The Denver Underground Film Festival began in 1997 at The Bug theater as a showcase for independent filmmakers from Colorado and beyond. Through the following years DUFF continued its tradition of presenting challenging and fascinating films at other great microcinemas and theaters in Denver, including Camille Bird's Theatre Du Quirque and Richard Sanchez's 1896 Film Gallery, both of which sadly closed down. In 2007 DUFF found a new home at the prestigious Starz Film Center, home of Denver's own International Film Festival and the Denver Film Society. 2008 marks the second edition of DUFF at the Starz Film Center. Other credits for DUFF include a memorable evening in the summer of 1998 with one of the greatest independent filmmakers of all time, Stan Brakhage. With a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts through The Bug Theater, a three day festival titled "Stan Brakhage: A Retrospective" was curated including one film per every decade of Stan's career per evening. Stan attended on the first evening and delighted the audience with anecdotes and technical advice for young independent filmmakers. In many ways Stan is the intellectual and artistic father of the Denver Underground Film Festival. Through his Sunday night film parlors at CU Boulder in the 1990's he managed to gather and inspire a generation of independent filmmakers and film festival organizers that continues the tradition of making and presenting independent films in Colorado and throughout the world, including DUFF Director Eduardo E. Mendez Taylor, The Experimental Film Festival director Chris May and filmmaker Michael Lauter of Clandestcine Films. Stan Brakhage passed away on March 9, 2003. Please take some time to read his biography at![]()