A program of engaging, real-life narratives in short bite-sized pieces, REALITY BITES presents the year’s very best documentary shorts from all over the world. Visionary and playful in tone, this is a package that offers portraits of incredible creatives, otherworldly locations, and unbelievable adventures, as well as shorts that explore the very boundaries of non-fiction storytelling. Expressing the concept that truth is often so much stranger than fiction, these tales of real-life need to be seen to be believed.

“Abyss” is a chain of 10.000 images found by an Artificial Intelligence and depicts humanity as seen through the eyes of an awakening consciousness

Abyss

While on a trip to Cape May New Jersey in 1971, Jack and Betty survived an accident that not many other humans have...they were hit by a train. Not only did they survive, but their 4-year-old son, infant daughter, and elderly Mother survived the crash as well. 50 years later, they return to the scene of the accident to recount their conflicting memories.

Deerwoods Deathtrap

MARA is a femme revenge body horror for the digital age. This experiment is a short film that studies one of the least recognised yet most versatile performance artists - cam girls; and how their audiences react when something doesn't meet the expectations...to say the least. In the cam world where mutually a hyper-sexualised as well as demure quality of femininity is most valued, MARA explores the female body as breeding ground for artistic expression and liberation for the female psyche versus male fantasies in a hybrid crossection of live cam footage and narrative scenes.

Mara

Radiant Reptilian is an experimental documentary about Tiamat Legion Medusa, a trans-species being that lives in Los Angeles, California. The filmmaker and Tiamat attend a dragon parade, shop at Petco, and eat live bugs together in Griffith park while engaging in dialogue about what it means to become more-than-human.

Radiant Reptilian

What can be seen through the back-up camera on a car? The past and the paths not taken. The future and it’s wild possibilities. This short film examines big life questions while we view a garbage dump through a camera mounted on the rear of a car.

Rear View

Space Lady is a portrait of 71-year-old musician Susan Schneider (aka ‘The Space Lady’) who, after 30 years of homelessness and busking, is beginning to receive notoriety for her early contributions to electronic pop music thanks to its being shared online. Shot on 16mm, the film explores Susan's past as she tells it verbally, but focuses first and foremost on sensory, observational details from her present life in rural Colorado —namely, her struggle to reclaim the music from the pain that encompasses it.

Space Lady

In 1982, the completion of Jim Jarmusch's sophomore film, Stranger Than Paradise, hinged on producer Sara Driver's willingness to smuggle one of the world's rarest and most controversial films across the Atlantic Ocean.

Stranger than Rotterdam with Sara Driver

In 1968, German filmmaker Werner Herzog recorded in the Island of Lanzarote his film ‘Even Dwarfs Started Small’. More than half a century later, a very unusual scientist will try to recover sounds from the past.

Tegoyo

On an abandoned colliery in the Forest of Dean, a rubber engineer explores the sexual potential of junked scrubber-dryers. THE MAN FROM TORMENTOR is about reinvention—of craft, of place, and of fetish—in post-industrial England.

The Man From Tormentor

Filmed entirely through the computer, a fly, at the end of his days, is given a voice.

What I Imagined the dying fly, with the broken leg, was feeling

Reality Bites - Short Docs

Virtual Admission

2020 Sydney Underground Film Festival

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SUFF 2022 ONLINE FESTIVAL PASSES

Explore the program below. Buy on-demand individual tickets below or passes by clicking the top right-hand button. All features are available Australia wide. Everything else is available internationally!

The Sydney Underground Film Festival is back! Celebrating 16 years with a bunch of awesome narrative features, documentaries, and short film sessions!

Here's what's coming up soon. Can't make it? No sweat. Many live streams will be available for on-demand viewing as well.