2020 SYDNEY SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL: PREVIEW

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: The inaugural Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival (SSFFF) has announced a line-up which makes its mission goal very clear. The aim is to debut with a truly international event, with a program that presents Sydney genre fans with 10 features and 41 shorts from 20 countries.

Under the patronage of director Alex Proyas (Dark City; I, Robot; Knowing) and Festival Director Simon Foster, the SSFFF is set to run from November 19 to 21 at the state-of-the-art Actors Centre Australia complex in the inner-west suburb of Leichhardt. The 2020 schedule boasts the World Premiere of four Australian works, notably Mark Toia’s MONSTERS OF MAN (pictured, below). Independently shot in Cambodia and best described as ‘Predator-meets-Robocop’, the fierce action/thriller will open the festival, with fan anticipation high in the wake of its trailer going viral on YouTube.

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE 

Then, on Saturday 21st from 1.00pm, a strand called NORTHERN LIGHTS: QUEENSLAND SCIFI SHOWCASE will feature the first global screenings of Travis Bain’s mini-feature, STARSPAWN: OVERTURE, starring genre icon Vernon Wells (Mad Max 2), and Stephen Osborne’s debut feature, the UFO-themed comedy/thriller, STRANGEVILLE.

The fourth debut will be Richard de Carvalho’s Star Wars fan-fiction actioner, A BLASTER IN THE RIGHT HANDS (trailer, bottom), which will kick-off the AUSTRALIAN SHORT FILM SHOWCASE on Saturday 21st from 10.30am. This homegrown parade of 11 shorts runs the gamut from student pics (Ilana Finocchario’s EXTRA(TERRESTRIAL) and micro-budget indies (Kyle Lacey-Janettzki’s MILK) to cutting edge effects showpieces (Megan Bromberg’s STORAGE) and international festival hits (Adrian Powers’ BROLGA).

The features representing the world of speculative cinema come from Italy (Emanuela Rossi’s DARKNESS); France (Olivier Babinet’s FISH LOVE); Japan (Kousuke Hishinuma’s HIDE & SNIFF); Spain (Juan Gonzalez & Nando Martinez’s THE QUEEN OF THE LIZARDS); and, Russia (Nikita Argunov’s epic fantasy, COMA, the festival’s Closing Night film). 

Also from France is Baptiste Rouveure’s ANONYMOUS ANIMALS (pictured, right), a truly shocking reverse-world look at mankind at the mercy of animals, which will screen as the centrepiece of HORRIFIC FUTURES: SCIFI’S DARKEST VISIONS on Friday November 20 from 9.00pm. Also in this challenging, MA-rated roster is THE HOST (Poland, Dir: Pawel Song No); MIDNIGHT MOVIE: MAGNUM OPUS (Tunisia, Dir: Myriam Khammassi); TRANSFERT (France, Dir: Jonathan Degrelle) and EVENFALL (Australia, Dir: Dean Butler).

A highlight of the first Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival will be the prime Saturday evening session, which has been allocated to two remarkable films from a region rarely represented in genre events. From 6.30pm, the strand SCIENCE FICTION FROM THE MIDDLE EAST will present the psychological thriller THE FABRICATED, the astonishingly assured debut of Iranian brothers Ali and Emad Katmiri, followed by the breathtaking beauty of SCALES, female director Shahad Ameen’s sea-monster/female-empowerment vision, from the U.A.E.

Repping the global short film community will be such acclaimed works as Yuichi Kondo’s RYOKO’S QUBIT SUMMER, an LGBTIQ-themed A.I. romance from Japan that earned Outstanding Film honours at the Berlin Sci-Fi Film Fest; French directors Loris Lamunière and Charles Mercier DAR(k)WIN PROJECT, a mesmerising mock-doc revealing the plastic sea-creatures of the future; U.K. filmmaker Stephen Bookas' lockdown love story, IT'S NOT SAFE OUTSIDE (pictured, top) and, Polish student Dominika Ożarowska’s cerebral thinkpiece SPACE PROBE PASSENGER, a fictional character study of how humans would interpret poetry sent from a free-thinking, deep-space craft.

Women directors are represented by 12 films (23%) in the SSFFF 2020 line-up. In addition to those already mentioned (Shaheed Ammen’s SCALES; Tunisian director Myriam Khammassi’s MAGNUM OPUS; Emanuela Rossi’s DARKNESS, pictured, right), female visions include Canadian Chelsea Jade McEvoy’s PALLIDUS; Spaniards Silvia Conesa’s POLVOTRON 500 and Eva Daoud’s THE LIGHT THIEF; and, American Trish Harnetiaux’s head-scratcher YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND.

FACEBOOK: @SydneyScienceFictionFilmFestival
TWITTER: @SydSciFiFest
INSTAGRAM: @SydSciFiFest
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8CjNbBJl6ymUJC-dsZBl4A/

All ticketing and session information can be found at the event's FilmFreeway page here. The 2020 SYDNEY SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL will run November 19-21 at Actors Centre Australia, Leichhardt.

PREVIEW: 2020 SCIFI FILM FESTIVAL

The organising body of the 8th SciFi Film Festival has held firm to the event dates announced prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite moments of introspection and careful consideration as to the fate of the 2020 festival. Currently set to roll out August 28-31 at the Event Cinemas George Street complex in Sydney, the festival has announced a program of films culled from a record number of submissions and representing science-fiction visionaries from 21 countries.

The 2020 Opening Night honours have been bestowed upon Jeremy LaLonde’s time-travel comedy James vs His Future Self, featuring Jonas Chernick as a young man facing off against a cynical, hard-bitten future version of himself, in the form of a terrific Daniel Stern (Home Alone, 1990; City Slickers, 1991; pictured, top). The darkly funny romp, co-starring Australian actress Cleopatra Coleman, scored the Best SciFi Film at Toronto’s After Dark Film Festival. It will be paired with the World Premiere of the Australian short A Blaster in the Right Hands, a Star Wars fan-fiction film helmed by Richard de Carvallho.

Seven other features will fill out the program, each one an Australian Premiere. In addition to the previously announced Cargo, the moving, funny Hindi-language Indian production from director Arati Kadav, the SciFi Film Festival has scored three titles from the vibrant Canadian film sector - Guarav Seth’s Entangled (pictured, right), a twisted psychological drama in which a Flatliners-like quantum physics experiment turns friends against each other; Eric Schultz’s Minor Premise, starring Sathya Sridharan as the neuroscientist facing off against his own split consciousness; and, in the Closing Night slot, Erin Berry’s M.A.J.I.C., a post-X-Files conspiracy theory deep-dive involving alien abduction and men in black mythology that snared Best Film kudos at this years’ Berlin SciFi Film Festival.

Also slated are the U.S. features To Your Last Death, an ultra-violent animated pic from director Jason Axinn featuring the voices of William Shatner, Morena Baccarin and Ray Wise, and the lo-fi, hi-energy American SciFi, an 80s-inspired teen adventure from director Chris McElroy. The lone Australian feature to have made the cut is Colm O’Murchu’s Tabernacle 101, an afterlife thriller starring David Hov and Mikaela Franco.

The short-film roster boasts a mammoth 36 entrants, spanning 20 countries. Highlights include Japan’s Ryoko’s Qubit Summer, an A.I./LGBTIQ-themed romance from director Yuichi Kondo, a Best Film award winner from the Berlin SciFi Film Festival; from Yemen, Hashim Hashim’s spiritual journey story, A Homeland Bird (pictured, right); Gábor Osváth’s Best Game Ever, a crowdpleaser from Hungary; and, from Bahrain, Eva Daoud’s ‘battle of the genders’ horror pic, The Light Thief.

The shorts will screen both ahead of the feature sessions and under their own strands. On Saturday 27th at 10.30am, eight short films will be presented under ‘Students of SciFi’, including the Australian production Alyssa from teenage filmmaker, Shania Anderson; at 3.30pm, the slightly risque strand ‘Love, Sex and Science Fiction’ will screen MA-rated shorts from nations including The Netherlands (Tommie Geraedts’ Zwart; Gideon van Eeden’s God Glitch), Poland (Pawel Son Ngo’s The Host) and China (Linq Kim’s A.N.N.I.); and, on Sunday 30th at 1.00pm, the ‘Women in SciFi’ strand, supported by Women in Film & Television (WIFT) NSW, will highlight genre works by women filmmakers.

The SCIFI FILM FESTIVAL will be held August 28-30 at Event Cinema George Street. For full program information, visit the festival’s official website or Facebook page.

THE LIST: WATCH THE SKIES - THE FIVE BEST U.F.O. FILMS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN

On July 2, stargazers the world over will squint skyward in celebration of World U.F.O. Day. This annual event acknowledges the exponentially expanding community who believe that the truth is up there; that aerial phenomenon - extraterrestrial, transdimensional or otherwise - exists in our airspace. Such conjecture has given rise to some of the most popular movies of all time, from Close Encounters of The Third Kind (1977) to The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) to Independence Day (1996) to Arrival (2016).

But for every E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), there is a Mac & Me (1988); for every War of The Worlds (2005), there is a Zone Troopers (1985). The U.F.O. subset of the science fiction genre has provided many underseen, underappreciated gems. World U.F.O. Day provides the perfect opportunity to zero-in on five films that explore and celebrate one of mankind’s great conundrums - are we alone…?

The U.F.O. Incident (Dir: Richard A. Colla; stars James Earl Jones, Estelle Parsons, Barnard Hughes; U.S., 1975)
Plot: The alleged UFO abduction of Betty and Barney Hill on September 19, 1961 in the White Mountains of New Hampshire led to shared bouts of crippling anxiety and nightmarish visions for the married couple. They turn to Dr. Benjamin Simon to help piece together the happenings of that night.
Seriously, it’s true: Travis Walton's abduction story was revealed only two weeks after this television movie was broadcast, leading to claims that this film had influenced Walton’s recounting of his own alleged abduction story (filmed as Fire in the Sky, 1993).

Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs (Dir: Justin Gaar; featuring Christo Roppolo, Dennis Deakin, Laurence Cefalu; U.S., 2016)
Plot: Christo Roppolo claims to have been videotaping and communicating with UFOs around Monterey for several years. In 2013, filmmaker Justin Gaar began documenting the man and his experiences. Christo is revealed as a traveling UFO preacher, explaining his encounters to passersby, asking about their own encounters and spreading his gospel of extraterrestrial salvation.
Seriously, it’s true: In a YouTube announcement on June 25, Christo Roppolo introduced to his fans the sequel, The Man Who Sees UFOs, from director Matthew Kalamane. 

L’Arrivo di Wang (Dir: Antonio & Marco Manetti; stars Ennio Fantastichini, Francesca Cuttica, Juliet Esey Joseph and Li Yong; Italy, 2011) English: The Arrival of Wang
Plot: An extraterrestrial has arrived on earth and it is up to bewildered government investigators to find out its motive; in the meantime, the interpreter senses the alien’s mindgames hold a sinister secret.
Seriously, it’s true: Drew some ire for the filmmaker’s decision to have the alien adopt Mandarin as it’s language. Some critics claimed it was a race-based comment on the perceived global domination of Chinese business interests.

Uchûjin Tôkyô ni arawaru (Dir: Kôji Shima; stars Keizô Kawasaki, Toyomi Karita, Bin Yagisawa; Japan, 1956) English: Warning from Space.
Plot: Starfish-like aliens disguised as humans travel to Earth to warn of the imminent collision of a rogue star into our planet. As the megaton projectile rapidly accelerates toward Earth, the aliens and humankind develop a plan to save our world.
Seriously, it’s true: This was the first color tokusatsu film (a live action work that makes heavy use of special effects) produced in Japan. It beat the Toho Studio's science fiction spectacle, The Mysterians (1957) - the first tokusatsu film in widescreen - into theaters by a year.

Treta sled slantzeto (Dir: Gueorgui Stoyanov; stars Itschak Fintzi, Naum Shopov, Nikolay Nikolaev; Bulgaria, 1972) English: Third Planet in the Solar Sytstem
Plot: In prehistoric times, an alien spaceship delivers its crew to Earth to lay the foundation for a new civilization. Through surgical procedures on apes, the aliens program the future spiritual evolution of Earth (Ed: What the....?).
Seriously, it’s true: The Bulgarian film industry’s first ever science-fiction film. Despite its financial failure, director Gueorgui Stoyanov became a hugely respected elder statesmen of the sector; he would earn the position of the Counselor of Culture at the Bulgarian embassy in Washington D.C. and President of the Bulgarian Filmmaker’s Union.

WORLD UFO DAY event calendar can be found here. 

THE DUNE GALLERY

Vanity Fair overnight revealed exclusive first-look images from Denis Villeneuve’s forthcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 science-fiction novel, Dune. The director’s first film since Blade Runner 2049 will unfold in two parts, the first of which is scheduled to premiere December 18. “I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie,” Villeneuve told VF writer Anthony Breznican. “The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.” (All photo credits: Chiabella James)

(Above: Timothée Chalamet, as Paul Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson, as Lady Jessica Atreides)

The French-Canadian director, who co-wrote the script with Jon Spaihts (Prometheus; Doctor Strange; Passengers) and Oscar-winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump; Munich; A Star is Born), shot the film in several countries to capture the landscapes imagined in Herbert's series of books. Exteriors were lensed in Jordan, Norway, Slovakia and the U.A.E., while mammoth studio sets were constructed on the Origo Film Studio lot in Budapest, Hungary.

(Above: Villeneuve, left, on-set with star Javier Bardem, as Stilgar)

Protagonist Paul Atreides is played by Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet, who recalls the sandstone valley locations in remote southern Jordan which served as the otherwordly landscape of the planet Arrakis. “There are these Goliath landscapes, which you may imagine existing on planets in our universe, but not on Earth," the actor told Vanity Fair. "I remember going out of my room at 2 a.m., and it being probably 100 degrees. The shooting temperature was sometimes 120 degrees. They put a cap on it out there; if it gets too hot, you can’t keep working.”

(Above: The House Atreides, Left to Right: Timothée Chalamet, Stephen Mckinley Henderson, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa)

Cast announcements ignited the internet, with the rabid fanbase weighing in on every production development. Alongside Chalamet will be Oscar Isaac as his father, Duke Leto Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother and member of the mystical Bene Gesserit sect. Other cast members include Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Zendaya as Chani, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, David Dastmalchian as Piter De Vries, Chang Chen as Dr. Wellington Yueh, Stellan Skarsgård as the villainous Baron Harkonnen, and Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck.

(Above: Zendaya, as Chani)

In 2017, Villeneuve told Variety that the opportunity to direct an adaptaion of Dune was too good an opportunity to let pass. "Since I was 12 years old, there was a book I read, which is Dune, which is my favorite book," he said. "After Prisoners, the producer [at] Alcon asked me what I would like to do next. I said, ‘Dune, if anyone could get me the rights for Dune’. And I knew it was very difficult to get those rights. I have images that I am haunted by for 35 years."

(Above: Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Liet Kynes)

Though a devotee of Herbert's novel, Villeneuve understood a 2020 adaptation of a 1965 story would need to be made contemporary, regardless of how visionary the source material had been. As Lady Jessica Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson had her part expanded considerably. "She’s a mother, she’s a concubine, she’s a soldier,” says Ferguson. “Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level." Arrakis ecologist Liet Kynes has been gender-swapped entirely, with Sharon Duncan-Brewster playing the part written as a white man. "This human being manages to basically keep the peace amongst many people," says the actress. "Women are very good at that, so why can’t Kynes be a woman? Why shouldn’t Kynes be a woman?"

(Above: Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho)

Key contributors to the production include composer Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk; Interstellar; Crimson Tide); director of photography, Australian Greig Fraser (Lion; Vice; Rogue One; Zero Dark Thirty); editor and longtime Villeneuve collaborator Joe Walker (Arrival; Sicario; 12 Years a Slave); and, production designer Patrice Vermette (Vice; The Mountain Between Us; Cafe de Flore). Crucial to the production are veteran costumers Bob Morgan (Three Kings; The Lord of War; Inceptions) and Jacqueline West (The Revenant; Argo; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), who supervised the construction of the functional desert-wear known as 'stillsuits'.

(Above, from left: Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck; Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides; Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides)

ALL PHOTO CREDITS: CHIABELLA JAMES. First published by Vanity Fair on April 15, 2020.

PROSPECT, REFLECTIONS IN THE DUST EARN TOP SCIFI FILM FEST HONOURS.

The SciFi Film Festival has named Prospect the 2018 Best Film winner at an informal ceremony on the Closing Night of the 4-day event in Sydney. Set for a November 2 launch in the U.S. but still awaiting a distribution deal in Australia, Christopher Caldwell’s and Zeek Earl’s retro-futuristic thriller/coming-of-age drama also earned the Best Actress trophy for star Sophie Thatcher, the teenage actress headlining her first feature.

Jury member Jonathan Ogilvie, who adjudicated alongside fellow filmmakers Julietta Boscolo and Brian Trenchard-Smith on the three-person festival jury, praised Prospect for the homage it paid to the great westerns of Hollywood’s heyday. “[It is] a tense and involving space film that mines the same vein of greed and betrayal that the earthbound The Treasure of Sierra Madre did so many years ago,” he noted, adding, “Sophie Thatcher is terrific in the lead role.” (Pictured, below; Sophie Thatcher in Prospect)

The Best Actor honour was awarded to Australian character actor Robin Queree for his frightening and fierce performance as ‘The Clown’ in Luke Sullivan’s divisive dystopian drama, Reflections in the Dust, opposite Best Actress nominee Sarah Houbolt. “Wow, this is heavy,” said the actor, referring to the weighty crystal trophy but also clearly surprised and moved by the honour. Addressing his young director, 23 year-old Luke Sullivan, Queree declared, “This all belongs to us. Me, you, Sarah, the cast, everybody was fantastic.”   

Hector Valdez’ blackly-funny time-travel romp Peaches led the Best Music/Sound category, with composer Fran Villalba and sound designer David Mantecón set to share the award. The Best Visual Effects honour, one of the most prized categories at an event celebrating the fantastical, went to U.K. filmmaker Daniel Prince for his short Invaders, a delightfully mischievous spin on ‘alien invasion’ mythology that wore its Spielberg-ian influences proudly on its sleeve. (Pictured, below; Robin Queree, in Reflections in the Dust) 

Tasked with choosing two standouts from the vast short film line-up at the festival, jury members singled out Lebanese filmmaker Fadi Baki Fdz’s steampunk-influenced automaton fable Manivelle: The Last Days of The Man of Tomorrow for the Best International Short. Young Victorian filmmakers Shane Gardam and Xavier Brydges took Best Australian Short for Westall, a recounting of this country’s most well documented yet eternally mysterious UFO encounters. 

In the wake of a particularly strong field of performances by actresses across the 2018 screening schedule, program director Simon Foster created a special Festival Director’s Award for French actress Zoe Garcia for her lead role in Charlotte Cayeux’s short Those Who Can Die. “There were several great acting turns by women in this year’s films, contributions that reflect a strength that has always been central to the best that this genre has to offer,” he said, citing Sarah Houbolt (Reflections in the Dust), Maria Guinea (Peaches) and Kestrel Leah (the short Andromeda) as some of the festival’s other highlights. “Ms Garcia’s performance was one of forceful yet dignified resistance in the face of oppression, which is both timely and timeless,” he said.

The 5^th annual celebration of local and international speculative film fiction entertained an enthusiastic and committed audience sector, despite squally Harbour City thunderstorms that kept the inner-city hordes huddled indoors at key moments on the schedule. The Closing Night feature, a retro-themed screening of 1989’s Miracle Mile, was introduced by director Steve de Jarnatt in a spot pre-recorded especially for the event at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, one of the key locations from the film. (Pictured, above; Zoe Garcia from Those Who Can Die)