A new film festival will make its first appearance in the village next month — accompanied not by a red carpet, but by $5 admission and films made far outside the mainstream.
The Ohio Underground Film Fest will debut Saturday, March 28, noon–9 p.m., in Glen Helen’s Vernet Center.
Festival organizer Victor Bonacore — a Yellow Springs resident, filmmaker and general admirer of movies that marry the magnificent and the messy — described the upcoming event as a gathering for movies that don’t fit neatly into the usual festival boxes.
“This is for, like, the real outsiders,” Bonacore said. “These are filmmakers or films that might not be taken seriously by other festivals.”
Bonacore, who is general manager of the Dixie Twin Drive-In, previously worked at Little Art Theatre and curates “Cult Movie Night” at the Neon in Dayton, said he’s been “a maker and a purveyor” of films for years; his own interest in filmmaking began in childhood.
“I’ve been making backyard horror films ever since I was 10, 11 years old, on video cameras, camcorders,” he said.
Bonacore said that growing up on Long Island, New York, he spent school breaks roping in siblings, cousins and parents to make horror movies with whatever was available, and with a heart for the act of play rather than perfection.
“That was the most fun I ever had with anybody, was just making movies,” he said. “Not a care in the world.”
Though Bonacore’s filmmaking career as an adult has dipped a toe into the more traditional — he said his most well-known film is the 2015 documentary “Diary of a Deadbeat,” which follows Dayton filmmaker Jim VanBebber over the course of several years — his work has tended more toward the scrappy than the sacrosanct, with experimental shorts that include the titles “Ice Cream Sunday” and “Triangle.” More recent works include the 2022 feature-length post-apocalyptic girl gang romp “Thrust!” and the forthcoming sci-fi horror “Amityville Aliens,” filmed in part in the defunct Miles Budd Goodman amphitheater at Antioch College.
The March 28 lineup, Bonacore said, will have plenty of works that fit similar descriptions, including blocks of short films, as well as features and special presentations. Bonacore didn’t take submissions for the festival this year — it came together quickly, he said. Instead, he curated the nine-hour event from filmmakers he knows locally and across the region.
“I know enough really talented people in the area that it was easy to gather a lineup,” he said.
Festivalgoers can expect work by filmmaker and Antioch alumna Lola Betz, whose work Bonacore described as “really underground gang films.” Other local filmmakers include Bryce Logan, who wrote and shot the 2023 pulpy slasher thriller “Murder in Black Satin,” and recent Antioch grad Chachee Valentine, whose metier is experimental shorts.
The festival will also include a tribute to the late Dayton filmmaker Andy Kopp, screening his 1998 film “The Mutilation Man,” with permission from Kopp’s family. Another highlight will be the 20th anniversary of “The Wolf Hunter 2,” a bloody spectacle featuring a werewolf turf war in Ohio. Beyond Ohio, the fest will feature “Busted Babies,” by Kentucky filmmaker Casper Melted Hair, whose film Bonacore called “insane and amazing in the best way.”
Bonacore said many of the films in the lineup don’t receive much play outside the realms of those dedicated to following the kinds of outsider artists whose names will fill the festival bill — which is why he aims to give them an audience.
“This is new stuff, weird stuff, or stuff that is just not mainstream at all,” he said.
Several of the films in the lineup — which, at press time, was still being finalized — were shot on VHS decades ago, simply because it was “the most readily available, cheapest way to film,” Bonacore said. Some newer creations were shot in the same way as an aesthetic nod to the format that made filmmaking accessible for generations of broke, ambitious weirdos.
That’s true, too, for Bonacore’s own most recently completed production, “Video Vixen,” which will have its Ohio premiere closing out the film festival. “Video Vixen” was shot and produced in and around what Bonacore called “every inch of Yellow Springs.”
Bonacore said “Video Vixen” was produced very much like the childhood projects on which he cut his teeth: “No script, coming up with it on the fly, getting our friends together, playing dress-up and using household items to make special effects — and it was a blast,” he said.
The film features a cast of locals who play various social media and influencer types who, without spoiling too much, find that their “10 seconds of fame are up,” as the movie’s tagline espouses. Included in the cast are aforementioned filmmaker Lola Betz, Little Art Theatre Manager Caleab Wyant and local hip-hop artist Tron “Tronee Threat” Banks, who Bonacore said plays the “rapping chief of police.”
“It’s not a satire of the town, but Yellow Springs is our backdrop,” Bonacore said. “It’s almost like a character in itself.”
Much of “Video Vixen” was shot using an old Hi8 camcorder — visually similar to VHS — whose battery life, Bonacore said, lasted only about eight minutes at a time. That limitation shaped the way the film was made, as scenes were planned around what could realistically be captured before the battery died.
“You can’t do more than a couple takes,” Bonacore said with a laugh. “You’re in the woods, snow on the ground, shooting a death scene in the snow, but like, battery’s dying, battery’s dying!”
The constraints, he said, allowed the cast and crew to lean into imperfections and work creatively, but quickly. Some scenes were filmed during the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop on Short Street as 2024 turned to 2025, and features actual crowds as unintentional extras. Other scenes were shot in familiar local spaces, including in Kieth’s Alley, apartments above downtown businesses and the Emporium.
“Anytime we needed to ask somebody, ‘Can we shoot here?’ people were always very kind,” he said. “That’s what I like about this town. People are willing to let you try things.”
And that’s how Bonacore hopes folks will approach the Ohio Underground Film Festival: with a willingness to give it a try.
Bonacore said the Vernet Center in Glen Helen — surrounded by wilderness and with a quite literal “underground” feeling — seemed like a perfect space to hold this particular festival. And while the festival embraces fun, low-budget chaos, he was up-front about what “underground” can mean on-screen: Some selections may be subversive or uncomfortable — including horror, gore and nudity — and the festival is for those 18 and older.
“Just know what you’re getting into,” he said. “This stuff can be extreme.”
But he emphasized that he hopes to foster a kind of come-and-go format, with folks free to show up just for the flicks they want to see, or stay for the whole thing. That’s enabled, in part, by the price of admission — $5 — which he said he hopes will make attendance accessible to anyone who’s interested.
“Keeping it dirt cheap is the most important thing,” Bonacore said.
Ultimately, Bonacore said the festival is community-first — “no competition, no best in show,” he said — and he hopes it will be a chance for people who like their movies made on the cheap and for the love of it to find each other in the same room.
For more information, including the forthcoming full programming lineup, go to http://www.instagram.com/ohundergroundfilmfest
75 years ago: 1951
Fels finds snow was radioactive. “Fels Research Institute scientists Monday reported radio activity in snow falling last week in the village of Yellow Springs … but none in the village water supply.”
Antioch Pioneer seed. “A stockholders’ meeting of the Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn company was held Monday morning in President Douglas McGregor’s office at Antioch College. … The Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn company grew out of the Antioch hybrid corn project.”
Boy Scout Week observed by Yellow Springs troop. “Second Class badges were awarded to Jack Stewart, Dick Dillon, Bill Mefford, David DeWine, Douglas Williams and Kingsley Perry.”
Not a Browns fan. “[Yellow Springs resident] State Representative Lowell Fess is reported [to have been] vocal in opposition to a resolution in the Ohio general assembly yesterday which would have commended the Cleveland Browns professional football team. Mr. Fess said he could concur in the praise of some individuals in the resolution, but not of Arthur McBride, Sr. [Browns founder who in 1951 was accused of considerable mafia connections].”
50 years ago: 1976
Dogs in the Glen. “The Glen Helen administration’s drive to get rid of unwanted stray dogs in the Glen netted only two, caught last Wednesday, Glen director Ralph Ramey reports.”
Scouts not frozen. “The local Explorer Post braved five-below-zero weather Saturday night to camp in tents during an expedition to eastern Ohio. Eleven Post members and counselors Don Hollister and Helen Mengelsdorf made the trip. … ‘Everyone survived,’ Don said.”
Anthrax scare. “The possibility that rug yarn imported from Pakistan and sold by Yellow Springs Strings (Kings Yard) could be infected with deadly anthrax spores has brought an abundance of newspaper columns and radio air time to the shop this past week.”
35 years ago: 1991
Water tests. “Recent tests on samples of Village well water show that a contaminant [1, 1-dichloroethane] first found in Village wells in 1989 is still present in one of the wells, but seems to be decreasing in concentration.”
Read-In-Chain. “The Wilberforce alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority will host a Read-In-Chain of African American Literature on Sunday … at Central Chapel AME Church. … The Read-In-Chain is a national event sponsored by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English.”
WYSO. “When WYSO public radio station went on the air 33 years ago, it was a 10-watt station that could barely be heard outside of Yellow Springs, its home base. … Since the beginning, WYSO has functioned as a training ground for Antioch student volunteers. … The station currently employs five full-time staff members, who supervise a corps of 80 volunteers, 20 of whom are Antioch students.”
25 years ago: 2001
Dogs tops in Metro Buckeye league. “With aggressiveness and hustle, the Yellow Springs High School boys basketball team claimed [won!] the Metro Buckeye Conference title, for the third straight year, with a 92-79 win at home on Friday over Miami Valley. The Bulldogs finished 11–1 in the conference and 15–5 overall for the regular season.”
Local filmmaker wins at Sundance Film Festival. “Jim Klein thinks of himself as an ‘independent journalist’ who happens to edit movies. His nose for news and skill in editing movies was recently praised when Scouts Honor, a recent movie Klein edited, shared the Documentary Audience Award and won the Freedom of Expression Award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.”
No smoking? “Children’s Medical Center is offering a five-week smoking cessation program for students at Yellow Springs High School beginning in mid-February. Any student wishing to quit smoking is encouraged to participate.”
10 years agO: 2016
Snow dazzle. “On Feb. 11 at 10:20 a.m. an officer responded to a call that a vehicle that had been swaying erratically as it was driven through town was stopped at Young’s Jersey Dairy. The officer found the driver was an elderly man who said he was OK, but had had a hard time seeing the road due to snow reflection.”
Central Chapel celebrates 150 years. “The church was founded in 1866 by a Xenia pastor named Charley Jones, his son and a group of 13 men and women from Yellow Springs. The group first met at Old Central School House off of what’s now Route 370 [Bryan Park Road].”
Future of food. “The Antioch College Food Committee will present ‘Visions of a Sustainable Food System: Imagining the Future of Food” on … March 4 … in South Gym of the Wellness Center.”
Oh, deer — guess what’s for dinner. “A motorist struck and killed a deer on Xenia Avenue. The officer who responded attended not only to the frazzled driver but also to the unfortunate deer, which was dead upon impact. … Yellow Springs, like many jurisdictions in the state, has a plan for such circumstances: the deer-strike list, a list of people whom police dispatchers call to retrieve the deer.”
Downtown store Tweedle D’s is currently collecting signatures for a statewide referendum effort that aims to overturn some parts of Ohio’s recently passed marijuana and hemp law, which moved through the Legislature last year as Senate Bill 56.
Owner Shane Ayrsman said the store — which sells lower-THC hemp and cannabis products that, before the passage of SB 56, were allowed under Ohio law — began serving as a signing location after referendum advocates reached out.
“We were solicited,” Ayrsman said. “They contacted us; a lot of people in this industry know us and know we’re trying to do the right thing, and we have a huge pass-through, because Yellow Springs is hot in the spotlight. So it doesn’t hurt that we have lots of traffic coming through town.”
Since Tweedle D’s started collecting signatures last week, there’s reportedly been a strong response: Ayrsman said he figures the store has gathered more signatures than any other location in the state so far.
The referendum campaign is backed by the group Ohioans for Cannabis Choice, which aims to repeal Sections 1, 2 and 3 of SB 56. Those sections are at the core of the new law’s changes to state cannabis regulations; included in the sections are updated restrictions on what the state calls “intoxicating hemp” products — what Tweedle D’s sells — and tighter THC and possession rules. The new restrictions go beyond what voters approved in 2023.
According to lawmakers, SB 56 was intended to shore up restrictions around marijuana and intoxicating hemp, with an explicit goal of keeping the products out of the hands of minors. Gov. Mike DeWine signed SB 56 into law Dec. 19, 2025.
As the News reported last fall, Ayrsman and other local hemp retailers were already wading through uncertain waters after DeWine passed an executive order to temporarily ban intoxicating hemp products statewide. A Franklin County judge quickly blocked the order, which kept Tweedle D’s closed for a day. Even that brief closure, Ayrsman said, rattled some local customers.
“It stressed them out,” he said. “A lot of our customers aren’t ‘partiers.’ What we’re doing is just regulating the endocannabinoid system that’s within our body with external cannabinoids that come from this plant.”
Ayrsman said customers often come in seeking relief from sleep problems, stress and anxiety, as well as topical pain and inflammation. In his view, the public’s desire for legal access to cannabis and hemp-derived products was already made clear when Ohio voters approved recreational use via Issue 2 in 2023.
“Ohioans want this,” Ayrsman said.
Supporters of SB 56 have described the law as a way to close what they believe is a loophole that allows intoxicating hemp products — including gummies and vape items — to be sold outside the state’s dispensary system. As the News reported last year, Gov. DeWine cited Ohio Poison Control data showing increased exposures among youth and said intoxicating hemp products are “dangerous” and need to be kept away from children.
But Ayrsman, who said he supports licensing and strict regulations overall, said he believes the law takes too broad an approach and, in the process, penalizes businesses he considers responsible operators.
“There are parts of this bill that I will 100% agree with,” he said. “You need licensing. You need to have permission from the municipality.”
At Tweedle D’s, Ayrsman said, entry is already restricted by age, requiring potential customers to present their IDs at a roped-off entrance, adding that the business aims to avoid packaging and displays that could appeal to children.
“There’s no chance that a kid’s going to get in there and get this stuff from us,” he said.
Ayrsman described the products Tweedle D’s sells as a lower potency option — “a light beer … rather than top shelf liquor,” he said — than the higher-THC products sold in marijuana dispensaries. A previous version of SB 56 would have provided a pathway for shops like Tweedle D’s to receive licensure as a legally distinct hemp dispensary. Ayrsman said that’s a measure he would have supported.
“Because it solves the problem,” he said. “It gets it out of the gas stations, gets it out of smoke shops. You’d have to have a license, and you’d have to maintain that license.”
That provision was removed from the law’s final language, however, and the law is set to go into effect on March 20, 90 days from when it was signed by Gov. DeWine. If referendum advocates collect enough signatures by then, the law’s effects will be stayed until the referendum is voted on in November.
Ayrsman said that, if the law stands, it would severely limit what the store can sell. If intoxicating hemp is pushed into Ohio’s dispensaries, businesses like his would probably need to pivot toward non-intoxicating products, such as CBD and other legally available items.
“You could still do the therapeutic, but not the psychoactive stuff,” Ayrsman said.
But Ayrsman said he doesn’t envision a good, one-to-one replacement for the current business model if the law stands.
“The only plan B would be to scale the store down,” he said, adding that the shift would come with major uncertainty about whether the shop could continue operating.
Tweedle D’s employs seven people, and Ayrsman said it’s likely most of those positions would disappear if the business is forced to downsize.
Hypatia McLellan, who works at Tweedle D’s, said she’s lived in Yellow Springs her whole life and has managed to keep full-time work in town, which she noted isn’t common in what she described as a “bedroom community in a lot of ways.”
“If you choose to live here, you’re usually choosing to commute somewhere else for work,” she said. “So I don’t take it for granted.”
McLellan said she started working at Tweedle D’s after first shopping there, and that it “felt like a naturally great fit.”
“It would be a big bummer if that gets taken away,” she said.
As she’s collected petition signatures in the store over the last several days, McLellan said she’s gotten a good idea of how far folks travel to come to Tweedle D’s.
“Today alone, I’ve probably had people from five counties,” she said.
Tweedle D’s is planning a “final push” for petition signatures during an in-store event Friday, March 13, from 6–9 p.m., McLellan said. The event will feature mocktails, music and petition signing.
“Our goal is collecting as many signatures as possible,” she said.
McLellan said the event will include music from DJ Creepingbear and a collaboration with Chef Van of MAZU, with mocktails and snacks infused with a selection of the store’s THC liquids — products she said the shop “would have to say goodbye to” if the law stands.
The event will be free, open to ages 21 and over, and held at the Tweedle D’s storefront on Xenia Avenue. Attendees must bring ID and be registered Ohio voters to sign the petition.
The Ohio Department of Agriculture has issued a statewide quarantine for the invasive spotted lanternfly, expanding a previous quarantine that targeted 18 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
The spotted lanternfly is an invasive pest of grapes, hops and apples, along with many other species of plants.
Under the quarantine, trees, nursery stock and other such products may not be moved out of the state without a compliance agreement, permit or inspection certificate. The insect is especially a concern for Ohio’s grape and wine industry, which contributes more than $6 billion dollars in economic activity to the state yearly, according to a press release from the ODA.
Businesses that need help certifying shipments of affected products are advised to reach out to the ODA’s Plant Pest Control Section.
The ODA is no longer encouraging the public to report local sightings of the pest. Recommendations on treatment methods for one’s property can be found in the ODA’s “Spotted Lanternfly Management Guide.” An invasive tree known as “tree of heaven” is the primary host for the insect.
A native of Asia, the spotted lanternfly was first detected in the U.S. in Pennsylvania in 2014. It was likely brought in by imported goods. The first confirmation in Ohio was in Mingo Junction in 2020, according to the ODA.
On Saturday, Feb. 28, two acts — Chicago-based guitarist, songwriter and composer Bill MacKay and area experimental percussion duo Neutrals — will take the stage in Herndon Gallery at Antioch College for an avant-garde double bill that promises approaches to sound and structure that, at turns, overlap and diverge.
The News spoke this week with Evan Miller of Dayton-based Neutrals, formed in 2016 by Miller and Andrew Seivert, which will open the show. The duo blends written percussion works with electroacoustic improvisation, drawing from both classical training and underground music scenes, and Miller said the Neutrals looks forward to bringing that sonic tincture of structure and spontaneity to the Herndon.
“Every time we play is a little bit different,” Miller said. “Depending on the room or who’s asked us to play, we might lean more toward chamber music, or something more improvisational — or a little bit of both.”
Neutrals has made a practice of performing established repertoire alongside commissioned works by composers known to the duo. Miller said a number of the composers whose music the duo performs are themselves active improvisers, instrument builders or experimental performers.
“We seem to gravitate toward people who live in both worlds,” Miller said, estimating that more than half of the chamber works Neutrals has performed were pieces commissioned directly for the duo, often beginning as friendships and conversations that eventually turned into formal projects.
“Some of the pieces we’ve played forced us to make sounds we never would have thought of on our own,” Miller said. “And then those sounds get folded back into how we improvise later.”
One work the duo expects to perform on Feb. 28 is “Settle,” by composer Sarah Hennies, a piece built around sustained tones and gradual shifts in volume and resonance via vibraphone.
“It’s really just one chord for about 12 minutes,” Miller said. “But the speed you play it, and how it sounds, depends entirely on the room.”
In that piece, Miller said, the space becomes part of the performance as sound interacts with the dimensions of the room, the surfaces, the reverberation.
“Every space is different,” Miller said. “You start to hear what the room is doing back to you.”
To that point, Neutrals performed “Settle” last year in the former community gathering space on Short Street, where he said the vibraphone’s tones “dissipated in a different way” than they would in a room.
Miller described Herndon Gallery as intimate but “alive,” where subtle changes in intonation or resonance can register more apparently than they might in a more “dry” space. Having performed in spaces as varied as living rooms and basements, traditional stages and dive bars, Miller said Neutrals is accustomed to adjusting the way they play to the space they inhabit.
“We know how to play to the room,” he said. “It won’t feel like we’re under a microscope.”
Though both Neutrals and Bill MacKay move within the avant-garde, their sounds don’t share an immediately apparent surface language, but both, in their own ways, move fluidly between structure and openness. For MacKay, who spoke with the News earlier this month, that’s an ideal lineup.
“I really like when bills are overlapped, maybe, in some ways, but our bags are quite different as well,” he said.
Based in Chicago, MacKay has built a career that balances solo works with a wide range of collaborations. He’s released several solo albums on Drag City Records, most recently “Locust Land.” Alongside his solo releases, he has ongoing collaborative projects in Chicago, including BCMC with organist Cooper Crain of psychedelic drone outfit Cave and Chicago supergroup Black Duck with Douglas McCombs and Charles Rumback.
Still, MacKay said his solo practice has remained a constant, and in recent years, he’s brought vocals back into the mix, which he called a “nice change.”
“To me, it’s all instruments,” he said. “But that’s a particular instrument — the voice — that hits a lot of people in different ways. It’s widened the vocabulary of my solo work.”
By way of example: MacKay’s 2021 EP “Scarf” is a 22-minute guitar track that layers bright, distorted notes over a persistent drone before shifting midway to contemplative tones, then lilting melodic lines that melt into swelling chords and return, resolved, to somewhere near where the piece began. Conversely, 2024’s LP “Locust Land” is a generous mixture of instrumental and lyrical tunes. The album’s tracks flow between rock-and-roll-adjacent jams and singer-songwriter sensibilities, book-ended by brief, diaphanous works that fit neither category.
His listening vocabulary, too, is broad, he said, extending into what he called “two wings” — one that returns to familiar music for comfort, and another that keeps reaching in uncharted directions.
“I’m very thirsty for new sounds,” he said, “whether it’s new or old music, but music that’s new to me … experimental, going in directions that I’m not so familiar with.”
MacKay said he grew up in a “family that had pretty wide listening habits,” and started writing songs very early after picking up guitar. Thus, he said, he never developed a hard mental barrier between composition and improvisation. To his mind, they share a source: A composition, in performance, becomes “the blueprint of a ritual,” while improvisation is “a fresh assembly” of familiar instincts into something new.
“In a way, songs are improvisations that are repeated,” he said. “Generally, I don’t leave a ton of room for all-out free improv [in performances]; usually it’s in the context of a song, or maybe some free things that are more like intros and interludes.”
He also described the work of shaping a live set as its own kind of composition, and something he considers as carefully as he thinks about album sequencing.
“I’ll put a set together in the same way,” he said. “Being kind of a hybridist artist, I always try to think carefully about hitting the different points of this song vocabulary … and think of songs that will cover some ground.”
That instinct toward shape and pacing, he said, sometimes draws him to unconventional rooms and curator-led series. Though he has never played in Yellow Springs, he said he was drawn to the local show through the feel of the season series itself.
“I like to do things that are special,” MacKay said. “Within touring, there’s a range of very standard places you end up playing — it’s just part of the gig. But when a series looks unique and fun to do … that makes all the difference.”
Miller expressed a similar sentiment: that Yellow Springs has room for unique, varied kinds of listening experiences, and venues that can hold them.
“I hope this show continues to reinforce with people in the community that this is a place that is welcoming to these kinds of sounds, and a community that is fostering it,” he said.
Bill MacKay and Neutrals will perform Saturday, Feb. 28, 7–9 p.m., in Herndon Gallery at Antioch College. Parking is available in the lot behind the Wellness Center and Olive Kettering Library, with on-street parking on Livermore Street. An accessible passenger drop-off and pick-up area is available via Morgan Place off Livermore.
Tickets are $20 for general admission and $5 for students, and may be purchased in advance online at http://www.bit.ly/MacKayNeutralsHerndon
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