The 15th edition of the New York Underground Film Festival opens tonight with a film we’ve covered extensively since its Toronto premiere, Suroosh Alvy and Eddy Moretti’s Heavy Metal in Baghdad. The fest runs through April 8, and when it’s over, it’s over: though co-directors Kevin McGarry and Nellie Killian are said to be working on mounting a new event with a similar spirit, the NYUFF as we know it will cease to exist after this run.

Ed Halter ran the festival for ten years, taking it over for co-founder and future Old School director Todd Phillips (yes, seriously). Halter has an obit of sorts at the Village Voice, in which he makes it clear that NYUFF isn’t ending because it has to financially. “It’s a conscious decision: There’s no rent hike to point to, no defunding agency to blame…True to its indie-rock genealogy, the NYUFF has always functioned more like a band than a traditional arts organization…Sometimes, a band just decides to call it quits—and hopes to go out in style, while it’s still got the knack.”

That said, NYUFF may not have worn out its welcome, but––to extend the indie-rock metaphor––this fest ending in 2008 is sort of like Pavement shutting down after Terror Twilight: things haven’t become embarrassing yet, but the enterprise has started to drift somewhat from what its core audience fell in love with. The way Halter describes NYUFF’s glory days, it’s apparent that it’s an event that was pegged to (and helped disseminate) a zeitgeist that may no longer really exist:

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