaranteed to generate the sort of passionate debate that CUFF has thrived on ever since it was founded back in ’93.

Director Alexandre Franchi on the set of The Wild Hunt, which will have its Midwest premiere at CUFF. Photo credit: The Silverman Group

The film starts out seeming like a satire of medieval reenactment games known as LARPS, where young adults suffering from serious arrested development issues escape into the realm of fantasy. Yet the community’s bubble of illusion is broken when an outsider (Ricky Mabe) comes searching for his fickle, infuriating girlfriend (Kaniehtiio Horn). Mabe proves himself here to be a thoroughly engaging actor, and his performance anchors the bulk of the picture, which is well-shot, deftly paced and truly creepy. Franchi does a wonderful job of building dread in scenes that balance precariously on the thin line separating comedy and horror. But despite the film’s measured build-up, its final act is a jarring miscalculation. It is bound to polarize audiences, and may lead some people to think that the director suffers from the same problem as his characters: he simply takes himself too seriously. Yet despite its drawbacks, “Hunt” functions as an exciting opener to one of the city’s most adventurous film festivals.

“The Wild Hunt” screens at 8pm on June 24th, and will include an audience discussion with the film’s co-writer and actor Mark A. Krupa. Following the film will be the CUFF Opening Night Party starting at 10pm at Jerry’s, 1938 W. Division, featuring DJ’s Kent Lambert and Mark Wright.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com matt@hollywoodchicago.com