Event Showcases Films Representing the Visionary Universe of Philip K. Dick
Festival Recently Named One of “The 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” by MovieMaker Magazine
The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival, honored as one of this year’s 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World by MovieMaker Magazine, returns for its tenth anniversary season with a lineup of film and documentary screenings, virtual reality demonstrations, and post-film discussions. As a platform for exploring the evolution of science and technology, the festival showcases a variety of themes associated with independent storytelling. The festival will be held from Thursday, December 15th through Sunday, December 18th, across Manhattan and Queens. Passes are available at https://www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com.
Celebrating the event’s tenth annual gathering, founder and director Daniel Abella is proud of the festival’s accomplishments within the science fiction genre. “Our festival is made up of the most astute filmmakers and devoted fans,” he said. “We have been able to showcase extraordinary talent from all around the world, and become a voice for the universal language of sci-fi.” When previewing this year’s lineup, he said, “Think of this as the coming attractions of tomorrow’s world, with each film exploring the intersection of technology and culture, all set within the framework of Philip K. Dick’s vision.”
Opening night on December 15th will present Jonathan Lawrence’s classic sci-fi filled music video Nice Shorts, Anthony Kalmeta’s mystery puzzle-drama Echoes, and Sebastien Landry’s alien-within-a-human-body tale Motherload. The night will also include Rod Blackhurst’s Hysteric, which focuses on a mother and her two daughters’ fight for survival, and Daryl Denner’s The Jogger, where a woman makes a shocking discovery during a run through the park. On December 16th, short films include Ginew Benton’s Mirror Man about a Native police officer who is confronted by a supernatural entity, Daniel Merlot’s House of the Unholy about a bloodthirsty princess on the quest for a magical elixir, and Patrick Biesemans’ Creep Box about a scientist’s use of a new technology that determines to existence of life after death. The evening will also present the feature film Capsules, by Luke Momo, which follows four chemistry students who find themselves addicted to a mysterious substance. Highlights on December 17th include Carol Butron’s Faith, which follows a woman’s hunch that her deceased childhood friend is actually alive within another dimension, and Shane Lim’s Dawn, about a woman called upon by her estranged father to join a society of elites and escape the planet. The feature presentation of Michael Yurinko’s Impuratus, about a detective summoned to a remote mental hospital to witness the deathbed confession of a mysterious Civil War soldier, will follow. Closing night on December 18th will screen the documentary A Tear in the Sky, directed by Caroline Cory, which follows special guest William Shatner and a team of military personnel and scientists in their attempts to discover the truth about UFOs.
As life continues to be as unpredictable as ever, the festival remains committed to showcasing various forms of media that emphasize the importance of sci-fi and its lessons for humanity. “Science fiction opens the doors of imagination and the ‘what if’s’ of life,” said Abella. “Through the power of technology, the boundaries of real life and the genre we love continue to be blurred. While science fiction is a respectable form of literary and cinematic fiction, we must also comprehend its message and brace for what’s to come.”
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022:
Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, Astoria, NY 11106)
Block 1: Future Shock
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm EST
Nice Shoes (2018)
Director: Jonathan Lawrence
Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA
Synopsis: A sci-fi extravaganza that is as pointless as the lyrics. Over 40 classic movie references are featured in this epic music video.
Tellurian (2022 Trailer)
Director: Graeme Carr
Run Time/Country: 2 min, UK
Synopsis: Fifteen years after an alien invasion destroyed Earth’s government and decimated the population, resistance fighter Mike Walsh and his team of soldiers are tasked with protecting the last child on Earth from falling into the wrong hands.
Megaville After Hours (2022)
Director: Tim Cürlis, Christian Skibinski
Run Time/Country: 14 min, Germany
Synopsis: On a restless night in the cyberpunk city “Megaville,” a disillusioned ranger encounters a washed up chef called Jack. They reach an agreement and a culinary duel to the death follows. A lethal supper that only one of them will survive.
A Mind Cannot Touch (2022)
Director: Geoffrey Prather
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA
Synopsis: A sci-fi drama about a mother, LEDA, who uses her expertise in neuroscience to bring her deceased daughter, AIRLIA, back from the grave as a sentient hologram — complete with Airlia’s memories and consciousness via mind uploading.
AFRO-ALGORITHMS (2022)
Director: Anatola Araba
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA
Synopsis: In a distant future, an artificial intelligence named Aero is inaugurated as the world’s first AI leader. However, she soon finds that important world views are missing from her databank, including the stories of the historically marginalized and oppressed. A slate of well-known Black actors lend their voices to the film, including Robin Quivers, Ava Raiin, and Hoji Fortuna
Escalation (2022)
Director: Christian Bachini
Run Time/Country: 15 min, Italy
Synopsis: In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chris, a paranoid and self-centered man, is happily avoiding all human contact, preferring to escape from reality in whatever’s on TV. When a friend reaches out to him to confront him about his past promises, Chris has to decide what kind of person he is inside, or it may just eat him…alive.
Echoes (2022)
Director: Anthony Kalmeta
Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA
Synopsis: A dark mystery puzzle-drama. Trapped within a distortion of time, unravelling his fragmented memories, a man comes into contact with a woman living in real-time who reveals the truth about him.
Motherload (2022)
Director: Sebastien Landry
Run Time/Country: 9 min, Canada
Synopsis: An alien, borrowing the body of a human mother-to-be, is confronted by fear and uncertainty as its offspring grows inside her.
Neoshin Episode 01: Cold Blood (2022)
Director: Sebastian Selg, Ramon Schauer
Run Time/Country: 5 min, Germany
Synopsis: After the invention of CRYONIC REALITY (CR) by EDEN Association, world leaders chose to discontinue the counting of time in 2073 and proclaimed the final year 2073X. CR is a virtual world of utopia that people can access to escape the bleak reality. When influencer AYUKO heads to a concert of her favourite band NEOSHIN in CR, she has no idea that a virtual virus will change her life forever.
Block 2: A Separate Reality
Time: 8:00pm – 10:00pm EST
Chaska (2022 Trailer)
Director: Liz Guarracino
Run Time/Country: 2 min, USA
Synopsis: How would you feel if you found out the U.S. Government created ancestry .com to catch a single being?
Hysteric (2022)
Director: Rod Blackhurst
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: A mysterious sound, a mother stricken with madness, and two daughters caught in a fight for survival.
Convergence (2021)
Director: Zechariah Thormodsgaard
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA
Synopsis: At the edge of a black hole, in the midst of a mission to save humanity, an astronaut discovers something that will forever change him.
Darwin Fick (2022)
Director: Joe Benedetto
Run Time/Country: 19 min, USA
Synopsis: When a famous author develops writer’s block, an unusual option arises.
Conexion (2022)
Director: Jamin Scotti
Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA
Synopsis: After fleeing a chaotic family situation, a young woman discovers her True Self, in the vastness of the Mojave desert.
The Jogger (2022)
Director: Daryl Denner
Run Time/Country: 7 min, USA
Synopsis: A woman’s jog through the park reveals a shocking discovery.
Robot Tells a Joke (2022)
Director: Cameron Strittmatter
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: A brief and educational video about a young roboticist’s current project.
Artsanity (2022)
Director: Alexander Kostic
Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA
Synopsis: A freelance photographer in New York City, suddenly finds himself under a bleak confinement of his own mind. Isolated he roams the deserted streets in the night his mind becomes increasingly restless. But as the time passes by, a strong sensation of being followed by a mysterious stranger creeps inside, while the empty city continues to draw him in.
Nothing Is Real (2022)
Director: Masa Gibson
Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA
Synopsis: Who gets to decide what’s valuable? A silent short film about a woman who lives life with a bold twist.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2022:
Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, Astoria, NY 11106)
Block 1: Journey To The Far Side
Time: 5:00pm – 7:00pm EST
Chimera (2022)
Director: Andrew Lee Ryan
Run Time/Country: 25 min, USA
Synopsis: Set in a not too distant future small town, a VR life simulation junkie goes on a mission in reality to get a new dopamine game cartridge before she goes through happiness withdrawal.
Mirror Man (2021)
Director: Ginew Benton
Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA
Synopsis: A Native police officer, who is doubting her traditional faith, is called to a possible burglary but is met by a supernatural entity that leads her to a buried secret.
Eden (2022)
Director: Olivier Perrier
Run Time/Country: 12 min, France
Synopsis: Antoine is moving with his mother and little brother in a modern tower with green walls and a sustainable, self-sufficient architecture. In great psychological distress, he feels like a stranger to this new environment.
House of the Unholy (2022)
Director: Daniel Merlot
Run Time/Country: 15 min, USA
Synopsis: A bloodthirsty princess puts out a bounty to hunt down the last of the Indigo Elders tribe. She is on a quest to attain a magical elixir that’s hidden in his heart. The elixir can grant her the powers to reign over the kingdom for an eternity, but all does not go as planned.
Gnawer of Rocks (2021)
Director: Andrea Flaherty
Run Time/Country: 13 min, Canada
Synopsis: Two young women are trapped in the lair of the Mangittatuarjuk, the Gnawer of Rocks. The young women and their village use the teachings of the elders to try to defeat the monster.
Trigger.Charlie.One (2022)
Director: Dan Clifton
Run Time/Country: 10 min, UK
Synopsis: In the face of her doubts, a naval commander must follow orders and press the launch button triggering the earth’s final nuclear apocalypse.
The Unveiled (2021)
Director: Andres Rovira
Run Time/Country: 9 min, USA
Synopsis: A lonely couple downloads a new technology that allows them to unveil the spirit realm through their smartphone, only to discover that they aren’t as lonely as they thought.
Producers Club Theaters (358 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036)
Block 2: Nowhere To Hide
Time: 7:00pm – 11:00pm EST
Memento Mori (2022 Trailer)
Director: Izzy Lee
Run Time/Country: 2 min, USA
Synopsis: In 1983, a scientist in isolation resurrects a dead colleague.
Creep Box (2022)
Director: Patrick Biesemans
Run Time/Country: 9 min, USA
Synopsis: After his wife’s suicide, a scientist tries to use new technology to determine if there is life after death. But some things are better off being put to rest.
Belfast 1912 (2021)
Director: Dominic O’Neill
Run Time/Country: 12 min, Ireland
Synopsis: Six unlikely souls gather for a seance in Edwardian Belfast. When a dark secret is revealed, their reality begins to unravel in this unsettling short horror film.
Potatohead (2022)
Director: Joel B Harlow
Run Time/Country: 16 min, USA
Synopsis: Meet Marti. Nothing special about him. He is just one of millions sequestered at home under a mandatory lockdown. With no human interaction for months, loneliness has a way of seeping into all of us.
Night (2022)
Director: Frank Sun
Run Time/Country: 20 min, USA
Synopsis: A man arrives at a friend’s apartment and hears sounds from outside his window…but is it real?
Gulabo Rani (2022)
Director: Usman Mukhtar
Run Time/Country: 35 min, Pakistan
Synopsis: A young boy, Akhtar, is accepted into a 150 year old university and due to an administrative fluke, he finds himself housed in the dilapidated “Wing C” of the dorms. Tormented and alone, he finds himself face to face with a horror far greater than he could have ever imagined.
Mudmonster (2021)
Director: O.B. De Alessi
Run Time/Country: 25 min, Italy
Synopsis: Following the sudden disappearance of her father, young Fiamma is visited by a mud monster. As her encounters with the creature become more frequent and intense, Fiamma begins to suffer from a sudden, mysterious illness.
The Collector (2020)
Director: Ihsanul Huq
Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA
Synopsis: When Hal discovers and restores a damaged android he must let go of the past in order to give the living a chance at a future.
Blue Fire (2021)
Director: Nick Ronan
Run Time/Country: 20 min, USA
Synopsis: Deep in the snowy Blue Mountains, two damaged lives come crashing back together when they discover something in the forest not of this world.
Pray the Gay Away (2022)
Director: Chang-Min Jonathan
Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA
Synopsis: Danny, a queer, Korean high schooler, becomes invisible after an intense prayer group literally prays the gay away. Will he ever be seen again?
The Desecrated (2018)
Director: John Gray
Run Time/Country: 8 min, USA
Synopsis: A young morgue attendant working the night shift encounters an unwelcome visitor.
Block 3: Feature Presentation
Time: 9:00pm – 11:00pm EST
Capsules (2022)
Director: Luke Momo
Run Time/Country: 70 min, USA
Synopsis: After experimenting with mysterious substances, four chem students find themselves addicted in the worst way possible: they’ll die unless they take more.
Block 4: Virtual Reality
Time: 8:00pm – 10:00pm EST
Fortune Teller (2022)
Director: Brian Abraham
Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA
Synopsis: A fortune teller who’s down on her luck mistakenly summons the ghost of her ex-husband, revealing secrets that spell her doom. VR180 narrative horror/thriller short film.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022:
Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, Astoria, NY 11106)
Block 1: Best of PKD Shorts
Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm EST
Belonging: Night (2022)
Director: Cory Williams, Jacqueline Cooper
Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA
Synopsis: This episode is a dreamily reimagined excerpt from Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (1956). A poetic sailor is at peace in nature but challenged to feel a sense of belonging amongst friends.
Red Gaia (2022)
Director: Udesh Chetty
Run Time/Country: 13 min, South Africa
Synopsis: Alone on the dying red planet, among the ruins of human civilization, one last android desperately guards the last essences of life. In her pursuit for meaning, she finds her own soul hanging in the balance. Red Gaia is a tone-poem meditation on life, death and rebirth, destruction and creation and the cycles of existence, drawing inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita, Dante’s Purgatorio, the Kabballah, the Tibetan Bardol Thodol.
Kill – Burn (2021)
Director: Adam Hayes, Nick Hayes
Run Time/Country: 7 min, Taiwan
Synopsis: KILL-Burn explores social media’s impact on mental health in a near-future society, a mirror to our own current times. We follow three protagonists on a journey to discover the possibility of learning to love imperfect reality, rather than perfect virtual realities.
Faith (2022)
Director: Carol Butron
Run Time/Country: 19 min, Spain
Synopsis: When just a small child, Teresa has to face the disappearance of her best friend, Lucas. After many years and without having forgotten him, Teresa begins to have a hunch that Lucas is alive, but in another dimension.
The Collector (2022)
Director: Erik Sharpnack
Run Time/Country: 20 min, USA
Synopsis: Set in an alternate world, where memories can only be fully experienced through special devices. Christoph, after finding someone’s device, starts to blend his own memory with a stranger’s lost one.
The Empathy Machine (2022)
Director: Grant Sissons
Run Time/Country: 10 min, South Africa
Synopsis: Thembisile is a gifted neuroscientist. She dreams of building a machine that will facilitate the download of consciousness, and as its end purpose, facilitate the engendering of empathy. Progress on the machine is brought to a halt by the sudden death of her young daughter, Khanyisile. Thembi then uses the machine to attempt to reconnect with her daughter’s downloaded consciousness. For Thembi, it’s a means of dealing with grief and a form of catharsis, but a process that will also bring its own painful realizations.
Earthbound (2021)
Director: Baker Karim
Run Time/Country: 10 min, Sweden
Synopsis: When Earth has become inhabitable, mankind seeks salvation by leaving the planet on interplanetary arks to colonize other worlds. But who is chosen to represent mankind in the future?
Dawn (2020)
Director: Shane Lim
Run Time/Country: 18 min, UK
Synopsis: On the night of the largest supermoon in history, Willow is called upon by her estranged father and finds society’s elites gathered in a secret facility, ready to escape the planet.
Block 2: Feature Presentation
Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm EST
Impuratus (2022)
Director: Michael Yurinko
Run Time/Country: 134 min, USA
Synopsis: Circa 1930: A police detective is summoned to a remote mental hospital to witness a death-bed confession from a mysterious Civil War soldier that will have him question the validity of the supernatural. Starring Tom Sizemore, Robert Miano, Lew Temple, Silvia Spross and Airen DeLaMater.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2022:
Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, Astoria, NY 11106)
Block 1: Documentary Presentation
Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm EST
A Tear in the Sky (2021)
Director: Caroline Cory
Run Time/Country: 90 min, USA
Synopsis: An unprecedented journey into the UFO / UAP phenomenon. A team of military personnel, scientists and special guest William Shatner will attempt to re-capture, in real time, the US Navy “TicTac” UFOs, using state-of-the-art, military-grade equipment and technology. What they find instead are thought-provoking clues into the true nature of the UFO phenomenon and the very fabric of our spacetime reality.
Awards Ceremony
Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm EST
Awards will be presented to the category winners of The 2022 Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival.
Festival Passes:
Passes to live and virtual screenings are available at https://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, which launched in 2012 as New York City’s first and only festival of its kind, celebrates its 10th anniversary season. The festival honors the enduring legacy of novelist Philip K. Dick, whose enormously effective works composed of fictional universes, virtual realities, technological uprising, dystopian worlds and human mutation served as a significant observation of the current state of society. 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 additional gatherings in France, Germany, Poland, Rotterdam, and Los Angeles. The event was included as one of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World by MovieMaker Magazine in 2022.
Connect with The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival:
Website: https://www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePhilipKDickFilmFestival
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/philipkdickfest
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philipkdickfest
