Check Out Seattle’s Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

For the past eight years, Seattle’s EMP—the science fiction and rock and roll museum—has teamed up with the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) to provide a platform for young genre filmmakers. The result is the Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival. The 2013 installment will take place Saturday, January 19th at Seattle’s Cinerama Theater, with an encore presentation Sunday, January 20th, and the SIFF Cinemas Uptown Theater.

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The program is split into two sessions, each of which features 10 short films no longer than 15 minutes in length. Within these films there are two subdivisions: science fiction (defined as futuristic stories, space adventure, technological speculation, social experiments, utopia, and dystopia) and fantasy (sword and sorcery, folklore, urban fantasy, magic, and mythic adventure).

A panel of award-winning writers, filmmakers, and industry insiders judge the entries. There is also an audience award voted on by festival attendees.

SFFSFF is usually a total blast, and if you happen to be in the Emerald City on that particular weekend, it’s definitely worth your time to check out. It gives you an opportunity to get a look at films that you likely won’t see anywhere else, and there’s always a strong mix of solid sci-fi, with just enough weirdness to keep things interesting.

Below are the complete programs for both sessions.

Session One:

  • 88:88: When rendered powerless by an outside force, a young woman must find a way to fight back.
  • Evelyn: Charlie is an old-school technician at one of the last independent suicide firms. He and his apprentice visit a former child-star named Evelyn, a charming recluse with a dark secret.
  • Frankie Rulez!!: A narcissistic space alien attempts to claim a series of planets through the dogged use of flags.
  • Giant Monster Playset: A young boy receives a mysterious package. Upon opening it, he innocently plays with its toy monster contents. Simultaneously a gigantic beast appears, bent on the destruction of the boy’s small town. His older brother discovers their connection and realizes that only he can stop it.
  • The Narrative of Victor Karloch: Victor Karloch receives a journal from a colleague involved in a salvage operation for missing sea freighters in the North Sea. In this journal, Karloch’s friend describes his descent into the abysmal deep with the use of a diving bell, and his encounters with the ghosts of a lost Templar Knights’ ship.
  • OowieWanna: While doing laundry, a misfit seven-year-old girl tumbles into an alluring other-world where she must decide the fate of her birthmark.
  • Small Time: Mankind now has the godlike power of time travel. Unfortunately it’s been discovered by a cocky, young student. When his college professor takes credit for the idea, both men begin using the invention for a small time rivalry.
  • The Wheel: This whimsical, visually imaginative tale concerns a dutiful young man, fated to maintain a large wheel that balances the entire world, and a rebellious sister determined to mischievously tempt that fate.
  • Zing: Day in, day out, Mr. Grimm is busy with his job as The Reaper, harvesting people’s lives. One day, his monotonous existence is interrupted by the doorbell. It’s a little girl. She wants her cat back. Little does she know that she’s the next life on Mr. Grimm’s list.

Session Two:

  • Cats In Space: Space, the final frontier. A feline starship embarks on a mission to boldly go where no cat has gone before.
  • Cheap Extermination: For Ernst, the perfect disguise was to play himself.
  • Foxes: Isolated and alone in a barren suburb, Ellen begins to photograph the foxes that rummage through her garbage, until their spectral shrieking lures her into a twilit, feral world.
  • The Gate: Set five years in the future, The Gate tells the story of the effects of consuming unregulated illegal drugs. Certain redundant gene sequences in human DNA become activated for the first time, leading to rapid mutation and the evolvement of new human creatures.
  • A Lost and Found Box of Human Sensation: Following the death of his father, a young man copes with his grief by journeying through time and space.
  • Lucky Day Forever: Prole 514 dreams about winning the Great Lottery. The lottery winner is transformed and allowed admission into the elite White society, where everyone is beautiful, young, and happy. One day, 514’s wish comes true.
  • Motor Home: In the middle of a scorching hot summer, Yann drives along the Belgian seashore in his motorhome. When he stops to have a rest, Marie, who was sleeping in the passenger seat, goes out to take a couple of pictures. Suddenly, time turns upside down and everything goes haywire.
  • PostHuman: A genius hacker and his dog help an enigmatic young woman free the remaining test subjects from a sinister laboratory.
  • Thumb Snatchers From the Moon Cocoon: A short tempered Texas sheriff uses his cowboy logic to recklessly defeat a race of condescending, cocoon dwelling critters.
  • Tumult: A tribe of Norse warriors traipse across a barren land after battle. Bloodied and wounded, their chief is near death. He is about to hand over power to his son when an army of a completely different kind descends upon them.
  • You, Me and We: You, Me and We is a group therapy session for human clones coping with social anxiety. Topics include: self-awareness, anger management, and what to do when you bump into other versions of yourself.