The New York Underground Film Festival

The audience was whimpering. The film, Charles Gatewood's True Blood, was an introduction to "a steamy little minx who loves... slitting her wrists and spreading blood all over her nubile young body," and some viewers were feeling overwhelmed.

Help came from the back of the theater. Addressing the bloodied minx, a voice rang out - "Hey! What are you doing later?" Whimpers turned to laughter, jaws unclenched and held breaths were collectively released. The third annual New York Underground Film Festival was defined by such moments; the difficult nature of some of its works was juxtaposed with a sanguine spirit of comraderie and goodwill.

Those involved with the Festival have reason to be cheerful; attendance has grown year by year. This time around, all evening screenings were sold out, and many afternoon shows were filled to near capacity. The opening feature, Todd Verow's Frisk, scored a double sellout after a second screening was added to meet demand.

Although opened and closed this year by features, the Festival's roots are entwined with documentaries - and this season's crop of docs was notably strong. A few standouts: the flailing, ranting, aching Vietnam Vet turned punk rocker and his wary but loving public in Robert Banks' Can't Get a Piece of Mind!; Justin Schein's portrait of homeless San Francisco teenagers clinging to heroin and childlike hope in Down on Polk Street; Deno Seder's Andy Warhol, a decidedly unfawning look at the late artist's relatives; and Jordan Flaherty's Sweaty Naked Male Flesh, in which dildo-clutching dancers at New York's Pyramid Club and the Roxy chat warmly with the filmmaker between sets.

Compelling shorts strengthened the festival's union of sympathy and surrealism. The call girl in Katrina Pener's Barclay's is faced with a client who wants her to be Heidi - yeah, the one with the braids. Jason Farrell's North Route 1 poses an oft-neglected question: What if your "friends" despise you, and you're just too trusting and downright foolish to realize? (Hint: If they tie you to a car, start wondering.) And Koh Yamamoto's fresh, funny experimental pieces must be noted, in part for their creative use of all things scatological. ("How," one audience member wanted to know, "did he paint the inside of his asshole?")

Surely many worthy films shown here would not, for various reasons, have been welcomed at other festivals. "We're geared towards filmmakers, not film societies," explains Andrew Gurland, Festival co-director. "We just try to put the filmmakers into a situation together and let them take it from there."

And they did. They hungrily absorbed each other's films; during breaks, they could be heard praising the work and inquiring about current projects. That their interest was sincere is evidenced by its post-festival continuance. "It's been great to keep in touch with the filmmakers I met," says Jordan Flaherty. "The festival helped build a sense of community."

And that, explains Gurland, is what it's all about. Beyond celebrations of sex, blood, and/or chaos, beyond the self-mocking program descriptions ("Sacrament, like most films in the Festival, will leave you feeling dirty and violated"), that's what they're after. "It's a lot of work," Gurland sighs. "But it's all worth it if even one filmmaker gets laid."

The Cannes Film Festival by Noah Cowan
Los Angeles Independent Film Festival by Andrew O. Thompson
The New York Underground Film Festival by Pamela Grossman
Festival of New Latin American Cinema by Andrea Elliot
Palm Beach International Film Festival by Peter Steinberg