The South Carolina Underground Film Festival returns to Columbia Nov. 8.
Back at the Nickelodeon Theater, the festival continues to provide a place to watch indie feature films and shorts from South Carolina and beyond.
The festival, founded by SC filmmaker Tommy Faircloth, presents a mix of genres, including horror, comedy, animation and documentary. For Faircloth, what unites all of these disparate parts is the opportunity to spotlight underseen filmmakers.
“When people hear underground, they think that must mean it’s some kind of crazy, over the top type of movie.” Faircloth said. “The point of underground, originally, when I started the fest, was that it just meant any film that didn’t have an audience somewhere. So it could be a crazy slasher horror movie, or it could be a love story.”
Griffin Davis, an SC native now living in Los Angeles, will screen his debut feature “Counting In,” a mockumentary about a man whose only job is counting in rock songs.
Davis is a part of a sketch comedy group called Probably a Cult. He originally wrote the script for “Counting In” as a seven-page sketch for the group. But over the course of two years, it grew into a full length feature as the actors in the film drew on their improv skills to fill out the world of the story.
“We just kept adding and adding and adding, and then left the interview room and started going out and shooting characters in their element,” Davis told Free Times. “It almost felt like a true documentary process, in a way, even though obviously it’s all fiction, because we were discovering the story as it was going along.”
Screening “Counting In” at SCUFF also has a personal connection for Davis: he used to work at The Nick.
“This is my first feature film that I’ve ever made, and to get to go and show it where I started, where I discovered indie film, and kind of grew with it,” Davis said. “I’m proud to come home and show it.”
In the South Carolina shorts block, another filmmaker has a connection to The Nick.
Artist Yasmin Lee, who’s short film “Girl Talks To God” will premiere at SCUFF, had a marketing internship at the Nickelodeon in 2018. Now, she’s a multidisciplinary artist who wrote, directed and starred in the new short about a young dancer who finds God isn’t who she expected him to be. For Lee, having a film in SCUFF and The Nick is a connection to how she views her identity as a filmmaker.
“I myself don’t totally identify as a Southerner,” she said. “However, I do identify as a Southern filmmaker, because the environment in which Columbia/the Sandhills exist in, that’s the context of where my imagination runs free, because that’s what I grew up looking at.”
Both Lee and Davis said part of what makes a good film festival is the people. Lee said the community SCUFF has built, a group of people who want to celebrate the work that filmmakers are doing and the stories being told without having high budgets or big names, is what drew her to submitting her film.
“With films, it’s easy for us to get caught up in the glitz and the glamor and the high value editing and everything. But sometimes filmmaking is just having access to a camera and having a crew that’s willing to go through that journey with you,” Lee said. “It’s really cool that Underground seems into that real process of filmmaking.”
While a festival can seem intimidating to first-time attendees, Faircloth encourages people to come out anyway. He recommends looking at the festival schedule ahead of time to find the films you don’t want to miss, and taking advantage of the chance to talk to filmmakers and film lovers alike.
“We’re trying to expose people to stuff that you normally wouldn’t watch or consider going to the movies to see. But now it’s here in front of you, so just check it out and see if you like it,” Faircloth said. “It’s really no different than just going to the movies. It’s just you’re going to, you know, 50 movies.”
SCUFF takes place Nov. 8-10 at The Nick on Columbia’s Main Street. A three-day, all-access pass is $50. For more information, including a schedule, visit nickelodeon.org
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