The Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival was founded by award-winning Bay Area filmmakers, actors, critics, artists and cinephiles to catch the independent films that fall through the cracks and end up... underground. In 7 years it has evolved into one of the biggest (if not the biggest) underground film festivals in the world by volume, with over 200 official feature and short film selections in 2019.
Although we are “underground,” that has more to do with the “underground” nature of the filmmaking (low budget, independent) than genre. We showcase dramas, comedies, action, adventure, crime, musicals, horror, sci-fi, thrillers, fantasies, mysteries, romances, animation, children’s, religious, lgbt, foreign, documentaries, experimental – basically anything, and it doesn’t have to bizarre or on the fringe, though we definitely delight in those.
We do love our crazy home state with all of its rogue pythons, sequenced hurricanes and face eaters, but we have plenty of slots for films from beyond the Sunshine and from around the world, plus other worlds and worlds that don’t even exist – just as long as it’s interesting and innovative. In addition to many Floridians, New Yorkers, Californians and Canadians, we've had filmmakers attending from as far away as Mexico, Ireland, Poland, England and Japan
Most past attendees declared that the awards ceremony was the highlight, as we played clips of all nominees in each of the 28 categories in televised awards show style, and not just any random clip, but clips highlighting why each film or performance was nominated for that particular category. Yes, a lot of hard work, but more entertaining than most film festival award ceremonies featuring just names of films many audience members didn't see and so was well worth the response. One filmmaker pointed out that it was almost the equivalent of getting an additional showing in front of a sold out large auditorium. We also had winners unable to attend (which were just a handful) send in an acceptance video that we played after announcing them as winners at the ceremony. And there was an Awards Party following the ceremony at a nearby upscale restaurant, among other parties. Please see the TBUFF site for pictures from the awards ceremony/party and nominees/winners.
TBUFF is an all-genre festival and plays both shorts and features, including narratives and documentaries. Film selection is by nature a subjective process so it’s difficult to put a finger on exactly what we’re looking for – it’s just like Potter Stewart said, we’ll know it when we see it.
In 2019, we gave out 28 awards at our Academy-like ceremony , including Best Feature, Best Short, Best Director, Best Documentary, Student Film, Leading and Supporting Actor and Actress, several different genres including comedy, horror and sci-fi/fantasy, technical categories, audience awards for both short and feature, and of course, Best Florida Film.