The 2019 Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival Returns To New York City
By: Kaitlin Milligan Mar. 07, 2019
The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival, the annual festival that honors legendary novelist Philip K. Dick through the dynamic power of Science fiction film, is returning for its seventh outing with a full schedule of events. The festival screens on Thursday, March 7th in Astoria, Queens and on Saturday, March 9th in Midtown Manhattan.
Following its long history in New York, the festival regards the city as an exemplary location to utilize Science fiction as a means of connecting with audiences. "We have developed a strong following here," said Daniel Abella, the founder and director of the festival. "Our fans have become loyal supporters of our films and platform so we acknowledge their support by bringing back great sci-fi year after year." Features include Saku Sakamoto's ARAGNE: Sign of Vermillion about a young woman's discovery of a mysterious class of insects and the U.S. premiere of Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited, the remastered version of Kent Smith and Tom Huckabee's post-apocalyptic 1983 film starring Bill Paxton. Then, a lone SURVIVOR searches for answers after the human race vanishes in the World Premiere of John Norby's Assimilation. Following its New York engagement, the festival makes its West Coast debut in Los Angeles on Thursday, March 14th and Santa Ana, CA from Friday, March 15th through Sunday, March 17th.
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019:
Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, Astoria, NY 11106)
Block 1: Best of Philip K. Dick Short Films
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Glitch Noir 2 - The RISE of el Pelon (2018)
Director: Cody Healey-Conelly
Run Time/Country: 1 min, USA
Synopsis: A trailer to the sequel of Glitch Noir tells the story of a futuristic private eye who with the help of an A.I. that processes big data, tracks and unhinged killer through the murky neon streets of the Sprawl.
The Last Office (2018)
Director: Trevor Hoover
Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA
Synopsis: In an alternate 1940s, a switchboard operator must endlessly serve as the link between two worlds, connecting calls across the barrier line of life and death. One day, he fields a call from someone he knew in a past life.
Harsh Reality (2018)
Director: Iain Marcks
Run Time/Country: 18 min, USA
Synopsis: A cynical professional gamer's life is turned upside-down when he's forced to see the world in a different way.
Some of Her Parts (2018)
Director: Abie Sidell
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: When future medicine allows people to live past the human body's shelf life, a young woman visits her grandmother in the hospital and is forced to question the value of immortality when you still end up in a box.
How I Got to the Moon by Subway (2018)
Director: Tyler Rabinowitz
Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA
Synopsis: After being diagnosed with ALS, a curmudgeonly older man goes to the hospital with his partner to record his voice bank before he loses the ability to speak.
Regulation (2018)
Director: Ryan Patch
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: In the near future, a young social worker named travels to a small community to administer behavior-modifying 'patches' that guarantee happiness for the wearers. She then must decide what to do when a precocious 10-year-old girl refuses to accept the patch.
To Be Forgotten (2018)
Director: Masa Gibson
Run Time/Country: 25 min, USA
Synopsis: A recovering addict trying to erase the online records of his past transgressions gets a call from a mysterious company that claims it can help him be forgotten - not only by the Internet, but by all the people that ever knew him and by the natural world itself.
The Desert (2018)
Director: Ben Bigelow
Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA
Synopsis: In a suburban mansion, a woman sneaks into her son's virtual reality chamber. Here, he wanders through a desert with extraordinary powers. The machine is intended as a psychiatric treatment, yet Martha's trespass sets in motion a series of threatening events. The virtual reality, it seems, has begun to leak into their home.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Block 2: International Sci-Fi Short Films
Time: 8:00pm - 10:00pm
The Ticket (2018)
Director: James Villeneuve
Run Time/Country: 11 min, Canada
Synopsis: A man's life takes a dark turn when he accepts a ticket to board a giant space craft.
Synthia (2018)
Director: Maria Hinterkoerner, Bernhard Weber
Run Time/Country: 12 min, Austria
Synopsis: In the near future of Vienna, every household is supported by a personal assistant robot called Synthia, built by tech giant ENYO. The robot is equipped with a neuronal network and has access to all electronic devices. Synthia listens, and she learns.
N (2018)
Director: Iacopo Di Girolamo
Run Time/Country: 14 min, Italy
Synopsis: An expressionist nightmare in which an inventor and his colleague test the 'Automaton,' a machine able to create things from nothing. The machine works perfectly as long as the items it is asked to create start with the letter "N" in German. The results of the test will be predictably catastrophic.
I Want To Kill (2017)
Director: Dan Yadin
Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA
Synopsis: An unhinged, psychedelic romp through the bleak depths of space.
Into the Dark (2018)
Director: Benjamin Berger
Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA
Synopsis: In the wake of a widespread viral epidemic, two U.S. soldiers stranded during their mission must FIGHT TO SURVIVE while an old man and his ailing daughter, running low on food, wait to be rescued.
Destroyer of Worlds (2018)
Director: Samual Dawes
Run Time/Country: 44 min, UK
Synopsis: A precocious teenager must reluctantly leave his life in 1954 behind when his father makes the most devastating discovery to date: Leap Theory.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019:
Producers Club (358 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036)
Block 1: Japanese Anime Feature
Time: 11:00am - 12:30pm
ARAGNE: Sign of Vermillion (2018)
Director: Saku Sakamoto
Run Time/Country: 76 min, Japan
Synopsis: Directed by the digital effects producer of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, a college girl moves into a building on the outskirts of town and sees an insect coming out of the arm of a woman. She learns that they are called "Spirit Bugs," and have existed since ancient times. Unravelling the mystery, she discovers this is only the prelude to a new form of terror.
Block 2: International Sci-Fi Short Films
Time: 12:30pm - 3:00pm
The Vault (2018)
Director: Sara Martins
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Canada
Synopsis: In this post-apocalyptic sci-fi web series, a ragtag group of survivors live in an UNDERGROUND military bunker known as Vault 175.
Seedling (2017)
Director: Stevie Russell
Run Time/Country: 13 min, Ireland
Synopsis: A young couple have an encounter with a strange, unknown life form.
Graffiti (2017)
Director: Barcsai Bálint
Run Time/Country: 19 min, Hungary
Synopsis: A delinquent sees graffiti of his future self and tries to understand what is happening.
Compatible (2018)
Director: Pau Bacardit
Run Time/Country: 15 min, Spain
Synopsis: In this web series, a man has an opportunity to upgrade himself for greater electronic compatibility.
Colony (2018)
Director: Catherine Bonny
Run Time/Country: 15 min, Australia
Synopsis: Indentured servants try to establish a new planet but something is alive in the ocean.
Eva (2018)
Director: Xheni Alushi
Run Time/Country: 15 min, Switzerland
Synopsis: An introverted young girl discovers a gateway to a parallel world, in which she finds comfort and ease for her guilt.
Birth (2018)
Director: Andrea Cecconati
Run Time/Country: 16 min, Italy
Synopsis: Inside a waiting room where people choose to be born or be deleted forever, a little girl tries to drive people who have chosen not to exist into the row of birth.
Space Between Stars (2018)
Director: Samuel W. Bradley
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Canada
Synopsis: A group of ethereal creatures exploring a derelict space station are drawn out into the vast, unsettling environment. As their fate begins to crystallize, questions are raised about the nature and ambiguity of conflict.
Space Flower (2018)
Director: Pam Covington
Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA
Synopsis: A young woman longs for a FORBIDDEN love.
From Life (2018)
Director: Uli Meyer
Run Time/Country: 8 min, UK
Synopsis: An amateur artist sketching in a churchyard has a series of encounters with a young woman believed to be a ghost. In fact, the truth is stranger than that.
La Supercafetera (2018)
Director: Vektorjack, HD Carlos
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Spain
Synopsis: Three friends share a very special coffee maker but instead of coffee it produces pin badges which give superpowers to those who wear them. By using these superpowers, the three geeks get involved in a quest that will eventually take them to a post-apocalyptic future.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Block 3: Best of Philip K. Dick Short Films
Time: 3:00pm - 5:00pm
The Last (2018)
Director: Samuel Turner and Andrew Dobson
Run Time/Country: 9 min, UK
Synopsis: Struggling to survive in isolation, a scientist carries out vital work.
The Last Dance (2018)
Director: Chris Keller
Run Time/Country: 8 min, UK
Synopsis: In the not-too-distant future, an old man works alone in his garage, click-click-clicking the hours away on an old desktop computer. He is making something great and the not-too-distant future will become the not-too-distant past.
The Jump (2017)
Director: Andy Sowerby
Run Time/Country: 10 min, UK
Synopsis: An astronaut braves a pioneering solo mission into deep space, leaving behind her loving husband. Through disjointed communications, she discovers her life on Earth has changed forever.
Baby I'm Yours (2017)
Director: Hadley Hillel
Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA
Synopsis: In the future as it was imagined in the 1950s, a boy notices his mother acting strange and begins to question whether or not she is a robot.
Uncle Griot (2018)
Director: Paul Charisse
Run Time/Country: 6 min, UK
Synopsis: A young girl takes her uncle for a walk.
The Drone (2018)
Director: Wojciech Lorenc
Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA
Synopsis: DJ, a small quadcopter is simply trying to fit in.
Zoe (2018)
Director: Leif Brönnle
Run Time/Country: 17 min, Germany
Synopsis: A young woman without identity or memory. Two scientists with great ambition. A sequence of tests that will bring them all to their psychological frontiers.
The Photographer (2018)
Director: Mazhar Kamran
Run Time/Country: 18 min, India
Synopsis: A woman appears to a photographer but sometimes not in his photos.
Faulty Father (2018)
Director: Benjamin Welmond
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: In the near future, a young father's morning routine is put on the fritz when he uncovers his wife's bizarre secret, one that forces him to question his sense of self and his role in the family.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Block 4: Horror and Sci-Fi Short Films
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Headcleaner (2018)
Director: Nick Scott
Run Time/Country: 29 min, UK
Synopsis: A documentary filmmaker follows a working class recluse from Scotland who can control his environment through the power of sound. Over a fractured timeline, viewers witness the struggle to reconcile the recluse, his mastery of sound and a found footage tape of a sonic weapon called The Drone Tape, tested on humans in THE SEVENTIES that will ultimately lead to horrific consequences for the filmmaker's family and the world at large.
Post Mortem Mary (2017)
Director: Joshua Long
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Australia
Synopsis: A girl and her mother run a post mortem photography business in 1840's Australia.
Whistler's Mother (2018)
Director: Robbie Robertson
Run Time/Country: 18 min, USA
Synopsis: The artist James McNeill Whistler spent years trying to capture the essence of his mother for his most famous work of art-not to create a masterpiece but to save his mother from possession by the Baba Yaga, an evil Russian witch.
The Observer Effect (2017)
Director: Garret Walsh
Run Time/Country: 19 min, Ireland
Synopsis: A woman is haunted by a dark watcher, a man obsessed with thoughts of her VICIOUS murder but as the fateful hour draws near bizarre events unfold to reveal truths they could never imagine and a secret that will change their lives forever.
The Cold Dark (2018)
Director: Mikko Löppönen
Run Time/Country: 19 min, Finland
Synopsis: A woman wonders off into the dark to search for medicine for her wounded father. As she rummages a cabin, she stumbles upon two men who grant her cover for the night. But something outside is listening.
Thursday Night Basic (2018)
Director: Mike Hay
Run Time/Country: 5 min, UK
Synopsis: The story of a man who is changed and ultimately transported to another place, maybe even another dimension, due to watching some strange 8mm footage and drinking something even stranger.
Beyond THE WALL of Sleep (2017)
Director: Peter Miller
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Australia
Synopsis: An exploration of sleep, sanity and space via H. P. Lovecraft and The Rules and Regulations of the Insane Asylum of California.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Block 5: Feature Presentation
Time: 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited (2018) - U.S. Premiere
Director: Kent Smith, Tom Huckabee
Run Time/Country: 77 min, USA/UK
Synopsis: In this remastered version of the 1983 film, an American draft dodger in a dystopian future is brainwashed and programmed by militant feminists to assassinate the Welsh minister of prostitution. Lurching unwittingly toward his goal, he makes a series of furtive connections with societal outliers like himself, including a feral child, a gentle prostitute, a sadomasochistic delinquent, a lovelorn androgyne, a hippie dope dealer, and a mute nymphomaniac while fending off predators who would sell him into sex slavery. Eventually, he is forced to focus on his mission and face the dreadful dilemma tormenting his psyche: to kill or not to kill. Starring Bill Paxton (Aliens). Written and directed by Tom Huckabee and Kent Smith. Co-written by William S. Burroughs, whose source material Blade Runner (a movie) provided a basis for the film.
Block 6: Experimental Sci-Fi Feature Presentation
Time: 8:30pm - 10:00pm
Assimilation (2018) - World Premiere
Director: John Norby
Run Time/Country: 79 min, Ireland
Synopsis: In the near future, exponential growth in technology triggers an event that wipes humankind off the face of the Earth. But from where did the grand plan for this event come and who or what is behind it? A lone SURVIVOR searches for answers in her quest to reconnect with life.
Festival Passes:
Passes to screenings can be purchased at www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com.
About The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival:
"The core of my writing is not art but truth." - Philip K. Dick
The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival launched in 2012 as New York City's first and only festival of its kind and honors the enduring legacy of novelist Philip K. Dick, whose enormously effective views composed of fictional universes, virtual realities, technological uprising, dystopian worlds and human mutation served as a significant observation of the current state of contemporary life. Organized by individuals and filmmakers who understand the difficulties and challenges of presenting unique narratives in a CORPORATE environment, the festival embraces original concepts and alternative approaches to storytelling in the form of independent Science fiction, horror, supernatural, fantasy and metaphysical films. Since 2013, the festival has held international gatherings in France, Poland and Germany and in 2019, brings the festival to Los Angeles and Santa Ana, CA.
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