This program presents Rolf Belgum’s Driver 23 and The Atlas Moth, two documentary features that trace seven years in the life of Minneapolis musician and delivery driver Dan Cleveland—a man propelled by equal parts compulsion, optimism, and sheer refusal to quit.
Showtimes
Saturday, May 2
7:00pm – Driver 23
8:30pm – The Atlas Moth
8:30pm – Q&A with Rolf Belgum
Ticketing
$14 /General
$10 /Members
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Working far outside the machinery of the music industry, Cleveland pursues a vision of rock stardom that is at once deeply personal and quietly absurd. What emerges is not a rise-and-fall narrative, but something stranger: a portrait of persistence without payoff, invention without recognition, and ambition that exists for its own sake.
Shot on a microbudget and shaped in direct opposition to the polished mythology of the MTV era, these films strip away the illusion of success to reveal the raw, often uncomfortable reality beneath. Homemade contraptions, obsessive routines, fractured collaborations, and moments of unexpected humor become the language through which Cleveland navigates his world.
Taken together, Driver 23 and The Atlas Moth form a singular document of American creative obsession—capturing the uneasy space between belief and delusion, failure and resilience, art and necessity.
Presented in partnership with the Found Footage Festival.
DRIVER 23
Dir. Rolf Belgum | USA | 76 min | Video
A seven-year chronicle of a Minneapolis guitarist/deliveryman chasing an uncompromising vision of heavy metal glory. Fueled by obsessive drive and DIY invention, Cleveland confronts the limits of talent, circumstance, and sanity—emerging as an unlikely emblem of American ambition in its most unfiltered form.
THE ATLAS MOTH
Dir. Rolf Belgum | USA | 72 min | Video
Set against a stark Minnesota winter, Cleveland and his band attempt to record a new album while reckoning with age, instability, and the weight of unfinished dreams. Belgum’s follow-up deepens the portrait—unsentimental, patient, and attuned to the fragile dynamics of collaboration and survival.
Rolf Belgum is a Minneapolis-based filmmaker whose work occupies a space between documentary, narrative, and lived experience. His breakthrough feature Driver 23—shot for just $750—became the lowest-budget film ever acquired by a major network, airing on the Sundance Channel from 2001 to 2003.
His films have been screened internationally and written about in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Art in America, and BOMB Magazine, with translations in Spanish and Polish. In 2000, Belgum was selected as one of five feature filmmakers included in the Whitney Biennial, alongside Errol Morris and Harmony Korine.
Across his work, Belgum is drawn to the tension between human behavior and the natural world, exploring gesture, movement, and environment as inseparable elements of storytelling. His films resist conventional narrative boundaries, instead uncovering moments where fiction, documentary, and the rhythms of everyday life collapse into something more immediate and revealing.
He lives and works in Minneapolis.
CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
Founded in 1993, the Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF) is the longest-running film festival in the world dedicated to independent and experimental cinema. Operated by Chicago Underground NFP Corporation, CUFF presents artist-driven films that exist outside mainstream commercial distribution. CUFF curates an annual multi-day festival along with year-round public screenings, filmmaker talks, and conversations hosted in neighborhood theaters and cultural venues throughout Chicago. Programs emphasize accessibility, thoughtful curation, and direct engagement between filmmakers and audiences. By supporting independent artists and providing affordable access to innovative film work, CUFF contributes to Chicago’s cultural landscape and fosters an engaged community around contemporary cinema.
ABOUT THE FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL
The Found Footage Festival is a celebration of videos that time forgot—unearthed from thrift stores, estate sales, and the dustiest corners of analog culture. Created by Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher, the project has spent decades collecting and curating one of the largest archives of strange, hilarious, and profoundly misguided VHS recordings ever assembled.
Through live performances, touring programs, and their weekly online series VCR Party Live!, Pickett and Prueher recontextualize these accidental artifacts with sharp commentary and obsessive curiosity—transforming discarded media into a communal experience of discovery, comedy, and cultural archaeology.
