The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival Announces Bi-Coastal Event
By: Kaitlin Milligan Feb. 13, 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. For the first time since its inception, the festival will hold a bi-coastal gathering presenting a lineup of films, premieres and panels for audiences in New York City, Los Angeles and Santa Ana, CA. The ambitious endeavor will provide a platform for independent filmmakers who tackle a variety of themes that empower the narratives of Philip K. Dick, whose work continues to serve as a profound mark on the literary and entertainment worlds.
The festival will open in New York City on Thursday, March 7th and Saturday, March 9th. 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.
The west coast edition of the festival will run in partnership with Media Arts Santa Ana (MASA), a non-profit organization that supports its community's cultural empowerment through special resources and initiatives. "We are excited to bring the festival to Santa Ana and allow fans to see some great films," said Victor Payan, the director of MASA who worked with the festival to organize a divine salute to its namesake, a resident of the city in his final years where he wrote several of his last major works. "This will help create discussion about how Santa Ana and Orange County influenced Philip K. Dick's vision and celebrate one of Santa Ana's most treasured and influential artists."
Festivities begin on Thursday, March 14th in Los Angeles with the city serving as a prime destination to bring the festival. "Blade Runner is set in L.A. in 2019," said Abella when referring to the 1982 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? "There is no better honor than by holding the festival in the very city and year depicted in one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time." Screening titles include Matthew Evan Balz's Corvus, which follows a woman's perilous efforts to build a machine capable of hypnosis and the depiction of EXTANT technology in Emily Dean's Andromeda about an android's awakening of human emotions. Closing the night is Josh Gibson's atmospheric Pig Film about a woman's work on a hog farm during the impending end of the world.
The festival then opens in Santa Ana, CA from Friday, March 15th through Sunday, March 17th. Essential films include Unzipping, the cinematic directorial debut of actress and writer Lisa Edelstein about the poignant unfastening of a marriage and Star Trek veteran Walter Koenig's confrontation with fate in Michael Baker's Who is Martin Danzig? Holding its World Premiere is Tony Dean Smith's mind-bending thriller Volition about a clairvoyant man's quest to avoid his own murder and the U.S. and L.A. Premiere of Sarah K. Reimers' Bitten about a dog's rabid night of risk and adventure. Dive Odyssey kicks off a lineup of feverish documentaries as Janne Kasperi Suhonen takes viewers on an absorbing aquatic journey and Colin Ramsay and James Uren decipher what makes "good" artificial intelligence in the dawn of ethics and technology in Good in the Machine.
Observing the 90th anniversary of Philip K. Dick's birth and the 50th anniversary of Blade Runner's origin novel, the two organizations joined forces for the Philip K. Dick Multicultural Dystopian/Sci Fi Short Film Challenge, a short film competition that invited participants to develop projects that analyze contemporary life in view of themes associated with Philip K. Dick. The challenge also evaluated Philip K. Dick's cultural influence on the Santa Ana community and to encourage the representation of multicultural stories by traditionally underrepresented sci-fi filmmakers. "Anyone who has ever felt alienated should look up to PKD," said Abella. "Because the heroes in his stories were everyday people attempting to retain their dignity in a progressively dehumanized world."
The festival's expansion has also furthered its commitment to feature a more inclusive brand of filmmaking with 31 percent of the official selections directed or co-directed by women and minority filmmakers. Many films are seen from the perspectives of racially and gender diverse characters. "There is a new freshness entering the genre," said Abella, who curated an equality-driven showcase of films from the emerging talent strengthening the industry. "Science fiction is based on exploring the 'other' and no one is more qualified than those groups who have been marginalized to tell their story using the tools of sci-fi."
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.
THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019:
Echo Park Film Center (1200 N Alvarado St, Los Angeles, CA 90026)
Block 1: Sci-Fi Short Films
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Corvus (2018)
Director: Matthew Evan Balz
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: A woman builds a machine with hypnotic capabilities.
No Country for Old Lizards (2018)
Director: Emiliano Rago
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: A conspiracy theory fanatic finds out an unpleasant truth.
A Psalm of Sight - Verse 1: Zerfall (2018)
Director: Julian Curi
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA
Synopsis: Gifted with eternal LIFE AFTER drinking from the Holy Grail, a medieval knight spawns an alternate history where technology is God, and man is machine.
Dace Road (2018)
Director: Silk
Run Time/Country: 9 min, France/UK
Synopsis: On a night ride, a female cab driver tries to convince her client he is in a coma and that a collision is the only way for him to wake up.
The Golden Record (2018)
Director: Rachel Goldfinger
Run Time/Country: 7 min, USA
Synopsis: An alien crosses her barren planet and stumbles upon a record from Earth. While she is mesmerized by the record's bold, beautiful images, she undergoes a harsh awakening that only her own reality can truly comfort her.
The Well (2018)
Director: Adam Wheeler
Run Time/Country: 19 min, USA
Synopsis: When Ted, a withdrawn bachelor discovers a mysterious book while searching for his recently disappeared mother, he enlists the help of an old high school Science wiz to piece together a confounding puzzle that seems to center around his family home.
The Great 60 Days (2018)
Director: Tae-Woo Kim
Run Time/Country: 9 min, South Korea
Synopsis: A doctor experimenting on fruit flies develops a substance that can dramatically increase activity in brain cells. After a series of failures, one fruit fly finally has a huge reaction when its intellect becomes mutated.
Andromeda (2018)
Director: Emily Dean
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA/Australia
Synopsis: An android who, through her friendship with a little girl, becomes alive.
Void Vision (2018)
Director: Alexander Stewart
Run Time/Country: 8 min, USA
Synopsis: An abstract short in which real and the simulated are equally constructions; a space where doubles, twins, duplicates, re-creations, and copies blend into one another.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Block 2: Feature Presentation
Time: 9:00pm - 10:00pm
Pig Film (2018)
Director: Josh Gibson
Run Time/Country: 60 min, USA
Synopsis: In an empty world, a solitary female mechanically follows the protocols of a factory hog farm. Her labors are sporadically punctuated by musical rhapsodies as she moves toward the impending end. Is it the end of the world, a program malfunction, or the beginning of a film?
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019:
Ebell Club (625 French St, Santa Ana, CA 92701)
Block 1: Philip K. Dick Multicultural Dystopian/Sci Fi Short Film Challenge
Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Winning films to be announced at the screening. Filmmakers will be present for a post-film Q&A.
Block 2: "When Worlds Collide" Short Films
Time: 8:00pm - 9:00pm
Deep Dive (2018)
Director: Mohammad Soleimanifeijani
Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA
Synopsis: A young Persian refugee arrives at the border of Los Angeles and is given a mandatory set of government-issued immigrant transition AR lenses. Shut out of other people's reality she slowly descends into a new form of digital alienation.
Who is Martin Danzig? (2018)
Director: Michael Baker
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: A mysterious old man sits in the park feeding pigeons, ruing the refuse of humanity encroaching on his sanctuary. He then meets his much younger replacement and learns to accept his future - with the fate of all humanity in the balance. Starring Walter Koenig (Star Trek) and Kevin Page (RoboCop).
Precipice (2018)
Director: Sean Young
Run Time/Country: 4 min, Canada
Synopsis: The planet's organics-engineer must decide if we are a species worth salvaging or if eradicating all life on Earth is the answer.
Unzipping (2018)
Director: Lisa Edelstein
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA
Synopsis: A woman feeling unfulfilled discovers a zipper tab under her husband's tongue. Unable to resist, she pulls it and her entire life changes. But when newness turns into the new normal, she is once again unfulfilled and realizes her mistake: the problem has always been her. Starring Lisa Edelstein (House, Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce) in her cinematic directorial debut.
Tomorrow, Shall We All Be Transhumans? (2019)
Director: Benoît Schmid
Run Time/Country: 9 min, Switzerland/France
Synopsis: Jump into a mesmerizing journey into the spirit of the first man who succeeded to digitize his own brain, algorithm his soul, and who injects himself some Holy Transgenic Fluids in order to transcend his flawed flesh.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Block 3: Special Guests
Time: 9:00pm - 10:00pm
A panel of special guests to attend the festival with an announcement made at a later date.
SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2019:
Orange County Museum of Art: OCMA (1661 W Sunflower Ave, Santa Ana, CA 92704)
Block 1: New Frontiers: Documentaries From The Edge
Time: 11:00am - 12:45am
Dive Odyssey (2018)
Director: Janne Kasperi Suhonen
Run Time/Country: 9 min, Finland/Norway
Synopsis: A meditative journey into the depths of water and mind, viewers enter on a journey into crystal clear DARKNESS where the only light ever is man-made.
Weather and Chaos: The Work of Edward N. Lorenz (2018)
Director: Josh Kastorf
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: The first film about Edward N. Lorenz and his role in Chaos Theory produced with the participation and of scientists who worked alongside him. With their help a closer look is taken at what the "butterfly effect" actually meant in the context of Lorenz's work and why it should make all rethink the understanding of the universe.
Nobody Dies in Longyearbyen (2017)
Director: David Freid
Run Time/Country: 9 min, Norway
Synopsis: Permafrost in a northern island of Norway is affecting Global SEED Vault, infectious diseases like anthrax, influenza and global warming.
Good in the Machine (2018)
Director: Colin Ramsay, James Uren
Run Time/Country: 15 min, UK
Synopsis: The question of how to make "good" AI, what it means for a machine to be ethical, and who or what is THE AGENT of the machine.
Every Ghost Has An Orchestra (2017)
Director: Shayna Connelly
Run Time/Country: 7 min, USA
Synopsis: What happens after we die is a universal question explored by paranormal researcher and experimental composer Michael Esposito. He straddles the line between spiritual and material and asks the audience to reflect on our purpose, legacy and what our actions say about who we are.
UnderSee (2018)
Director: Margie Kelk, Lynne Slater
Run Time/Country: 6 min, Canada
Synopsis: Sea creatures with large eyeballs are curious about invasive gray sludge.
Beth's Three O'Clock with Dr. Harlow (2018)
Director: Emma Penaz Eisner
Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA
Synopsis: A woman discloses a recent dream to her analyst. A vivid study of casual brutality and failed empathy, this surrealistic film intermixes stop motion animation with live action sequences.
Musa Malvada (2018)
Director: Liz Tabish
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA
Synopsis: In London 1929, a fortune teller with dark SECRETS of her own visits various clientele throughout the city. As she navigates the tempestuous personalities and shocking visions, she must choose between telling the truth and her own survival.
Extent (2017)
Director: Paul Michael Draper
Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA
Synopsis: Time stands still as two old friends attempt to grapple with a question that defines their very existence. If you could live forever, would you?
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Block 2: Feature Presentation
Time: 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Mechanical Telepathy (2018)
Director: Akiko Igarashi
Run Time/Country: 76 min, Japan
Synopsis: The depiction of love and skepticism through the relationships between researchers who visualize human hearts.
Block 3: International Sci-Fi Short Films
Time: 4:00pm - 5:45pm
I Don't Want To Be Alone (2019)
Director: Sergio Rozas
Run Time/Country: 19 min, Spain/Japan
Synopsis: A lonely girl walks around a future Tokyo chased by weird huge monsters. Even though she fights them, the monsters just keep growing in size and number so the girl has to make a decision.
Blink (2018)
Director: Atmaja Bopardikar
Run Time/Country: 15 min, India
Synopsis: A man is unable to understand what is happening to him and as his wife slowly loses her patience, he tries in vain to regain control of his perfect life, until one day he finds out it is not him but his shifting realities.
Zilly's War (2018)
Director: John Broadhead
Run Time/Country: 25 min, USA
Synopsis: A brilliant young woman on a four year mission to an alien planet finds herself remembering her childhood and facing her inner demons.
The Nine Billion Names of God (2018)
Director: Dominique Filhol
Run Time/Country: 15 min, France/Switzerland
Synopsis: In New York 1957, a Tibetan monk rents an automatic sequence computer. The monks seek to list all of the names of God. They hire two Westerners to install and program the machine in Tibet. A short film is based on the book by Arthur C. Clarke.
Tatu (2018)
Director: Garcerón Alejo
Run Time/Country: 2 min, Argentina
Synopsis: In this trailer, monster robots in a car junkyard battle it out.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (2018)
Director: Michal Janicki
Run Time/Country: 9 min, USA
Synopsis: A stop-motion animated journey through Oscar Wilde's iconic story about a man who sells his soul for eternal youth.
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 and cast members.
SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2019:
Ebell Club (625 French St, Santa Ana, CA 92701)
Block 1: Best of Philip K. Dick Short Films
Time: 11:00am - 1:00pm
Subverse (2018)
Director: Joseph White
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: In this web series, in an alternate reality where everyone spends all their time indoors staring at computer screens, a man agrees to go on a date in the 'outside' world but it doesn't go well. Filled with self-loathing, he returns home and plunges headfirst into a drunken, hallucinogenic trip through the dark net.
Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space (2018)
Director: Tristan C. Pina
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Canada
Synopsis: An unfulfilled high school senior becomes obsessed with an ominous radio broadcast containing steps to a cryptic puzzle. Thinking he is being pursued by a sinister organization, his search for clues takes over his life. Ultimately putting the pieces together, it becomes unclear whether or not it was all real.
Beyond the Door (2018)
Director: Em Johnson
Run Time/Country: 20 min, USA
Synopsis: One day Hedy brings home a cuckoo clock to decorate the baby's room, unbeknownst that the cuckoo clock has the ability to love and hate just like humans. The cuckoo clock tests the couple's love by mimicking the presence of their deceased son. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick.
Enthusiasm Abounds (2018)
Director: Mark Ross
Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA
Synopsis: In a world where social justice is automatic and absolute, enthusiasm abounds.
Flies (2018)
Director: Baobab
Run Time/Country: 14 min, UK
Synopsis: In the faded beauty of the house of his ancestors, a man waits for the return of the love of his life. Dark fantasies and crushing reality weave a dangerous journey as a struggle unfolds for his mind and ultimately his life.
Avicenna (2018)
Director: Daniel Stanush, Diego Chavez
Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA
Synopsis: In a remote location, a solitary researcher scours the landscape for a rare mineral.
The Hereafter (2018)
Director: Paul-Anthony Navarro
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: When a woman awakes into an afterlife of her own design, she discovers that her paradise might just be purgatory.
Mise En Abyme (2018)
Director: Edoardo Smerilli
Run Time/Country: 11 min, Italy
Synopsis: An eccentric and aristocratic gentleman devotes most of his time to a bizarre activity. Obsessed by beauty, he wanders everyday in the wood nearby the city, hunting the most rare butterflies. Once captured, he frames them and put in a massive and disturbing collection. He will soon realize to be himself part of a bigger collection.
Axium Effect (2018)
Director: Ari Dassa
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: A woman drifts through her traumatic memories after overdosing on a drug pilfered from android processors.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Block 2: Feature Presentation
Time: 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Volition (2018) - World Premiere
Director: Tony Dean Smith
Run Time/Country: 101 min, Canada
Synopsis: Blending genres, this mind-bending sci-fi thriller about a man afflicted with clairvoyance who tries to change his fate when a series of events leads to a vision of his own imminent murder. But as he sets out to avoid his certain death, he comes to see that his pre-sentient condition is not quite what it seems. Starring Adrian Glynn McMorran (Arrow), Magda Apanowicz (The Green Inferno) and Aleks Paunovic (Van Helsing).
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers and cast members.
Block 3: Horror and Sci-Fi Short Films
Time: 3:00pm - 5:00pm
I Am the Doorway (2018)
Director: Simon Pearce
Run Time/Country: 20 min, UK
Synopsis: After a journey to investigate desolate Pluto, an astronaut returns home a SHATTERED man. He sees eyes forcing their way through the skin of his hands, eyes that distort his friends and the landscape itself into monstrous visions. Believing himself the doorway to alien invasion and gruesome murder, he must take desperate action. Based on the short story by Stephen King.
Grey Canyon (2018)
Director: Zeshaan Younus
Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA
Synopsis: A couple encounters a presence in the wilderness that they cannot comprehend.
Ulysses (2018)
Director: Jorge Malpica
Run Time/Country: 8 min, Mexico
Synopsis: Warned by the goddess Circe, Ulysses ordered his men to tie him up to his ship's mast, thus preventing him from surrendering to the enchanting mermaid's call, which devoured the unwary men seduced by it. Based on the The Odyssey.
Sereget (2018)
Director: Dempsey Tillman
Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA
Synopsis: An emotionally detached husband (with a child on the way) gets a rude awakening when aliens invade his home and target his family.
They Wait For Us (2018)
Director: Lukas Schrank, George
Run Time/Country: 20 min, UK
Synopsis: In a near future end-of-life care facility, a reclusive hospital worker starts to believe a coma patient is attempting to communicate with him.
Megan (2018)
Director: Greg Strasz
Run Time/Country: 8 min, USA
Synopsis: The story of a woman, who along with the elite Delta Force team, investigates a mysterious attack by in present day Downtown Los Angeles.
Bitten (2018) - U.S. and L.A. Premiere
Director: Sarah K. Reimers
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: A mysterious and violent encounter sends a dog on a night of adventure and possibility.
Spectres (2017)
Director: Nick Phillips
Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA
Synopsis: After losing his family in a car accident, an introverted man interacts with the spirits of the dead who have yet to pass on.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers and cast members.
Block 4: Sci-Fi Short Films
Time: 5:00pm - 6:00pm
A Timely Reminder for Time Parter Partners (2019)
Director: Jamie Gower
Run Time/Country: 1 min, USA
Synopsis: Time travel is a tough job and filling out your timecard is the toughest part. Especially if you're a part-time Time Parter at Time Parter Partners.
The Watchers (2018)
Director: Andrew McGee
Run Time/Country: 9 min, UK
Synopsis: Impact in T-minus 97 minutes. 220 miles above our doomed planet, four astronauts on board the International Space Station are forced to confront their fate as the last members of the human race.
Consciousness: Awakening (2018)
Director: Rafhet Guerola
Run Time/Country: 15 min, Mexico
Synopsis: At the Universe's final moments, two men take separate paths due to ideology differences. When their environment and their lives are in danger, one of them attempts to retake their relationship. Together, they must to overcome their differences in order to survive at the imminent end of everything they know.
Midnight Delivery (2018)
Director: Nathan Crooker
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: A mysterious gift is delivered to an unsuspecting woman's door at the stroke of midnight. Her morbid fascination entices her to examine the gift, unleashing a sinister evil from within.
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.
Post-Film Q&A:
Screenings will be followed by an in-depth discussion with filmmakers.
Awards Ceremony
Time: 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Guests and filmmakers will be in attendance when awards are presented to the category winners as The 2019 Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival concludes.
Festival Passes:
Passes to screenings can be purchased at www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com.
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