
Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival

The Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival (LUFF) is a film festival and music festival devoted to underground film and music. It is held each year in Lausanne, Switzerland. The festival is organized by a non-profit organization (APCI – Association pour la Promotion de la Culture Indépendante). The organization's goals are to promote independent artistic projects and creations and to make those projects accessible to a large public. The primary goal of the Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival is to present films and music that largely exist outside the mainstream and profit driven production and distribution circuits. The cinematic section presents mainly films with an experimental character and/or films that challenge the spectator's viewing habits. Films are screened during the day and evening, followed by live music events featuring underground artists at night. Money prizes are awarded by the festival for the films selected in the international competition, in order to support the filmmakers in creating their art. The musical program of the festival proposes sonar experimentations of all kind.
During the four concert nights of the festival week, an average of twenty international and Swiss musicians and groups play in the Salle des Fêtes of the Casino de Montbenon, the neuralgic center of the festival. In 2012 the festival has considerably enlarged its "off" program (a wide artistic offer free of charge, evolving in parallel to the official program) which continues to grow ever since and participates largely to the festive and open character of the event.During the five days of the festival, its activities also expand to local venues such as the rock club Le Romandie, the independent movie theater Le Zinéma, the cultural venue La Datcha, the auditorium of the local music school EJMA as well as the book store and art gallery La Librairie Humus, the art gallery Standard Deluxe, the associative photo&cine laboratory "on fait du l'art !", the independent movie theater Bellevaux and use to work with the café-théâtre le Bourg and the center for contemporary art Arsenic.The annual budget of the festival is of total value about 300.000 Swiss francs (270,000 euros).
History of the festival.
Originally called "Underground Nights", the festival drew its inspiration from the New York Underground Film Festival. Through its initial, formative years, though, the LUFF developed its own unique program. Starting in its first year with a small screening room that could seat only 30 people, the festival managed to gather more than 1,000 spectators in 2000. In 2002, after a one-year hiatus, the festival moved to Lausanne with the support of the Swiss Film Archive, for the first official edition of the "Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival", drawing 4,000 spectators. By 2013, the festival has drawn around 8000 spectators. By programming an international short and feature films competition while still paying homage to great names of the underground like Nick Zedd, John Waters, Lloyd Kaufman, Ian Kerkhof, Kenneth Anger and the Kuchar brothers; and by organizing musical events featuring such artists as Jimi Tenor, Hanin Elias, Techno Animal, Chicks on Speed, Rhys Chatam, Pansonic and Alan Vega, the LUFF programming now stretches beyond the Swiss borders.
Festival Editions.
2016: The Fifteenth Edition.
Will be held from October 19 to 23 2016 in Lausanne.
2015: The Fourteenth Edition.
Held from October 14 to 18 2015, it has attracted around 13'000 spectators during the five days of film screenings and four concert nights. Among the retrospective programs one dedicated to filmmaker Jeff Perkins presented his "Movies for the Blind", a series of intensive recordings of interviews with passengers in his yellow cab from 1995 to 2002.
2014: The Thirteenth Edition.
Was held from 15 to 19 October 2015.
2013: The Twelfth Edition.
The twelfth edition of the festival (October 16 to 20 2013) featured a total of 98 films. Retrospective programs featured works by Japanese surrealist filmmaker Katsu Kanai, French actor-filmmaker Pierre Clémenti, French punk author, musician and filmmaker F. J. Ossang, Russian independent filmmaker Andrey Iskanov, Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk and Belgian filmmaker Marcel Broodthaers as well as a carte blanche program to Jello Biafra. The international film competition included five feature films and 18 short films. The music part included 24 concerts for the total of four concert nights. The program presented sets by artists such as Emptyset, Endon, The Haxan Cloak, Vomir, Kracoon, Sugar Craft, Sajjanu, Jello Biafra, Fen (Far East Network: Otomo Yoshihide, Ryu Hankil, Yuen Chee Wal, Yan Jun), Nate Young, Blackphone666, Aluk Todolo, Jason Lescalleet, JG Thirwell, Bryan Lewis Saunders, Leif Elggren, Jean-François Laporte, Evil Moisture, Smegma, Nicolas Bernier & Martin Messier, Kiko C. Esseiva and DJ Nozinja. A total of 58 artists (musicians and filmmakers) were present during the five days of the festival to present their works.
The twelfth edition of the Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival also proposed a range of workshops, aiming to introduce spectators to new or little known artistic techniques. The five workshops were held by artists such as the South-African group Shangaan Dance, Japanese decoupage artist Kosuke Kawamura, Canadian experimental musician Jean-François Laporte, Japanese noise musician Endon and French musician and artist Andy Bolus.
The program of the festival also included an off part featuring the festival's own radio station (LUFF.FM), expositions and various artistic performances all through the five days of the festival.
2012: The Eleventh Edition.
For the eleventh edition of the festival (October 17–21, 2012) John Waters was invited to present his one Man show "This Filthy World", a vaudeville act that celebrates his film career and obsessional tastes, and to present a retrospective of four of his early films as well as a selection of four of his favorite films. Other retrospectives included works by Austrian filmmaker and writer Christoph Schlingensief, Richard Stanley and Dutch provocateur Edwin Brienen. The international competition included five feature films and 28 short films. 21 musical performances were held during the four concert nights, featuring artists such as Pain Jerk, Brutal Truth, Fat32, rm, Blectum From Blechdom, Kim Gordon, Bill Nace, Maja S. K. Ratkje, Ikue Mori, Greg Pope, Gilles Aubry, Radian, Cellule d'Intervention Metamkine, Kevin Drumm, Thomas Ankersmit, Michael Esposito, Mattin, Zeni Geva, Arcangel Constantini, Yan Jun.
2012: LUFF does TOKYO / FEEDBACK TOKYO.
At the occasion of the tenth edition, the festival held a special anniversary edition in Tokyo, Japan through an exchange program line-up between the festival, the livehouse Super-Deluxe (Tokyo) and the team of dEnOISE events, Uplink Factory and Image Forum Festival. This one time only exchange was held from April 27 to May 4, 2012 and featured movies from Peter Liechti, Emmanuelle de Riedmatten, Stephan E. Hauser among many others. A website in Japanese, English and French was made for the occasion : http://tokyo.luff.ch.
2011: The Tenth Edition.
The tenth edition of the festival was held from October 19 to 23 2011.
2010: The Ninth Edition.
The tenth edition of the festival was held from October 20 to 24 2010.
2009: The Eighth Edition.
This edition was held from October 14 to 18 2009
2008: The Seventh Edition.
Held from October 15 to 19 2008.
2007: The Sixth Edition.
Held from October 10 to 14 in Swiss Film Archive, Arsenic and Zinéma.
2006: The Fifth Edition.
The fifth edition of LUFF (October 11–15, 2006) featured a look at Viennese Actionism, a retrospective on Jonas Mekas, a program titled "sXprmntl" selected by Roland Lethem with films by Thierry Zéno, Philippe Caufriez, Patrice Bauduinet, and Patrick Hella, as well as a series by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Musical events included Genesis P-Orridge, Lydia Lunch, John Duncan, The Haters, Gabi Delgado, Kid 606, Spectre, and more.
2005: The Fourth Edition.
October 12 to 16 2005
2004: The Third Edition.
October 13 to 17 2004
2003 : The Second Edition.
October 8 to 12 2003
2002: The First Edition.
The first edition of the festival was held from June 5 to 9 2002.