Several years ago, Chicago filmmaker and musician Rusty Nails had an epiphany after the local premiere of his feature film “Acne.” “It showed at the Music Box, it went really well, but I thought, there’s no place for short films,” Nails says.
Emboldened by the success of “Acne,” Nails was determined to create a forum for experimental short films and video works. In 1999, with two collaborators, Trevor Arnholt and Usama Alshabi, Nails launched the Undershorts Film Festival, a self-described “multimedia gypsy circus,” a fusion of film and video art, live performance, puppet shows, interactive programming and alternative bands.
Friday night at the Congress Theatre (2135 N. Milwaukee Ave.), the Undershorts festival stages an impressive revue that includes short films and video works, two electronica bands, three video mixing companies, fiction readings, three fashion designers, performance artists, puppet shows and improvisational theater acts.
The festival is deliberately open-ended, Nails says. “We don’t have any particular guidelines. We are focused on giving people quality,” Nails says.
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The Chicago Undershorts Film Festival presents its newest multimedia program at 8 p.m. Friday at the Congress Theatre, 2135 N. Milwaukee Ave. Doors open at 7 p.m. Presale tickets are available for $7 at Reckless Records stores (1532 N. Milwaukee Ave. and 3157 N. Broadway) and Lauries’ Planet of Sound (4703 N. Lincoln Ave.). Tickets are $10 at the door. Admittance is restricted to people 18 and older. For further information, call 312-272-2211, visit the Web site at www.undershortsfilmfestival.com, or send queries electronically at undershortsfilmfest@yahoo.com.
