SUFFOCATION: THE KATHERINE BERGER INTERVIEW

Sydney Underground Film Festival (SUFF) co-director Katherine Berger had just launched the 7th edition of the East Coast's most provocative film event when she spoke to SCREEN-SPACE. With the 2013 programme in every storefront along the Harbour City's ultra-arty inner-west district, Berger reveals just how difficult it is to stage a niche film event and how much it means to secure the latest works from such agent provocateurs as Paul Schrader and Alejandro Jodorowsky.

“It’s not that we are a huge festival that gets to travel the world to select films,” says Berger, who has shared duities with co-director Stefan Popescu since SUFF launched in 2007. “So a lot of our time is spent researching and determining which of the current films our patrons are going to be interested in. And Stefan and I certainly pick films that appeal to us, that we find interesting and challenging.”

In 2013, their choices reveal a broadening of what is considered ‘underground’. As the arthouse venues of yesteryear all but disappear and the major chains steer clear of darker, hard-to-market fare, the SUFF schedule fills a void that allows them to program name titles that still have left-field credibility. This year, that includes Rob Zombie’s cult shocker The Lords of Salem, Don Coscarelli’s John Dies at The End with Paul Giamatti and Chase Williamson (pictured, right); and, Sebastian Silva’s Magic Magic, a Sundance hit starring Michael Cera and Juno Temple.

“This year, we probably have more of a cross-section,” acknowledges Berger, pointing out that perhaps SUFF’s biggest coup, the Closing Night Australian premiere of Schrader’s The Canyons, starring Lindsay Lohan and porn-star James Deen, came about through the global network the team has worked hard to establish. “We are friends with the Boston Underground Film festival and we heard about it through them. We had to beat an email path to the film’s producer (Braxton Pope) and plead with him,” she recalls. “We made it clear that if they passed us by then they loose the opportunity for a Sydney festival slot entirely. So I got the producer on side who then helped us get the distributor on side. We have to work really hard to get the bigger titles.”

Berger sings a similar tune about the Opening Night event, which will be the national premiere of Chilean surrealist legend Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first feature in 23 years, the autobiographical study The Dance of Reality. “It was required that I go through the producers in France to get the ok to screen this important work at SUFF,” she says. “We really wanted to focus on our festival as being type of an adventure, of being able to take viewers on a sort of cinematic ride and it was important that we opened with a film that embodied that.”

This year sees a surge in the factual filmmaking component, reflecting a global filmmaking community seeking truth through the medium. “Documentaries have become such a big part of festival programming over the last few years and, as lovers of the format, we think that is a very exciting development,” says Berger. This year, her team has chosen such acclaimed works as Stephen Vittoria’s lengthy account of social activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, Long Distance Revolutionary (pictured, left); Stephen Graves’ heartbreaking physical-horror chronicle, A Body Without Organs; Sophie Huber's atmospheric insight into an iconic man's career, Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction; and, two films that focus on the torturous lives of those obsessed with the male sex organ (ie; men), Brian Spitz’s Unhung Hero and Jonah Bekhor and Zac Math’s The Final Member.

Perhaps most confronting will be a very rare screening of UK director Keith Allen’s Unlawful Killing, the 2011 expose of the final hours of Princess Diana that has been all but shunned by the global film festival community. “We saw it, aware of all the controversy, and were just struck by how sad it would be that this film, because of its content matter, would just go by unseen,” reveals Berger. “And we’d had a lot of interest from people who wanted to see it. It’s probably one of our more ballsy decisions, showing that film. The film offers so much more than just stating over and over that, ‘They killed Diana!’”

If much of this year’s programme sounds a little heavy going, Berger assure us that there will, in fact, be a great deal of fun to be had, especially during the late-night Bad Movie Bingo event, featuring three classic Bad Movies – Troll 2, The Room and Birdemic: Shock and Terror. “Yeah, Stefan thought that would be a good idea,” Berger says with a laugh. “It has always been really important to us that we not only screen films but also encourage the community aspect of watching films and being together. The B-Movie Bingo concept has proved hugely popular overseas and you couldn’t have three movies that are more suited to the concept.”

The Sydney Underground Film Festival runs Thursday September 5 to Sunday September 8 at The Factory Theatre in Marrickville. Further programme and film information as well as ticket sales are available here.