A baker’s dozen of recent US (and one Canadian) indie flicks whose collective cool factor couldn’t be higher, Generation DIY is more than a film festival: it’s a test case. What I wanna know is whether mumblecore still counts as a movement if the audience it reflects doesn’t support it. Largely born out of the South by Southwest’s film fest — where many of these movies found a home after being ignored by Sundance (as well as TIFF, which missed the boat entirely) — mumblecore has developed as a blanket term for new features that are often very disparate in style but mostly share an intentionally roughhewn quality, some aesthetic touchstones (Rohmer, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Dogme) and an indie-rock sensibility which may or may not be derived from the onscreen presence of Will Oldham.

The scene’s lack of a breakout hit means that the extent of the phenomenon has been mostly limited to write-ups in film mags and blogs, plus a few special programs like last year’s “The New Talkies” in New York. This touring fest by Toronto distributor Filmswelike finally gets these movies in front of Canadians — Generation DIY launches this weekend (June 19-22) at the Bloor Cinema with many filmmakers in attendance. Among the challenges faced by this endeavour is the marginal interest that twenty- and thirtysomething hipsters display for the act of moviegoing, especially when it comes to marginal fare by their own contemporaries. To paraphrase a song they like by some Swedish dudes, do they care about the young folks talkin’ bout the young style?

They should. The best of Generation DIY exudes enough bakery-freshness to warrant the excitement. If few titles are particularly radical in terms of form or subject matter, together they constitute a paradigm shift for what’s left of the indie scene. As director Aaron Katz says, “This is the first time, mostly because of technology, that someone like me can go out and make a film with no money and no connections.”

Katz’s own efforts are quiet wonders that chart out the delicately negotiated romantic discourse between two sets of young characters. In his 2006 debut Dance Party USA (4 stars; June 21, 4:30pm), a teenage stud in Portland has an attitude adjustment after an encounter with a girl who’s skeptical of his charms. A likeable and low-key variation on Before Sunrise, 2007’s Quiet City (4 stars; June 20, 4:30pm & June 21, 8:30pm) gradually becomes something more than a story of slackers who meet cute in New York. Remarkable for their sincerity, Katz’s films come across as the cinematic analogue of the yearning songsmithery of Sufjan Stevens or Iron & Wine.

Other mumblecore auteurs cast a warier eye on the habits and hang-ups of their brethren, who are typically white, middle-class, university-­educated and heading nowhere in particular. Andrew Bujalski’s Mutual Appreciation (4 stars; June 22, 9:25pm) is a modern-day comedy of manners about a gratingly passive-aggressive musician on a peculiar odyssey in New York. With its deadpan humour, casual grace and sterling 16mm black-and-white cinematography, it already feels like one of the decade’s key American movies.

More biting is LOL (3 stars; June 20, 7pm), a satire whose most cringeworthy moments are worthy of Larry David and Ricky Gervais, two of director Joe Swanberg’s stated influences. Swanberg — who also appears in Quiet City and movies by Bujalski and the Duplass brothers, adding to the mumblecore posse’s incestuous air — plays one of a trio of guys whose addiction to technological doodads keep them from truly experiencing the lives unfolding in front of them. (Swanberg and his regular collaborator Greta Gerwig are also on hand for the Canadian premiere of Nights and Weekends on June 19.)

The fest’s sole homegrown entry, The Death of Indie Rock (3 stars; June 22, 5:15pm), is a fitting addition given that two Vancouver-made indies established many of mumblecore’s favourite tropes at the turn of the decade: Reg Harkema’s A Girl Is a Girl and Blaine Thurier’s low self-esteem girl. Though Rob Fitl’s feature doesn’t match ’em, his story of a Belleville band failing to make it in Montreal is an all-too-authentic portrait of early-twenties aimlessness.

And since that carefully cultivated air of underachievement can become stultifying over the course of watching many like-styled movies, Filmswelike was wise to include two movies that break mumblecore’s mould. An enjoyably hostile debut feature by NYC projectionist Ronald Bronstein, Frownland (4 stars; June 20, 9:15pm) details the worsening misadventures of a hopelessly neurotic coupon salesman. Funny, assaultive and not a little gruelling, Bronstein’s movie is a powerful tonic after so much namby-pamby indie cinema, not that the works of Bujalski and Swanberg are entirely bereft of Frownland’s confrontational spirit.

Weirdest of all is Todd Rohal’s The Guatemalan Handshake (3 stars; June 22, 3:15pm), a colourful stream of sight gags and cryptic jokes that plays like a surrealist mash-up of George Washington and Napoleon Dynamite. And yes, here is where you’ll find Will Oldham, presented in all his shaggy glory as a turtle-obsessed dude whose disappearance sparks a mysterious chain of events. Movies as distinctive as Rohal’s vision of New Weird America have become all too scarce — like Generation DIY’s other highlights, it might find sympathetic young moviegoers willing to bring it out of the margins.

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