Indiefest is back for 2026, and a team of burlesque beauties will 'Bare to be Stupid’ with Indiefest's West Coast premiere of the ‘Weird Al’-themed burlesque documentary Tight & Nerdy Saturday night.
San Francisco Indiefesst 2026 kicked off Thursday night, with a screening of that documentary on the SF origins of SantaCon. If you missed it, it’s available as video on demand on the Indiefest website. Same goes for tonight’s screening of Bring the Ruckus: The Residents and Wu-Tang Clan playing at The Roxie (6:15), so you’ve got no excuse for missing any of what will surely be a kick-ass 2026 Indiefest (February 5-12).
But there’s a Saturday night screening that really slapped our polka face. You may recall back in early 2023 when an SF-based burlesque group was running a Kickstarter to make a documentary about their ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic-themed burlesque troupe. Welp, they actually raised their $115,000 and made the damned thing, and now the documentary Tight & Nerdy will have its West Coast premiere Saturday night at The Roxie at 8:30 pm.
“Our biggest hurdle was music licensing,” producer Jeff Nucera (producer of MTV’s The Osbournes and Showtime’s Gigolos) tells SFist. “Weird Al and his team were extremely supportive, but Al doesn’t fully control his parodies. So we had to reach out to the original writers of those songs to get permission to use them.”
“But now, we are thrilled beyond belief to be able to hold our West Coast Premiere in San Francisco at the 28th San Francisco Independent Film Festival,” he adds. “Not only did the Tight & Nerdy troupe start many years ago in the SF Bay area at the Hubba Hubba Revue, but our very first shoot for the documentary took place in San Francisco in 2016. Bringing this film back to where it all started is a dream come true.”
There will be some extra live-action treats for the audience Saturday night too. Tight & Nerdy members Odessa Lil, Pickles Kintaro, Mistress Marla Spanx & Pearl E. Gates will be performing some onstage numbers that do not appear in the film. Plus there will be a Q&A with them and the filmmakers after the show.
And yes, of course they have met ‘Weird Al’ and he has seen them perform.
“The ‘core four’ members of the troupe all met Weird Al at different points throughout the years since we formed,” troupe member Odessa Lil tells us. “I snuck in undercover as a 501st [Jedi] member to one of his shows 11 years ago. I got to ‘guard’ him during the signing since I was dressed in a friend's Imperial Guard uniform, and eventually I got to talk to him. I said, ‘I'm in your burlesque troupe!’ and he looked confused for a second, then remembered that he knew about us already.”
“Meeting Weird Al was beyond anything I ever could have imagined, and meeting him with my troupe mates made it all the more meaningful,” she adds. “ He's exactly the kind and attentive guy he seems like he would be. He's a vegan, you know.”
“Al is always so gracious and so wonderful,” says troupe member Pickles Kintaro. “He is just the kindest whenever I see him. He looks at me. He knows he recognizes me. And then I go, ‘Pickles,’ and then he goes, ‘Oh my God, Pickles. How are you?’ and I get a great big Weird Al hug. It's the sweetest thing ever.”
Saturday’s screening is sure to be packed with Hawaiian shirts and maybe even an accordion or two on the premises, and marks the culmination of years of efforts.
“I hope this documentary speaks to folks of all ages and genders,” Odessa Lil adds. “The greatest thing about modern burlesque is its inclusivity and opportunity for creative empowerment. We're weird — and we're middle-aged women who take their clothes off to Weird Al's music. But what we're saying is, you will find your people like we have.”
Tight & Nerdy will play Saturday night, February 7 at 8:30 pm at the Roxie Theater (3117 16th Street) Tickets here
Images courtesy ‘Tight & Nerdy’
