The New York Science Fiction Film Festival has announced the award winners for its third annual event, which featured a lineup of film screenings, and screenplay and graphic novel categories. Held in-person on Saturday, March 25 at the Producers Club Theaters, with a virtual encore on Sunday, March 26, the festival honored the city’s diverse filmmaking community and recognized 13 official selections for exceptional storytelling. More information on this year’s event is available here.

Congratulations to the award winners of The 2023 New York Science Fiction Film Festival:

BEST EXPERIMENTAL SCI-FI FEATURETTE

Stoneman (2022)

Director: Rupert Barker

Run Time/Country: 38 minutes, UK

Synopsis: The last man on Earth must escape the British Isles before the country’s unmanned nuclear power stations go into meltdown.

BEST HORROR FEATURE

The Monster Mash (2022)

Director: Richard Terrasi, Kevin Losani

Run Time/Country: 120 minutes, USA

Synopsis: An anthology of three gruesome tales that will take you back to the days of creature features.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Black Knight Satellite: Beyond the Signal (2022)

Director: Melissa Titti

Run Time/Country: 78 minutes, USA

Synopsis: Billy Carson as he uncovers the truth coming from an unknown signal. Carson has spent most of his life studying the unseen to uncover why humanity is here and where we came from. When he discovers a NASA image depicting an unknown object, Carson knows this could be the answer to his questions. Known as The Black Knight Satellite. He interviews leading thinkers in the field.

BEST HORROR FEATURETTE

The Pit and the Pendulum (2021)

Director: Danny Ashkenasi

Run Time/Country: 29 minutes, USA

Synopsis: Musical short film adaptation of the classic Poe story. A desperate composer imagines himself both the victim and the Inquisition in Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Reality and fantasy converge with frightening consequences.

BEST SCI-FI SHORT

The Signal (2022)

Director: Daniel Lasker

Run Time/Country: 18 minutes, Zimbabwe

Synopsis: A deadly sound transmitted from space known as “The Signal,” corrupts the minds of all who hear it, turning them into soulless demons under its control.

BEST HORROR SHORT

Hangman (2022)

Director: Cameron Sun

Run Time/Country: 12 minutes, USA

Synopsis: A woman returning home is stalked by a mysterious upside down figure.

BEST ANIMATION

Agatha (2022)

Director: Roland Becerra, Kelly Bigelow Becerra

Run Time/Country: 60 minutes, USA

Synopsis: The film follows “The Professor,” a man suffering from a terminal disease, who by a twist of fate, witnesses an incredible event involving his mysterious neighbor Agatha.

BEST WEB SERIES

Cosmic Virtuoso (2022)

Submitter: Scienshell Studio

Run Time/Country: 20 minutes, USA

Synopsis: Showcasing alien mega constructions around the universe.

BEST TRAILER

Staycation (2023)

Director: Russ Emmanuel

Run Time/Country: 2 minutes, USA

Synopsis: Teaser Trailer for the upcoming film “Staycation” starring Olivia d’Abo, Sean Kenney, Tracee Cocco, Laurene Landon, Kelli Maroney, and Eileen Dietz.

BEST SCI-FI SCREENPLAY

Death Memory

Writer: Jenny Popovich

Synopsis: An eager scientist develops and performs an experimental cure for Alzheimer’s on her mother, who begins having disturbing memories of crimes she committed.

BEST SUPERNATURAL SCREENPLAY

An American Afterlife

Writer: Michael Natoli

Synopsis: After a shady life and a suspicious death on a job gone wrong, loudmouth mercenary Gee Zulamina finds herself conscripted onto a team of afterlife assassins, made up of misfit souls from different eras of American history.

BEST SHORT FORM SCREENPLAY

E.Nygma – A Batman Story

Writer: Rob Ayling

Synopsis: A psychological dive into the narcissistic mind of Edward Nygma,who is struggling to answer one of his most personal riddles.

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL

Gorilla My Dreams – Team-Up #1

Writer: Tim Stiles, Kieran Jack

Synopsis: Knockaround-Guy (KG) and Cthulhu Williams don’t always see eye-to-eye. KG is a D-List superhero (and talking gorilla) who solves the weird and bizarre, street-level cases the A-List ignore. Williams is a paranormal investigator/monster hunter who takes his job VERY seriously.

[Based on a press release.]

The 2022 New York Science Fiction Film Festival has announced the award winners for its second edition, which featured a lineup of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror films and screenplay entries. Held virtually on Friday, May 13 and Sunday, May 15, and in person on Saturday, May 14th at the Producers Club Theaters in Midtown Manhattan, the festival honored the city’s diverse filmmaking community and recognized 15 official selections for exceptional storytelling. More information on this year’s festival is available here.

Congratulations to the award winners of The 2022 New York Science Fiction Film Festival:

BEST SCI-FI FEATURE

Tales of Tomorrow (2020)

Director: Pedro de Lima Marques

Synopsis: In 2165, the kidnapping of a young girl puts the last stronghold of human civilization at war! The problem is that, in order to save humanity, it will be necessary to rely on the help of an adolescent who lives in 1999.

BEST SCI-FI FEATURE IN A DRAMATIC SETTING

12 Months of KAI (2021) — EAST COAST PREMIERE

Director: Mutsumi Kameyama

Synopsis: What would you do if an “impossible thing” was born between humanoids and humans? Kyoka, who works as a web director in Tokyo, gets a personal care humanoid (PCH) Kai. Kai learns various things about the owner. Kyoka gradually invites Kai to “more emotions as a thing.”

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Exegesis: Lovecraft (2021) — EAST COAST PREMIERE

Director: Qais Pasha

Synopsis: A cathartic journey that Qais Pasha, a Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker embarks on as he traces the life of cult author H.P. Lovecraft, from woodland cemeteries in Rhode Island, to the docks of New York and on to the cobbled stone streets of Quebec City.

BEST SCI-FI SHORT

One-Hit Wonder (2021)

Director: Amanda Dow

Synopsis: A cab driver takes a former pop star on a one-way Twilight Zone-like ride.

BEST SUPERNATURAL SHORT

Moore’s Void (2020)

Director: Brad Bangsboll

Synopsis: A grieving mother attempts to speak with her deceased son.

BEST DIVERSITY IN SCI-FI SHORT

Looking Glass (2020)

Director: Ginew Benton

Synopsis: After his father was murdered Benjamin Looking Glass II, a young Native American man builds a time machine using modern science and ancient knowledge in an attempt to bring his father back but ultimately discovers his true purpose in creation.

BEST FANTASY SHORT

Fulgidusen (2020)

Director: Alexander Feichter

Synopsis: Felix has first met his paper friends: He has discovered them on the pages of some of the old books on the bookshelf. Uncle Armin calls them the Fulgiduses. As Felix is browsing through the books again, he discovers something new: Tentacled beings called Skures.

BEST ANIMATION

Kaiju Decode (2021)

Director: S/N

Synopsis: The catastrophe “Skyfall” was brought by the collapsed orbital space colony crashed into the Earth. Inside the crater at the crash site now inhabit Kaiju born by a gene mutation. Ray, an avatar, comes to the area to collect the scattered “seeds”, not knowing what really is going on there, He soon meets Mil, a mysterious girl. Is she a human, or a Kaiju. A secret government film from the 1960s reveals a scientist desperate to work a mysterious AI to uncover the secrets of a fictional reality invading our own.

BEST VIRTUAL REALITY

Kaiju Decode: First Contact (2021)

Creator: Tsuburaya Productions, Toei Animation

Country: Japan

Synopsis: This virtual reality animation work is about a girl, Mil, who encounters, plays and interacts with a Kaiju. This VR film can be watched from three different viewpoints: the audience’s perspective (default), the Kaiju’s perspective, and Mil’s perspective.

BEST WEB SERIES

Atlas – Chapter One (2021)

Director: Ayman Chaudhry

Synopsis: Technology has replaced currency. Wealth has replaced humanity. When a rebel cell interrogates a corrupt politician, they uncover a secret more terrifying than anything they could have imagined

BEST TRAILER

In Search of Hawaiian Bigfoot (2021)

Director: MarQ Morrison 

Synopsis: This award-winning experimental, hybrid, cinematic, vlog film follows “marQ,” an award-winning micro-documentary filmmaker turned Cine-Vlogger as he searches for the Maui Skunk Ape a.k.a. Hawaiian Bigfoot in the jungles of Maui.

BEST SUPERNATURAL SCREENPLAY

The Bad Ones

Writer: Dempsey James Tillman, Ted Dewberry

BEST SCI-FI SCREENPLAY

The Cheating Vaccine

Writer: Duncan B. Putney

BEST WORLD-BUILDING SCREENPLAY

Escape to Hollow Earth

Writer: Colin K. Stewart

BEST SHORT SCREENPLAY

Transistor

Writer: Brendan P Lee

About The New York Science Fiction Film Festival: Founded in 2017, The New York Science Fiction Film Festival celebrates freedom of expression and the unique approaches of independent filmmakers as a merit to the science fiction, supernatural, horror, and fantasy genres. By honoring a groundbreaking past and looking ahead to an unprecedented future, the festival is committed to encompassing the brilliance of film.

[Based on a press release.]

The inaugural New York Science Fiction Film Festival was held January 20-22. Here is a list of the award-winning entries.

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BEST SCIENCE FICTION FEATURE

Teleios by Ian Truitner (2016, USA) East Coast Premiere —Five genetically engineered “perfect” humans are sent on a rescue mission to Titan, where only one man has survived a ruined expedition to retrieve a vital cargo. Under the stress of isolation in outer space, the five perfect humans begin to exhibit formerly concealed character flaws that threaten to tear apart the mission and their chances for survival. Starring Sunny Mabrey (Snakes on a Plane), Lance Broadway (Olympus Has Fallen), T.J. Hoban (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Mykel Shannon Jenkins (Containment) and Michael Nouri (Flashdance).

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BEST SCIENCE FICTION SHORT

Uncanny Harbor by Nicholas Valaskatgis (2015, USA) — Twenty years after a man was blamed for his wife’s mysterious vanishing, new evidence arises creating more questions than answers.

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BEST HORROR FEATURE

Gehenna: Where Death Lives by Hiroshi Katagiri (2016, USA/Japan) — A resort company dispatches key personnel to the remote and pristine Pacific Island of Saipan to search for locations for their company’s new luxury resort. They find curious natives and strange dolls hidden inside a WWII Japanese bunker and soon discover that curiosity can kill. Starring Doug Jones (Hellboy), Simon Phillips (Dangerous Mind of a Hooligan) and Lance Henriksen (Alien).

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BEST HORROR SHORT

April the 6th by Mark Hammett (2016, UK) — A young girl attempts to gain access inside the one room in her house she’s not allowed in. There, she finds a key to her future.

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BEST VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIENCE

I, Philip by Pierre Zandrowicz (2016, France) — In early 2005, an American robotics professor is developing its first android human. His name is Phil, a copy of the famous science fiction author Philip K. Dick. In a few weeks, Phil became famous on the Internet and in the author’s fan circles and is presented in several conferences around the world. In late 2005, the head of the android disappeared during a flight on America West Airlines between Dallas and Las Vegas. Through the memories of the android and those of the author, the film offers an interpretation of Phil’s life.

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BEST LATINO, AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND PERSON OF COLOR DRAMA

Glimpse by Eric Medina (2016, USA) — In a not-so-distant future, a new tech startup offers a peek at a defining moment from your future. One young couple must decide whether or not to start a life together after their Glimpse reveals more than they anticipated.

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BEST DOCUMENTARY

How to Build a Time Machine by Jay Cheel (2016, Canada) — Two men work together to discover the truth and possibilities of time travel. Hollywood animator Rob Niosi, driven by the idea recreating the sled in the H. G. Wells-inspired film The Time Machine (1960) directed by George Pal while Ronald Mallet, a University of Connecticut theoretical physicist distressed by the death of his father, works on a time portal based on Einstein’s Equation.

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BEST FANTASY FILM

Dryad by Thomas Vernay (2016, France) — The wind blows and noises of armor resound. A knight escorts a young woman athwart plains. The thunder begins to scold, clouds invade the landscape. The knight, worried, stares at the castle on the horizon. The end is close.

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BEST ANIMATION FILM

Super Science Friends by Brett Jubinville (2016, Canada) — In the first episode “The Phantom Premise,” a team of time-traveling super scientists led by Winston Churchill travel through time fighting Nazis, zombies and all forms of science villains.

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BEST WEB SERIES

Agent9 by Jeff Schultz (2015, USA) — In the year 2030, planet Earth has begun a transformation as alien species from all over our galaxy begin to migrate to a little marble orbiting the sun.

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BEST TRAILER

Monochrome by Kodi Zene (2015, USA) — Traded and sold as currency, the outcast people known as “Hues” are hunted down in a black and white world.

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[Thanks to Jonathan Carsten for the story.]