Sneak Peak At The 3rd London Science Fiction & Fantasy Film Festival

SCI-FI-LONDON is the UK’s only dedicated science fiction and fantasy film festival, now in its third year.

With an average attendance at every screening in excess of 80% and fantastic media coverage, SCI-FI-LONDON has secured a reputation as a serious international film festival.

Over the last two years SCI-FI-LONDON has hosted two World premieres, including Ken Russell’s The Fall of the Louse of Usher, and over 30 UK and European premieres which include Mamoru Oshii’s Avalon, Mark Pellington’s Mothman Prophecies and Andrej Sekula’s Hypercube: Cube 2.

In line with SCI-FI-LONDON'S original aim, SCI-FI-LONDON attracts an audience susceptible to science fiction, rather than merely playing to hardened fans of specific franchises. SCI-Fi-LONDON purposely avoids typical and obvious choices; No Star Wars, Buffy or Star Trek. Instead, they look for unique, engaging and challenging new products for an eager UK audience, balanced with some rarely seen movie classics.

The classic movie programme has included Tarkovsky’s Stalker and Solaris, George Lucas’ first feature, THX 1138, the ever-relevant, Soylent Green, John Carpenter’s scifi/horror crossover, The Thing and Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451.

The festival includes an international sci-fi short film programme, rounding-up the best sci-fi shorts from the UK and around the world. This strand remains popular at SCI-FI-LONDON'S sold-out ‘Shorts @ Six’ slots and it is festival policy to precede each feature film by a short film from their selection.

SCI-FI-LONDON also hosts sold out all-nighter programmes. With free Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Red Bull and breakfast — the audience has so far experienced all 4 of the Alien series movies back-to-back, four John Carpenter classics, including his first feature Dark Star and first run Animé titles such as Spriggan.

To encourage new audiences, they also hold factual talks, screen documentaries and discussion events at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts). After being granted permission from his estate, The Annual Douglas Adams Memorial Debate explores themes around science fiction. 2002 and 2003 saw lively panel discussions by distinguished writers, commentators and filmmakers on how science fiction transfers from book to screen and whether sci-fi predicts the future.

SCI-FI-LONDON 3: The third SCI-FI-LONDON film festival will be held at the Curzon SOHO and The Other Cinema and runs from Thurs 29 Jan — Sun 1 Feb 2004. It will include over 25 new movies to the UK as well as rare classics.

There will be two all-nighter programmes and this year they also include a raft of sideshow events including Talkaoke, filmmaking workshops, live debates and a new online film competition in conjunction with the 2000AD comic.

classic movies include:

- The Dark Crystal (USA 1982) Another planet, another time. 1000 years ago the Dark Crystal was damaged by one of the Urskeks and an age of chaos began. This fantastic movie from Henson studios is still as gentle today.

- Android (USA 1982) Starring Klaus Kinski. The story of Max 404, an android searching for a soul… problem is, his replacement is a beautiful blonde and everyone seems more interested in her. A wonderful sci-fi from the 80s, big hair and electronica!

new releases confirmed and invited include:

- Starship Troopers 2 (USA 2004) [WORLD PREMIERE (TBC)] The only good bug is a dead bug. A small group of troopers find themselves taking refuge in an abandoned outpost as they attempt to fight the encroaching Arachnids - not realizing a much graver danger is infiltrating their unit...

- Spectres (USA 2004) [WORLD PREMIERE] Starring Marina Sirtis, Dean Haglund, and Alexis Cruz — a teenage girl attempts suicide only to open a doorway to some unhappy spirits.

- Full Metal Yakuza (Japan 1998) [EUROPEAN PREMIERE] Takashi Miike fans will love this cruel, explicit and funny movie; its Robocop meets Ichi the Killer.

- Sirens of the 23rd Century (USA 2003) [EUROPEAN PREMIERE] Drag queens and 23rd century trailer trash have outlawed beauty then along comes the Princess… and she is gorgeous.

- Robot Stories (USA 2003) [EUROPEAN PREMIERE] Winner of 18 awards world-wide, this movie has 4 stories dealing with the human condition — modern treatment of classic science fiction ideals.

- 2009: Lost Memories (Korea 2002) [UK PREMIERE] What if Japan helped the US fight the Nazis in WWII? This action packed movie explores an alternative history and one possible future.

- Natural City (Korea 2003) [UK PREMIERE] Bladerunner told 2003 style — high action, fantastic effects, a compelling storyline — glossy action sci-fi at its best.

- Luminal (France 2003) [UK PREMIERE] Two 18 year old hookers in a futuristic Paris think they killed their pimp and flee to London… problem is he ain’t dead. They never see daylight and they take too many drugs, have too much wild sex and lick a few too many frogs.

- Invasion Animé (USA 2002) [UK PREMIERE] Trekkers for Animé fans — a documentary about the world of Animé, the fans, the creators, the critics, the business.

- Nadesico the movie (Japan 2001) [UK PREMIERE] The conclusion to the popular TV series, this movie is a slick movie bound to please Animé fans.

- Auto Destruct (Canada 2004) [UK PREMIERE] A documentary about USS RockNRoll, a Canadian Star Trek tribute band. Their singer has facial reconstruction to look like William Shatner. Touching yet funny.

festival events and sideshows:

Dean Haglund’s X-FILES Improv The Lone Gunman hits the stage with a one-man improvised stand-up show based on the TV series The X-Files. Haglund uses the audience to help create an X-Files episode.. asking for “who gets killed?” and “by what?” — one show had a mutant giraffe-zebra-cat creature disguised as Garth Brooks as Mulder’s nemesis. Not to be missed.

Talkaoke In residence for the 3rd year running at the Curzon SOHO. Mikey Weinkove, hot from his UK tour will again take the centre chair and keep clubland alive in the Curzon basement… and if you don’t know what Talkaoke is… shame on you! www.talkaoke.com

Mini-Cine A free cinema located in the Curzon's bar. Programme includes all SFL3 short films and a number of “fan movies”.