Σε αυτή τη σελίδα θα βρείτε πληροφορίες για το Βραβείο Κοινού 2008 - βιογραφικό του σκηνοθέτη που βραβεύθηκε, και τη λίστα με τις δημοφιλέστερες ταινίες του φεστιβάλ.
Foreign Correspondence: Here, you will find details on the Audience Award 2008 - a bio of the winning director, as well as a list of the most popular films screened.
Well, as with all good things, it eventually ended. Day 4 was the main Short Film Competition day, where 23 shorts screened and competed for the Audience Award (see previous posts on how the Audience Award is awarded). It was also the day that the Official Guest of SFF-rated screened, the documentary “The Last Line”, a clear look at long-time STAR WARS fans on the conclusion of the famous series. The day being a Sunday, we didn’t expect a Sold-Out, and we didn’t get one. But we got 3/4, just fine.
The screenings went smoothly, the Audience duly voted, and the Audience Award goes to…
… an animated short about current everyday life with fine sarcastic humour, with which apparently the Audience connected most, a short that proves the old aphorism, that Sci-fi & Fantasy deal mainly with the present, and not with the future. And shoud we mentioned that it was a World Premiere?!
We will report later in more detail on the Audience Award and how the other shorts did with the Greek Audience.
And in a day or two, a full Aftermath of the event, complete with photos and paraphernalia, will be uploaded.
It was a great experience, by far the most successful SFF-rated to date, and we are already planning for SFF-rated 2009.
Ok. Scrap my previous posts on Day 1 and Day 2 as shameless propaganda. We thought that Saturday & Sunday (Days 3 & 4) would be the strong days of SFF-rated, but hey, anybody even slightly connected to the show business would tell you that you NEVER forecast a SOLD OUT, before it actually happens. And a Sold Out, is what hapened tonight at the 200-seat movie theater MIKROKOSMOS. By the time the Short-film screening zone started, the house was full, and there were also a few people standing.
The higlights of the evening judging from the audience responses:
“Stripped!” by dir. Mark Jackson, a two-and-a-half hilarious comedy/sci-fi short… but, hey, wait a minute: this short is shorter than the 3-minute threshold in SFF-rated regulations… and it’s not even in the programme!… You are absolutely right on both counts. You see, this excellent pun was the Surprise Screening of SFF-rated, announced to nobody beforehand, not even as an anonymous surprise screening. The audience just loved it, and we had to delay the rest of the screenings to give them a chance to regulate their breath.
“Psycho Hillbilly Cabin Massacre!” of dir. Robert Cosnahan, stood out of the eight (scheduled) shorts screened under the umbrella “Ghosts & Monsters”, not jut because of its maverick plot twist, but also because of its ruthless camera and cut-throat editing.
And at the end, the artistic triumph of “Call of Cthulhu“, dir. Andrew Leman, for the first time with greek subtitles (they don’t exist in the commercial dvd), screened in absolute silence. I think that that 200+ people that saw it, are still silent.
Don’t forget: The next post will be about the main Competition screenings of SFF-rated, and about the Audience Award, and who among our filmmakers won it.
Going strong. The Japanese fifties film “The Mysterians”, part of our retrospective on ’50s sci-fi feature films, was the one the audience applauded most. The bar and the absinth stand continued to work hard.
Tommorrow, we go into the land of Ghosts & Monsters: The last ’50s feature “I Married a Monster from Outer Space”, 8 short films with as much variety as one can ask for, but rallying around these two beings (the ghost & the monster), and last but not least the great “Call of Cthulhu”. It will be a night that we will forget forever -night after night.
Everyhting went swell, it’s the only thing I have the time to write to you. All screenings went smoothly, and the bar and the absinth stand worked hard (I give you this as an indication of the attandance levels).
Since we like to make it difficult for ourselves, we surprised them (ourselves) today, by surprisingly deciding to have a surprise-screening of a great short-short film. Preferably, today. So we run now. See you tonight, talk to you tomorrow.
Find the full-length 20-page SFF-rated 2008 Programme, here.
It’s good to be prepaped, for the adventure lying ahead. Less than 48 hours now.
Go to the relevant page of our site, and see / download the official SFF-rated 2008 Poster. As we do every year, the picture on the poster was chosen from among the shorts that will screen in SFF-rated. Let me tell you: the moment we saw this picture from Tatchapon Lertwirojkul’s “SIMULACRA”, we were almost certain that no other could compete… and no other could, indeed. Thanks Tatch.
We believe that festivals happen because there exist artists that create works of art, and people that want to communicate with them (the works of art, that is). That’s why in SFF-rated we have one award only: The Audience Award. This year, it is accompanied by a 500 euro cash prize. But how exactly is the Award to be awarded?
Both on the Saturday 12/4 screening “Ghosts & Monstres” as well as on Sunday 13/4 (see previous post on Screening Scedule), we will hand out to the audience a questionnaire that will contain only one question, to be answered for every short:
“Would you view this film for a second time?” YES - NO.
You see, we like straight answres. To the maybes, ah…s, perhapses, it was okays, don’t know yets etc, we say NO. We ask for your final opinion, not for your internal negotiations in order to arrive at one.
Inbetween the shorts, the lights of the theater will go up for a few seconds, in order to clean your eyes for the next -and usually totally different- short. We suggest that during this informal break, you answer the question for the short that just ended. After all, it is not a question that requires from you to compare movies.
Saturday questionnaires will be collected before the feature “Call of Cthulhu”.
Sunday questionnaires will be collected just after the end of the Competition screenings. While we will be going about them, the Official Guest of the festival, the documentary “THE LAST LINE”, will screen.
Immediately afterwards, we will announce the five shorts that proved to be the most popular, and we will screen again the winner.
That’s the deal. Make it count.
At last, we have our detailed screening schedule, after some last-minute changes. This is NOT the luxurious 20-page programme that will be printed and given to you to take home and remember - this is just a schedule to look at and prepare psychologically. Hit the link, get the info.
