In the age of streaming services, algorithmic recommendations and revered Top 100 lists, unearthing truly underground films poses a challenge. Films that are indie, archival or created from the margins can be tougher to get your hands on due to licensing rules, digitization costs and limited access to marketing resources.
“Content that’s a little bit more off the beaten path doesn’t always have a traditional release strategy or a method in which audiences are going to be able to find it,” says Brenda Lieberman, the festival director for the Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF). “It takes a while for films to surface after they’ve done a festival circuit. Lots of films we show don’t have distributors, especially in Canada or North America.”
In cases like these, there’s merit in turning to a trusted curatorial voice to provide human-driven recommendations for those hidden, quality films. CUFF is a certified powerhouse of alternative cinema in Calgary, having screened convention-defying films since 2003 across categories like feature, documentary, animation and shorts. Beyond their late April festival, CUFF hosts an adjacent documentary film festival called CUFF.docs in November and “Off the CUFF” screenings throughout the year.
“We pull together a team that spends a ton of time researching and getting to know the film, the filmmakers, the content, and what would be really interesting for our audience to be exposed to,” says Lieberman.
Electric Cinema Club is a new collective that shares in this mission, operating out of Sweet Loretta to create an intimate cinema experience in a non-traditional setting. The organizers Celina Vides and Adam DieselPower, both festival programmers for CIFF, play lesser known independent films in the bar and provide context on the work before the screening.
Contemporary Calgary puts on a monthly film series called Perspective, which asks how independent cinema can be used to dismantle dominant narratives and colonial violence. A handful of other screening organizations in Calgary are also making sure that flicks lurking below the mainstream have their moment on a big, shared screen.
Films by Marginalized Filmmakers
Sometimes, underground film is buried because it tells stories from the margins, and must push back against systemic barriers to be widely seen.
“Film has been a way for marginalized communities to actually do art and be able to put it out to the world,” says Vides, “It is a tool of expression for when the mainstream hasn’t allowed those voices to clearly speak.”
Founded by Morgan Cairns and later passed on to CUFF’s box office coordinator Katie Wackett, A League of Their Own is a monthly screening at the Globe Cinema that showcases films directed by women and gender-diverse filmmakers. For the past six years, they’ve championed greater gender equity in the films gracing Calgary’s theatres and have made space for some boundary pushing programming — in 2023, a screening and Q&A even dug into six short porn films by Erika Lust, a Swedish filmmaker who creates ethically produced and inclusive pornography.
“The types of voices that show up again and again in our programming are perspectives from people on the margins, people who are queer, racialized or equity-seeking in some way,” says Wackett. “There’s a sense of undergroundness to that.”
Under Wackett’s direction, the screenings have rotated their curators to keep fresh perspectives coming in. Earlier this summer, this curation model introduced the Globe to The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019), an indie film created by local filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, who grew up on the Blood Reserve an hour outside of Calgary.
For more film programming spotlighting works by marginalized artists, identity-specific film festivals run throughout the year in Calgary. To name just a few, Oki Coral Film Festival presents Indigenous programming in February, Fairy Tales Queer Art & Film Festival spotlights queer voices in May and the FascinAsian Film Festival explores stories from Asian diasporas in the spring.
Archival and Critical
With seemingly bottomless catalogues available on streaming platforms, The Calgary Cinematheque brings to light films vetted for their artistic and cultural merit, yet buried under algorithmic noise.
“Unless you’re searching for them, you won’t find them,” says executive director Spencer Estabrooks about The Calgary Cinematheque’s film selection. The Cinematheque primarily presents curated film series, with recent themes including cinema of resistance, contemporary world cinema and the 1920s surrealist art movement. A recent gem screened at The Cinematheque was Chess of the Wind (1976), an Iranian film that was suppressed by the government and lost for 35 years until the children of its director discovered copies at a flea market and re-released it.
“We don’t just play works for entertainment,” says Estabrooks. “We play works so when people walk out of the theater, they talk to each other about what they saw.”
You might be thinking: ‘Film is a digital medium, so I could probably find some pretty niche stuff on my laptop, all by myself.’ Sure — but when it comes to finding a title not readily available on streaming platforms nor featured on institutional lists, an intentional curatorial voice goes a long way.
“In the era of streaming or even AI, I think it’s more important than ever to have humans directing taste and shining spotlights,” says Wackett.
Plus, it’s a lot more exciting to unearth underground film in the collective effervescence of an independent theatre or bar than by the cool glow of your handheld device.
Underground film screenings this month
The Last Laugh (1924)
October 8 | The Globe Cinema
Brought to the screen by The Calgary Cinematheque, The Last Laugh is a provocative German silent art film about an elderly doorman who gets canned.
Crawlers (2026)
October 10 | The Globe Cinema
Crawlers new indie horror film with a very squirmy premise: deadly spiders invade an apartment building, sending it into a mandated quarantine and trapping its residents inside. You have Off the CUFF to thank for your goosebumps!
Beauty and the Dogs (2017)
October 18 | Dome Theatre
This month, Contemporary Calgary’s Perspective film series presents Beauty and the Dogs, which tells the story of a young Tunisian woman as she navigates a broken system after being assaulted by police officers.
Mirror Mirror (1990)
October 21 | The Globe Cinema
Presented by A League of Their Own, this indie horror film follows a teenage girl who receives powers through a bloody, ancient mirror under demonic control.
