The Chicago Underground Film Festival pulled in a record 2,904 submissions from 100 countries and territories for its 33rd annual edition this September, ultimately selecting more than 100 films from 22 countries. It's a staggering leap from the roughly 300 submissions the festival received when it launched in 1994, and it signals just how far this scrappy showcase has traveled from its DIY origins on Chicago's alternative film circuit.
The festival, running Wednesday through Sunday this week, opened with the Midwest premiere of a decade-plus restoration project: “Nova '78,” pieced together from the long-lost 16mm archive of filmmaker Howard Brookner. According to the Gene Siskel Film Center, the film documents the 1978 Nova Convention in New York's East Village, where Beat-era figures and avant-garde musicians converged around William S. Burroughs, with footage featuring Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, and Laurie Anderson. As reported by Screen Magazine, directors Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias led that restoration effort.
Closing night, scheduled for Sunday at the Gene Siskel Film Center, brings the world premiere of C.S. Nicholson's documentary “A Stranger Has No Eyes,” which examines colonial history, contested land rights, and Vodun ceremonies through the lens of a descendant of a prominent slave trader in Benin, per the same Screen Magazine account. Nicholson previously showed a short film at CUFF's 30th edition in 2023, giving the closing slot a sense of continuity within the festival's programming.
A Hometown Tribute Draws Sellout Crowds
Not every highlight of this year's slate arrived from overseas. As Axios reports, “Driven” — a 12-minute short written and directed by Max and Gabrielle Fitzpatrick — features the final screen performance of their father, Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick, who died in October 2025 at age 66. WBEZ reported that all three festival screenings of the short sold out, a detail Hoodline covered in its own report on Fitzpatrick's final film role. Fitzpatrick reportedly reviewed a rough cut of the short before he died.
CUFF cofounder Bryan Wendorf told Axios that truly independent, formally adventurous work can still be difficult to see in a theater with an audience, even as filmmaking technology keeps evolving and increasingly accessible tools let creators post work directly to YouTube and other platforms. Wendorf added that creating temporary community may matter more than ever now that so much viewing happens alone at home, according to the same Axios report. He also told the outlet that the very definition of “underground” has grown less clear than it was when he and Jay Bliznick started the festival.
From Logan Square to Two Chicago Stages
The festival now spans two very different corners of the city. Screenings continue downtown at the Gene Siskel Film Center, while the rest of the lineup unfolds at Hyde Park's Harper Theater on the South Side — a base the festival expanded to during its 30th anniversary in 2023, according to Downtown Hyde Park Chicago. Before that shift, primary screenings were held at Logan Square's Logan Theatre. Axios notes this year's edition includes four world premieres — “Nightgame,” “Moth,” “Woolve,” and “A Stranger Has No Eyes” — alongside documentaries, shorts, animation, and narrative features spread across five days.
The festival's roots trace to 1993, when Jay Bliznick, Mark Siska, and Bryan Wendorf founded CUFF as an alternative circuit for experimental works, rebelling against commercial festivals increasingly dominated by Hollywood distributor products, per Wikipedia. That founding spirit remains central to the festival's identity.
Nonprofit Status Anchors the Festival's Finances
Behind the countercultural branding sits a fairly conventional nonprofit structure. CUFF operates as a nonprofit organization.
Last year's 32nd edition opened with Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley's “Room Temperature” and closed with “$POSITIONS,” continuing a pattern of using the opening and closing slots to spotlight high-profile indie work. This year's programming, spanning everything from a New York filmmaker's carpentry drama “The Misconceived” to the archival deep-dive of “Nova '78,” suggests that pattern is holding steady even as the festival's submission numbers keep climbing.
