sf indiefest

Victoria Theater 2/9/2007 7PM

Victoria Theater 2/11/2007 12PM

Roxie Cinema 2/20/2007 9:30PM

IndieFest alumnus Sean Meredith (In Smog and Thunder) returns to the Festival with one of the most interesting films we've seen this year. Dante's Inferno has been around for 700 years, but it's never been interpreted with exquisitely hand-drawn paper puppets in a kind of apocalyptic graphic novel meets Victorian-era toy theater—until now.

Dante’s Inferno is a unique, subversive, darkly satirical update of the original 14th century literary classic. Sporting a hoodie and a hellish hangover, Dante (Dermot Mulroney, last heard at IndieFest in Bill Plympton's “Hair High”) wakes up in a strange part of town. The first guy he sees is the ancient Roman poet Virgil (James Cromwell, “The Queen,” and “The Revenge of the Nerds”), wearing an industrial-strength mullet and a brown bathrobe. With limited options, Dante follows Virgil on a darkly comedic travelogue of the underworld.

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Not surprisingly, Hell is brimming with used car lots, strip malls, gated communities and airport security checks. Hot tubs simmer with sinners, the river Styx is engorged with sewage swimmers. Presidents, popes and pop-culture icons are sentenced to eternal cruel and unusual suffering. Heads are sewn on backwards,; people dance to techno for eternity; bodies are wrenched asunder,; the neverending blowjob sounded like a good idea.... And last, but not least, the insider's perspective on Lucifer himself, from the point of view of a fondue-dunked human appetizer.