RECAP: The 4th Annual Philip K. Dick Film Fest

CryptTV.com is the best site for short horror content.  The company, co-founded by Eli Roth, is dedicated to showcasing up and coming filmmakers, and providing a forum for the most creative and cutting edge minds in entertainment.  I strongly encourage all Blood-Shed readers to check them out!

Last weekend, CryptTV Ambassador Tina Griffith attended the 4^th annual Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival.  She was kind enough to give us a rundown of the event and her experience, and we’re happy to share it with you here.  Enjoy!

—

I made my way from my Philadelphian suburban life to a movie theater in NYC for The 4^th annual Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival on a Friday afternoon in January.

Friday night began with an introduction from Dan Abella, head of the festival, about the legacy of Philip K. Dick who had died in March 1982. He told of the books and stories that he had written. He spoke of how Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority report were all based on his works. He had been inspired by philosophical and sociological themes as well as metaphysics and theology. Dick had questioned the world around him.  The festival was loosely based on questioning what was real. Several feature films were playing throughout the festival as well as many shorts. Each had a panel or Q & A afterword with the directors.

I attended the shorts, as that way I could see more stories as opposed to the features. Also, I don’t sit still well for long. As a whole the festival ran through themes. The themes for the shorts were Welcome To The Zone, Humanity vs. Technology, World Mysterio, Supernatural/Horror Sci-Fi, Future Shock, Sci-Fi Amination, Documentaries, Sci-Fi and Beyond, and Mixed Bag (for everything else). Unfortunately I only saw World Mysterio as a whole set but bits and pieces of the others.

The themes of the shorts varied with the creators but so much of it I would call psychological horror as well as Sci-Fi.  There were monsters and some blood and of course some strange almost disturbing human relationships present in the shorts. My personal favorite from Friday was Chronos (winner of the Philip K. Dick Short) directed by Martin Kazimir. A simple idea: An old man goes to hotel room 6 or 9. As one number everything in the room is upside down. Flipping the number on the door over everything outside of the room was upside down. When housekeeping turns the number back over the old man lying on the bed is now a little boy. That was very thought provoking in its simplicity. I still don’t understand it, but to question was the point and it did quite well at that.

Where’s Tina Griffith?

Another thing to note from the festival was a panel about a video game tribute to Philip K. Dick called Californium. Created in France, the computer game, which will be released in Europe and on Steam in February 2016, is about alternate realities. The main character of the game is a writer in California who lost his daughter Alice and divorced his wife thereafter falling into a drug induced writer’s block and depression. As him you walk through the scenes and unlock 4 alternate realities the story changes a bit. It is currently only in French but was subtitled for us as Noam Roubah, the designer,  played through it on the projector screen. Californium won for Best New Media.

Others winners of this year’s festival include: The Incident directed by Isaac Ezban for Best Philip K. Dick Feature, Counter Clockwise directed by George Moise for best Sci-Fi Feature, Chatter directed by Matthew Solomon for Best Horror, Travis-The True Story of Travis Walton directed by Jennifer Stein for Best Documentary, The Mill At Calder’s End directed by Kevin McTurk for Best Horror Short, Enfilade directed by David Coyle for Best Singularity, Eschaton and Beyond, The Looking Planet directed by Eric Anderson for Best Animation, Best African American, Latino and other Person of Color Short directed by Dempsey Tillman and Caihong City directed by Florina Titz for best trailer.

—

Did you attend this year’s Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival?  Share your experience in the Comments section!

Follow me on Twitter @josh_millican for quality horror articles worthy of your attention.