Event To Showcase Films In Celebration of Novelist Philip K. Dick
The Philip K. Dick European Science Fiction Film Festival has announced the full lineup for its upcoming season honoring novelist Philip K. Dick. The event will be held on Friday, October 25 and Saturday, October 26 in Lille, France, and on Wednesday, October 30 in Cologne, Germany.
“Lille and Cologne are vibrant centers of artistic and cultural exploration,” said Daniel Abella, the founder and director of the festival. “Since science fiction is becoming science fact, our lineup encourages a free exchange of ideas, and offers ways to deal with the challenges and possibilities that lie ahead.” The event celebrates its namesake by examining the concepts of his work. “More than any other author past or present, PKD represents the tip of the spear regarding technological developments and how they impact our connection with ourselves and nature. In his stories, he remained optimistic about the possibility of striking a balance between humanity and technological growth.” For more information, please visit https://www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com/europeanpkd.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2024
L’Hybride Theater (18 Rue Gosselet, 59000, Lille, France)
Block 1: Accelerate the Singularity
8:00PM – 9:30PM
Burner Face (2023)
Director: John Gauntt
US, 2 min
Composed by a team of 3 creatives + Midjourney AI, this trailer tells a story in less than 2 minutes. It is not a tech demo but a taste of what’s possible when Culture & Code come together.
Set a Date (2022)
Director: Elías Balda, Cosme Mañero
Spain, 11 minutes
Thanks to a new technology, Andrés, a young policeman, discovers that he will die in 20 minutes.
Skinjob (2017)
Director: Steve Simons
UK, 15 min
A group of slave Androids steal a space shuttle and journey back to earth to find their maker.
AlgoDreams (2023)
Director: Vladimir Todorovic
Australia, 11 min
Algodreams are made by prompting AI systems to imagine the future of life on planet Earth. They dreamt of time machines, memory machines, flamingos that can save the oceans, the AI civilization that destroys humans to protect the plane.
Source Code (2022)
Director: Mark Kiefer
US, 17 min
The year is 2065. Captain John Galatin’s loss of focus cost lives on a remote-controlled battlefield. He has been ordered to see the compound’s psychiatrist who will assess his continued fitness for duty.
I Am Not a Robot (2023)
Director: Victoria Warmerdam
Netherlands, 22 min
After several unsuccessful attempts to complete a Captcha, feminist Lara sets out to answer the disturbing question of whether she’s a robot.
Block 2: Humanity at the Crossroads
10:00PM – 11:30PM
Purgy’s (2022)
Director: Robbie Ryan
US, 16 min
At a magical bar, spirits from the other side are able to take the form of another human and interact with those in their past who need closure and re-connection.
Meditations (2023)
Director: Adolfo Ruiz
Canada, 10 minutes
Meditations is an animated film that revolves around a psychotherapy session set in a dystopian future. By probing the inner psyche, a novel form of technology produces a therapist in the image of a lost family member.
Dandelion (2023)
Director: Gillian Simpson
UK, 12 min
Alice lives alone in the middle of a field of wind turbines, the constant thump thump her only companion. She is haunted by the memories of the day her daughter Grace and her partner, Jamie died.
Black Dragon (2022)
Director: Alexander Thompson
US, 15 min
Vietnam, 1968. A feared American colonel nicknamed “the Black Dragon” by Vietnamese locals must face his inner shadow when his platoon presents him with a captured Vietcong girl who harbors some very unusual power.
Soulmate (2023)
Director: Richard Fenwick
UK, 15 min
Ana, a lonely computer coder, has been nurturing an illegal romance with an AI in a computer simulation for the past six months. When her company uncovers the affair, she’s forced into a desperate battle to save her precious relationship.
Echoes of Juno (2023)
Director: Reza Sam Mosadegh
Germany, 14 min
Juno is dead. She hasn’t been around for two years now, but her mother Hanna still spends every day with her. There is an AI-controlled device, the “Echoehub”, in Juno’s nursery. This is able to calculate possible scenarios that the deceased could have experienced in the future from information fed into it about the dead. Is Hanna prepared to sacrifice everything for the illusion of a perfect family.
Greed (2024)
Director: Mike Hay
UK, 5 min
A lone battle-scared woman navigates the streets of a city in the future, where the populace is enslaved by the tyrannical GovCorp. As she moves further into the heart of darkness, Vita is determined to break the cycle of greed and repression.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2024
L’Hybride Theater (18 Rue Gosselet, 59000, Lille, France)
Block 1: A Parallax View
8:00PM – 9:30PM
I Am What You Imagine (2023)
Director: Matthew Modine
US, 7 min
Featuring the voice talents of Ruby Modine and long-time Kubrick collaborator Leon Vitali (in his final performance), the short uses sound, music, and expressionistic imagery to take viewers on a journey of the heart and mind.
Bisected (2023)
Director: Danny Pineros
US, 8 min
A couple witnesses a paranormal event that separates them into two distinct dimensions.
Berdyansk (2023)
Director: Tom Hopkins, Kateryna PaidaIreland, Ukraine, 15 min
Lera, a young Ukrainian refugee who has recently reached Ireland, who, fearing the worst, uses dark-web séance software (The Orb) to discover that her sister Maryna has died in the conflict back home. Through The Orb she makes contact – and discovers that her sister Maryna is disoriented and stuck in an after-death limbo.
Ada (2023)
Director: Anaïs Vachez
France, 16 min
Ada, an eight-year-old girl, witnesses the ongoing tensions between her parents.One evening, a particularly heated argument breaks out.
Night Feeding (2023)
Director: Sarah K. Reimers
US, 6 min
Exhaustion and sleep deprivation begin to take their toll on a new mother, who struggles through the strange, dark stillness of the 4am feeding.
Antares (2023)
Director: Maxence Schlenck
France, 22 min
Undertaking a mission to an uncharted planet, an astronaut finds his psyche unraveling, gripped by a mysterious affliction that intensifies the closer he gets to his destination.
Demon Box (2022)
Director: Sean Wainsteim
Canada, 14 min
After festival rejections, a director revises his intensely personal short film about trauma, suicide, and the Holocaust, and transforms it into a painful, blunt and funny dissection of the film and his life.
The Unquiet Dead (2022)
Director: John Gray
US, 12 min
A therapist treats an unstable young woman who claims to be harassed by an assortment of malevolent spirits – who are demanding something from her.
Block 2: Cracks in the Cosmic Wall
10:00PM – 11:30PM
A Pasage (2023)
Director: A.P. Bergeron
Canada, 6 min
A researcher uncovers an ancient entity in the High Arctic and is compelled into twisted servitude.
Half Samurai (2022)
Director: Rashad Haughton
Japan, 11 min
A mysterious drifter wanders into a bar owned by a psychopathic yakuza gang on Halloween night.
The Name (2023)
Director: Renato Paone, Francesco Eramo Puoti
Italy, 20 min
The Dominican order has requested a special computer from an engineering laboratory capable of solving a complex algorithm, but only the monks know its real purpose.
First Time Machine (2024)
Director: Jay Woelfl
US, 17 min
African American scientist, Dr. Grainger gathers his closest friends to show them his invention: the world’s first-timemachine. However, one of his friends has hidden and dangerous intentions for traveling back in time. An adaptation of the classic sci-fi short story by Fredric Brown.
Suppressus (2024)
Director: Grant Jones
US, 19 min
Two neuroscientists work to develop a device that regenerates memories blocked out by dissociative amnesia.
It’s Not Up To Us (2024)
Director: Anthony Werhun
US, 13 min
Legendary visual artist Nancy Burson sparked a technological revolution by using computer morphing techniques to blend art and science but claims she didn’t do it alone. The complex truth behind Nancy’s beliefs and how they shaped her career evokes questions about the nature of creation and of reality itself.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2024
Film Club 813 e.V. (Hahnenstraße 6 50667, Cologne, Germany)
Block 1: Accelerate the Singularity
8:00PM – 9:30PM
Burner Face (2023)
Director: John Gauntt
US, 2 min
Composed by a team of 3 creatives + Midjourney AI, this trailer tells a story in less than 2 minutes. It is not a tech demo but a taste of what’s possible when Culture & Code come together.
Skinjob (2017)
Director: Steve Simons
UK, 15 min
A group of slave Androids steal a space shuttle and journey back to earth to find their maker.
I Am Not a Robot (2023)
Director: Victoria Warmerdam
Netherlands, 22 min
After several unsuccessful attempts to complete a Captcha, feminist Lara sets out to answer the disturbing question of whether she’s a robot.
Purgy’s (2022)
Director: Robbie Ryan
US, 16 min
At a magical bar, spirits from the other side are able to take the form of another human and interact with those in their past who need closure and re-connection.
Black Dragon (2022)
Director: Alexander Thompson
US, 15 min
Vietnam, 1968. A feared American colonel nicknamed “the Black Dragon” by Vietnamese locals must face his inner shadow when his platoon presents him with a captured Vietcong girl who harbors some very unusual power.
Soulmate (2023)
Director: Richard Fenwick
UK, 15 min
Ana, a lonely computer coder, has been nurturing an illegal romance with an AI in a computer simulation for the past six months. When her company uncovers the affair, she’s forced into a desperate battle to save her precious relationship.
Echoes of Juno (2023)
Director; Reza Sam Mosadegh
Germany, 14 min
Juno is dead. She hasn’t been around for two years now, but her mother Hanna still spends every day with her. There is an AI-controlled device, the “Echoehub”, in Juno’s nursery. This is able to calculate possible scenarios that the deceased could have experienced in the future from information fed into it about the dead. Is Hanna prepared to sacrifice everything for the illusion of a perfect family.
Block 2: A Parallax View
10:00PM – 11:30PM
I Am What You Imagine (2023)
Director: Matthew Modine
US, 7 min
Featuring the voice talents of Ruby Modine and long-time Kubrick collaborator Leon Vitali (in his final performance), the short uses sound, music, and expressionistic imagery to take viewers on a journey of the heart and mind.
SOURCE CODE (2021)
Director: Mark Kiefer
US, 17 min
The year is 2065. Captain John Galatin’s loss of focus cost lives on a remote-controlled battlefield. He has been ordered to see the compound’s psychiatrist who will assess his continued fitness for duty.
Berdyansk (2023)
Director: Tom Hopkins, Kateryna PaidaIreland, Ukraine, 15 minutes
Lera, a young Ukrainian refugee who has recently reached Ireland, who, fearing the worst, uses dark-web séance software (The Orb) to discover that her sister Maryna has died in the conflict back home. Through The Orb she makes contact – and discovers that her sister Maryna is disoriented and stuck in an after-death limbo.
Demon Box (2022)
Director: Sean Wainsteim
Canada, 14 min
After festival rejections, a director revises his intensely personal short film about trauma, suicide, and the Holocaust, and transforms it into a painful, blunt and funny dissection of the film and his life.
A Pasage (2023)
Director: A.P. Bergeron
Canada, 6 min
A researcher uncovers an ancient entity in the High Arctic and is compelled into twisted servitude.
Half Samurai (2022)
Director: Rashad Haughton
Japan, 11 min
A mysterious drifter wanders into a bar owned by a psychopathic yakuza gang on Halloween night.
First Time Machine (2023)
Director: Jay Woelfl
US, 17 min
African American scientist, Dr. Grainger gathers his closest friends to show them his invention: the world’s first-time machine. However, one of his friends has hidden and dangerous intentions for traveling back in time. An adaptation of the classic sci-fi short story by Fredric Brown.
It’s Not Up To Us (2023)
Director: Anthony Werhun
US, 13 min
Legendary visual artist Nancy Burson sparked a technological revolution by using computer morphing techniques to blend art and science but claims she didn’t do it alone. The complex truth I hope you are doing well.
Greed (2024)
Director: Mike Hay
UK, 5 min
A lone battle-scared woman navigates the streets of a city in the future, where the populace is enslaved by the tyrannical GovCorp. As she moves further into the heart of darkness, Vita is determined to break the cycle of greed and repression.
Festival Passes:
For more information on passes and films, visit https://www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com/europeanpkd. Discussions with filmmakers will follow all screenings. Schedule subject to change.
About The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival:
The Philip K. Dick European Science Fiction Film Festival launched in October 2013 and has held events in Lille, France, Cologne, Germany and Łódź, Poland. Organized by those who understand the challenges and rewards of telling a unique story in an independent environment, the festival represents the deep analyses and philosophical views of internationally renowned novelist Philip K. Dick, whose work has inspired generations of writers, filmmakers and fans around the world.
Connect with The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival:
Website: https://www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com/europeanpkd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePhilipKDickFilmFestival
X: https://www.x.com/philipkdickfest
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philipkdickfest
