The usually plush foyer of the Apollo West End was transformed into a bullet-riddled Dead Space, courtesy of the festival's generous sponsor, EA Games. The entrance to the cinema was guarded by an unlikely alliance of Stormtroopers and Jedi Knights from the 99th Imperial Garrison, with people flocking to have their pictures taken with Darth Vader, his troops and a scantily-clad slave girl.
The opening night began with a gathering of British sci-fi literati for the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Awards. Rather than a maudlin affair following the author's passing earlier this year it was more a celebration of his greatness and his contribution to the world of both science fiction and real science. After a brief introduction from Tom Hunter, and Angie Edwards' touching, and inspiring, eulogy for the Award's patron, the Award was given to Richard Morgan for his novel Black Man.
While many chose to party, the opening night film, Marc Caro's DANTE 01, played to a sell-out audience. Click here to see video of the evening's events.
Thursday is the traditionally quiet night of the festival but with the shorts programme and three other great films (LA ANTENA, NETHERBEAST INCORPORATED and DAI NIPPONJIN) there were plenty of people coming out to see what was on offer.
The festival also had a surprise late entry when one of the festival's regular patrons happened to catch a 35mm print of THE DARK KNIGHT trailer that was thrown into the crowd attending the SPEED RACER premiere by someone dressed as The Joker. What made it all the more interesting was it had been etched on by "The Joker".
The end of the working week and what better way to escape the drudgery than with a sci-fi or fantasy film, and SFL had just the solution, with the slightly disturbing time-travel film SUSPENSION and the funny, and little bit scary animation DRAGONHUNTERS. The Stranger Than Fiction documentary strand took on heroic proportions with the world premiere of YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD HERO, which was supported by THE LAST LINE, a short film about Star Wars fans, attended by the film's director Suzanne Kai. The programme was rounded off by the British mockumentary, LEGION OF FIRE: CROYDON BRANCH and the short film SPLIT CITY. For hardcore fantasy fans, the UK premiere of one of the most expensive Russian films to date, WOLFHOUND proved a great draw. Epic in scale (and running time) it showed that Russia is a force to be reckoned with in the world of genre films.
With London becoming increasingly a 24-hour city, SCI-FI-LONDON made its contribution to this non-stop culture with its Saturday programme. The Festival is keen on encouraging local-grown talent to make uniquely British sci-fi. Our 48 Hour Film Challenge proved there is plenty of people with fresh ideas, and our sci-fi film school on Saturday morning was a chance for people to learn more from industry professionals in areas such as script development, producing, effects make-up and sound design. There was also a demonstration from sponsors MovieStorm of their 3D machinima software. MovieStorm are launching a sci-fi filmmaking competition, in conjunction with SCI-FI-LONDON, on May 8. If you want to take part, visit moviestorm.com for full details, download the free software and let your imagination run wild. The competition closes September 8, but don't leave it to the last minute.
Continuing with its support of British filmmaking the festival held a free test-screening of in-production film BABELDOM by Paul Bush. The previous film we supported in this way, CAPTAIN EAGER AND THE MARK OF VOTH, had its world premiere at last year's festival and has just finished a three week run at the ICA London, ahead of a limited national release.
The rest of the day was packed solid with films that were all well-attended, which is encouraging to see that there is an audience for small, independent sci-fi films that don't rely on big Hollywood budgets and marketing clout.
Unlike many other festivals, SCI-FI-LONDON doesn't get grants and relies solely on the generosity of its sponsors and the paying public. While this allows the festival to remain independent and show the films it wants to show, it does mean they can't invite the filmmakers as their guests, but each year they are fortunate to have filmmakers come and support their films at their own expense. This year the festival was lucky enough to have the brothers Matthew and Sean Kohnen come with their hilarious, and sometimes profound, zombie movie WASTING AWAY; a zombie flick from the zombie's point of view. Not only did they do very entertaining Q&As at both of the screenings, accompanied by one of the stars of the film, the lovely Julianna Robinson, but they also shared their Hollywood and low-budget filmmaking savvy with those attending the Saturday morning film school.
Of course, for most people SCI-FI-LONDON is about the now legendary all-nighters. As a diverse audience of almost 500 genre fans gather together for an intense eight hours of movies. Anime fans always make up the bulk of the audience, but the MST3K screenings always sell out first, especially with a unique screening of the John Travolta stinker BATTLEFIELD EARTH getting the treatment it deserves courtesy of rifftrax.com. As usual there were goodie bags with DVDs and the exclusive All-nighter Survivor badge and, of course, Red Bull and Purbecks ice-cream. While it is the films that attract the crowds it is the volunteers, who stay up all night without any films to watch, that make it a success - and not forgetting the anonymous projectionist without whom none of it would be possible.
Come Sunday morning, as the shifts changed, like the Warner Bros' coyote and sheep dog cartoons, the stunned and bewildered all-nighters headed home and an equally diverse new crowd moved in. Grungie filmmakers, coming to see their 48 Hour Film Challenge efforts projected on the big screen (and find out if they had won), mixed with children in fancy dress who were going to see THE WIZARD OF OZ. Both crowds were filled with eager anticipation, but the small ones got their faces painted.
This, the first SFL 48 Hour Challenge, was an experiment. The organisers did not know how many people would enter and what the output would be, but it proved to be a resounding success. With 137 teams initially signing up, 87 turning up on the day (the coldest weekend of the year) and 68 teams returning completed films within the time limit. There was a screening of 45 of the films the previous week, with the remainder being shown along with the final ten shortlisted movies. Generally the quality was very high, with imaginative uses of the props and supplied lines of dialogue, with the final ten being world-class shorts to match films shot over a much longer period and with more preparation - films that would easily fit into any festival shorts programme. Sitting through the screening it became pretty clear to most people which film was going to win, even before it was announced. And the results were (in reverse order):
Special Mention: Water's Edge by Quarkz
MovieStorm Award: Graph of Light
Third place: GLIB by The Next Wednesdays
Second place: Until Further Notice by Bretton
Winner: Factory Farmed by Rebel Alliance.
The winning film was a stunningly enigmatic piece with beautiful cinematography and subtle acting. It, along with the other winners, will be shown on the SciFi Channel's website www.scifi.co.uk very soon. The winning entry can be seen now on the Dutch SciFi Channel's YouTube page. All the films will be shown on sci-fi-london.tv in the very near future.
The winning team walked away with a Canon HV30 HDV camera (courtesy of Canon UK), Final Cut and Final Draft software (courtesy of movieScope magazine), VisionLab Studio software (courtesy of Fxhome). Other prizes included Archos players, software from Pinnacle and Film & Festivals magazine subscriptions.
The Challenge was a huge success and one that will be done again next year, only bigger and better.
A now well-established festival favourite is the SFL Pub Quiz. A chance to proudly show off how geeky you are, drink lots of free beer (courtesy of Baltika) and win stuff. The competition was tough this year with some truly testing questions interspersed with Festival Director Louis Savy, reading from the narcissistic autobiography of 2001 actor Gary Lockwood. For some it was hilarious, while others were comparing it with Vogon poetry. The winning team walked away with a bag of swag that included one of the ten Xbox 360s, with games (courtesy of EA) that were given away over the festival. In fact, throughout the festival, not including the all-nighter goody bags, the festival gave away Archos players, hundreds of DVDs, works of art, books, T-shirts and games, all thanks to their generous sponsors. So not only do you get to see great films but get something to take home as well.
This year there was another great closing night film in CHEMICAL WEDDING. This was the world premiere and although it was a much lower-key event than those usually held at the nearby Leicester Square, it was filled with people who wanted to see the film and not by people who wanted to be seen. Guests included the director and co-writer Julian Doyle, co-writer, rock legend and Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson and the film's star Simon Callow, playing a character as far removed from his portrayals of Charles Dickens as one could imagine. After the screening the three aforementioned guests held a lengthy Q&A with the audience, and another lucky person won an Xbox 360, this time signed by Bruce Dickinson.
And so ended another fantastic festival. And we can't wait to come back next year even bigger and better.
A full video report will be going online soon if you want to see what you missed out on. Or visit www.flickr.com/groups/sci-fi-london for photos.
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