This year marks the tenth year for the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival! PUFF weekend is always a treat, featuring truly independent cinema from all around the world, spanning every genre imaginable. Features, shorts, locally shot curiosities, horror, drama, comedy, music videos, and even experimental oddities. There’s something here for everyone, and plenty of new things for the even the most passive cinephile to discover. In the previous decade of programming, PUFF has done incredible work brining unique gems to the big screen, and the 2025 lineup continues the trend of unmissable cinema that you simply won’t find anywhere else.
Projection (dir. Evan Samaras & George Scoufaras)
Somewhere between Mulholland Drive and Synecdoche, New York exists Projection, a clear labor of love from two filmmakers whose love for cinema is proudly displayed on every inch of this moving, richly plotted psychological horror film. This, like a handful of other flicks at this year’s PUFF, was shot on film, marking a trend toward preserving a medium that it seemed only big budget filmmakers had the privilege to fight for. In the case of Projection, it’s not just an aesthetic choice, it’s part of the story.
The film follows Thomas, a film enthusiast who, in the wake of his father’s passing, attempts to exorcise his personal demons by writing a script in which he and his father make a movie together. The metatextual layer of his creation soon begins to bleed into the production, and furthermore into his life and his professional/platonic/romantic relationships. The line between reality and fiction blurs and then disappears under buckets of blood.
This is the type of film that has me returning to PUFF every year; the type of film that feels like it’s exactly the piece of cinema that its creators wanted to make. There’s no meddling from producers, no ego-driven script notes. Just a team of committed artists and artisans coming together to tell the story they want to tell. With all of its surreality and ornate plotting, there’s just no way a story like this would survive a big budget production. Yet here it stands, warts and all, telling a compelling tale of grief and horror in an original way.
Shout out to Nicholas Runfolo and Pamela Carey for giving two of the best and most densely layered performances of the festival.
Mooch (dir. Jeff Ryan)
When it comes to fiercely independent small budget cinema, horror and sci-fi tend to rule the day. So it is with a heaping helping of respect that I offer words of praise to writer/director/star Jeff Ryan for putting his energy toward a high-concept comedy, and quite successfully so. Granted, there is a bit of a genre element here: the narrative thrust of this energetic flick borrows more than a little from film noir, but the name of the game here is laughs, and Mooch is chock full of them.
Ryan plays Shane, a directionless golf caddy on the cusp of turning 30. He’s passionate about music (listening, not playing), and he’s exceedingly skilled at freeloading. He knows how to drink for free, how to eat for free, and can usually manage to talk his way out of trouble if ever his sticky fingers get him into it. When a well-off member of the country club spies Shane pocketing some of his valuables, he makes the lost young man an offer: spy on his soon-to-be-ex-wife and receive a hefty sum of money and forgiveness for his crime. The way he sees it, if Shane is bold enough to steal cash out in the open, there’s not much he won’t do as a freelance private eye.
Shane proves to be a genuinely lovable, albeit pitiable character, as much an audience surrogate as he is a wholly unique creation. He’s easy to root for, even as he makes compounding bad decisions. The laughs come regularly and quickly, and the mystery compels. At no point does the story’s convolutions feel contrived. The dramatic beats land as well, helped considerably by a supporting performance from Katerina Tanenbaum as Shane’s beleaguered girlfriend Leslie.
And as someone who grew up in Jersey, which is to emo what Seattle is to grunge, it was nice to see drunken whine-scream-singing represented so accurately. Stay through the credits for a treat.
Head Like a Hole (dir. Stefan MacDonald-Labelle)
The corporate world has been ripe for satire since its inception, and until recently, Office Space was the high water mark for the form (I am also partial to The Belko Experiment). But then Severance stepped in and tied science-fiction to the absurdity in a way that felt new and exciting. Head Like a Hole (no relation to the NIN song) is another attempt at bringing cosmic weirdness to the workplace, and for the most part it succeeds at delivering multi-level satire, and a handful of PUFF’s biggest WHAT THE FUCK moments.
With his car broken down, his phone shut off, and no financial prospects worth noting, Asher (Steve Kasan) responds to a mysterious job listing that seems too good to be true. The pay is incredible, and the position comes with room and board. The task is simple: observe a small hole in the wall and measure its diameter on the hour every hour. Do not put anything in the hole, do not investigate the hole, just measure it and report of any changes. It’s mind-numbing, but supremely easy, even with the ambiguously moody Emerson (Jeff McDonald) breathing down Asher’s neck.
The satire is pretty straightforward, touching upon themes of corporate compartmentalization, work/life balance, and eventually workplace romance (and issues of sexuality), but even with its wealth of thematic ideas, there was reached a point where the film felt like it was spinning its wheels a bit, and I started wondering if it would perhaps be better served as a short.
BUT THEN THE INSANE FINAL ACT HAPPENS.
Shot in crisp black and white, Head Like a Hole is a showcase of how clever staging and an imaginative concept can transcend budgetary barriers. So many “mystery box” movies shit the bed when they make their big reveal, but Head Like a Hole NAILS it.
