The Sydney Underground Film Festival (SUFF) returns next month from Thursday, September 8 to Sunday, September 11.

This year’s event will be held Event Cinemas George Street, marking the festival’s first in-person edition since 2019, complete with the launch of a brand-new Festival Hub.

Featuring a full-scale program of compelling feature and documentary films from around the globe, exciting Australian premieres, and a smorgasbord of shorts and live events, SUFF has built up a following from nationwide audiences and filmmakers.

2022 Festival highlights include:

• Opening night film I Love My Dad (International Premiere), inspired by writer, director, and star James Morosini’s true life experience as a hopelessly estranged father (Patton Oswalt) catfishes his son in an attempt to reconnect;

• Bodies Bodies Bodies, a bloody, Gen-Z horror-comedy remixing Clue, Scream, and Mean Girls for the digital age. Starring Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games), Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) and Pete Davidson (Saturday Night Live), this whip-smart smash hit out of SXSW is directed by Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn, working from a story conceived by Cat Person author, Kristen Roupenian.

• Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour’s Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, a mind-bending adventure set in the swampy neon-lit streets of New Orleans. Led by a ferociously bewitching Jeon Jong-seo (Burning), it features Kate Hudson as an exotic dancer and an unusually straight-faced Craig Robinson.

• The NSW premiere of the DIY sci-fi mind-bender, Something in the Dirt, from filmmaking duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, hot on the heels of their Marvel debut directing episodes of Moon Knight and Loki.

• On the Count of Three, a tragicomedy feature film debut from Jerrod Carmichael/

• The world premiere of Pig Killer, directed by Chad Ferrin, one of the most prolific Horror film directors working today. The film stars Jack Busey and Bai Ling.

• A celebration of independent film from around the world, including The Civil Dead (US), and Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick of Myself.

• Music documentaries including I Get Knocked Down, featuring Chumbawamba singer Dunstan Bruce; In the Court of the Crimson King, on cult rock band King Crimson; and Pub: The Movie, about Melbourne ratbag troublemaker and cultural provocateur Fred Negro.

• Special charity event of Ukrainian film Rhino by renown Ukrainian filmmaker (and once a Russian political prisoner), Oleg Sentsov, currently still in Ukraine fighting on the front line/

• SUFF’s selection of eyeball-bursting, finger-twitching and soul inspiring short films: a collection of animation, from the comic to the existential in RE:ANIMATION; expressions of sexuality in all its forms in LOVE/SICK; SUFF’s annual celebration of home-grown shorts from the best emergent Australian talent in HOMEBAKED – AUSSIE SHORTS; engaging real-life narratives in bite-sized pieces in documentary shorts program REALITY BITES; short films designed to have you check the door is locked and that there’s nothing behind the sofa before you watch, in SH!T SCARED; and WTF, a package of confounding curiosities for the cinematically adventurous at heart.

• The return of much-loved filmmaking competition TAKE48 Film Challenge for its fourth year, putting filmmakers’ abilities to the test. TAKE48 takes place for 48 hours from August 19 to 21, with over $10,000 in prizes to be won.