Available for free on Tubi TV
Underground Inc is now available on Tubi TV, which is available in USA, Mexico and Australia.
Click here: https://bit.ly/3CN7Bt8
Wider release for Google Play, Vimeo, Australasia and South Africa
Underground Inc is now available on GOOGLE PLAY in Belize, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden & United Kingdom & USA.
Additional iTunes territories have been added for Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and various iTunes outlets for Africa, the Middle East as well as the American islands.
For all other territories , please check out the film through Vimeo on Demand until further releases are announced.
North American release
We are very excited to announce that we have partnered with North American distributor and sales agents, Vision Films, and ‘Underground Inc: The Rise & Fall of Alternative Rock’ is set for release on the 23rd of March. This release will role out to Canada and the USA, with more territories to follow.
The press release reads:
Vision Films Inc. ("Vision") is set to release the full-length documentary Underground Inc. from filmmaker Shaun Katz. The unprecedented dive into the meteoric rise and fall of the hardcore, underground alternative rock scene of the late 80s to mid-90s will be available on all major cable and VOD platforms and on DVD March 23.
This film is the ultimate look at the uncensored energy of alternative music's revolution, its meteoric rise to mainstream dominance in the wake of Nirvana, and the raw talent of those who made it big, and then lost it all. Discover some of the greatest music that was buried in an era when art and the business collided through firsthand accounts from those who lived it – band members, managers, producers, all accompanied by powerful concert and performance footage. Revealing a never before look at artists, torn between their medium, freedom of expression and the lure of major label money and potential fame. Watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/CwVtbTWPvUc
Featured interviews include: Joey Castillo (Queens of the Stone Age), Sean Yseult (White Zombie), Steve Albini (Record Producer for Nirvana, Pixies, PJ Harvey), Peter Mengede (Helmet), Roy Mayorga (Stone Sour), Todd Huth (Primus), Jamie Miller (Bad Religion), and many more.
Lise Romanoff, CEO and Managing Director of Vision Films shares, "Underground Inc is a fascinating look into a relatively short window of time that made an indelible mark on the music industry. This is more than a music documentary, it is a time capsule about an entire movement of independent spirit and creativity that was lost almost as soon as it was hitting its stride."
Shaun Katz says, "This is a film about so many of the artists who changed my life yet flew under the radar for so many music lovers. It's a story of a thriving and rich underground which was eventually co-opted by corporations and was never the same again. This film was an intensive labour of love which shares so many amazing stories of some amazingly influential artists that are long overdue for more attention. I can't wait to share this incredible story of their journey."
Underground Inc will be available on VOD platforms including Google Play, Vudu, FandangoNow, iTunes, Amazon Instant, Vimeo, Microsoft Xbox, YouTube. U.S. cable providers include: Dish, DirecTV, Comcast, Spectrum, Charter, Cox, Verizon Fios, Frontier, Suddenlink, Mediacom, and more than 200 smaller affiliates.
New Jersey Film Festival - Opening Film
Underground Inc will have it’s North American premiere this weekend at the New Jersey Film Festival. I wish I could be there but as a sign of the times the event will be virtual, so for 24 hours everyone on the planet will be able to check it out - which is quite exciting…..
The head of the festival Al Nigrin recently recorded a Q&A panel via Zoom, with myself, Craig Silverman (Only Living Witness, Agnostic Front) and Matt Tecu (Dig, Rollins Band), who appear in Underground Inc. It’ll be available to those who check out the streaming for the event.
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES!
Official Selection: Perth Revelation Film Festival
The Underground Inc team are super excited to announce that the film will be streaming in July as part of the Perth Revelation Film Festival, through out Australia & New Zealand.
‘Underground Inc’ will be available for 24 hour rental around Australia and New Zealand for 10 days.
Perth Rev Fest have described the film as “Energetic, vibrant, and essential, Underground Inc is an essential music documentary…”
The first wave of films were announced through FilmInk, who were kind enough to mention Underground Inc in the press release, call it “absorbing, enlightening and often hilarious“
The details for 24 hour rentals, between 9th-19th of July can be found here: https://bit.ly/30GW522
We really hope this is an opportunity for music lovers around Australasia to a get sneak preview before release later on this year!
Cheers
Shaun
NFSA official preservation
We’re very excited and proud to announce that Underground Inc has received an official preservation with the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia.
The link for this can be found here: https://bit.ly/2zYFhbM
Late last year the director of Underground Inc travelled to Canberra, where we had a screening in their amazing cinema and had a lengthy Q&A session afterwards with the audience, as part of their summer program. This has been one of the highlights so far of Underground Inc’s journey.
Thank you to Nathan Smith, the Senior Curatorial Officer and everyone at the NFSA for this honour :-)
Returning from Hamburg
The experience last month at the Reeperbahn Festival (Hamburg) and Sydney Underground Film Festival was positively excellent. Especially after being in the edit room for so long, it was an incredible feeling to finally have the film screen at these events. It was amazing to watch the film with an audience finally, both locally and from afar. I had never been to Hamburg before and I loved it - particularly the beautiful town of Lüneberg. Experiencing the film with the Reeperbahn audience was particularly interesting, especially considering how many other events the audience could have occupied themselves with, yet chose to stay and watch the film.
The Sydney audience a few days before was electric and was a dream come true to watch in my home town, and will hopefully be a sign of things to come. Film critic, Anthony O’Connor of FilmInk, who hosted the Q&A afterwards, had this to say about the Sydney screening,
So UNDERGROUND INC., the film I hosted a Q&A for at the Sydney Underground Film Festival last night, is a fantastic exploration of the alternative music scene of the 90s. This thing is a DEEP DIVE into bands I'd completely forgotten about (Cop Shoot Cop!) and others I'd never heard of, but will be listening to today.
Look, I've seen a lot of documentaries at a lot of film festivals, but the atmosphere in the screening of this one was electric. Partially that's due to a baked-in love of the 90s that the audience brought with them, but a larger part comes from a skilful curation of some 90+ hours of footage (!!!) into a more manageable feature length form.
What I'm saying is, if you're even vaguely interested in that fascinating, unique period of music that exploded in the 1990s and died before the decade was through, you should get your eyeballs on UNDERGROUND INC. toot-fuggen-suite.
Thanks to the organisers of both events.
Next stop - London!
FilmInk review!
"...Underground Inc.: The Rise & Fall Of Alternative Rock manages an amazing feat: it tells a story that you probably didn’t know that you needed to hear, but now that you’ve heard it, you’ll never forget it. This is a rock doc of the first, fiery, funny order..."
It's so unbelievably gratifying to read this FilmInk review from such a legendary publication stating with fervor everything that all the people involved in making this, aspired too achieve with the film.
CLICK HERE to read it!
Can't wait for the SUFF/Reeperbahn audience to experience it.
Featured article in Tone Deaf
I recently spoke to Christie Eliezer for Tone Deaf. If you’d like to know more about the making of the film and hear from the director (myself) about how the film all came together, as well as what you can expect from it, then check it out here:
Cheers
Shaun
Reeperbahn here we come!
I’m excited to announce that Underground Inc will be screening at the prestigious Reeperbahn Festival next month. Reeperbahn is one of the biggest music and digital media events in Europe. I will be in attendance doing a Q&A after both screenings…and look forward to reporting back :-)
Details can be found here: https://www.reeperbahnfestival.com/en/festival/underground-inc-the-rise-fall-of-alternative-rock