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2012 appears to be the year for younger, i.e. under 10 years old, underground fests to blow it wide open and go for broke. This time it’s the 4th annual Oakland Underground Film Festival that is expanding its horizons into a blowout four-day, much more densely packed affair, running on Sept. 27-30 at several different locations.

Expanding on the types of films they screen, this year Oakuff is jammed pack with a wide variety of documentaries, thrillers, a bevy of short films and a special tribute to blaxploitation films hosted by BadAzz MoFo’s David Walker.

The fest opens on the 27th with skateboarding filmmaker Stacy Peralta’s latest, Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, which documents his own involvement with California board culture along with peers like Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen. Following that will be Ya’Ke Smith’s complex drama about the effects of child molestation.

Other documentaries in...

After a woeful two-year hiatus — and actually it had been assumed as a death — the San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival is back from the dead with a vengeance! Once again headed up by the Bay Area’s midnight movie grande dame Peaches Christ, this year’s Sfusff begins at the unholy early hour of 7:30 p.m., so that means tons more fun and outrageousness for the fest this time.

Taking place at the Victoria Theater on April 15, there will be 21 short films, including the centerpiece of the fest: The World Premiere of director xuxE’s Devious, Inc., a musical adventure set in the world of kinky fetish competitions. The film is also not a short film. It’s a feature-length movie that will close the fest at 10:30 p.m. and will be preceded by one of Peaches Christ’s astounding live performances.

In fact, the entire night...