The 2022 New York Science Fiction Film Festival has announced the program for its second event, a creative lineup of film screenings, discussions, and a screenplay competition. The festival will be held virtually on Friday, May 13 and Sunday, May 15, and in person on Saturday, May 14, featuring a total of 90 official selections. Passes are available here.

A lifelong admirer of science fiction, Daniel Abella established the event as a center for filmmakers to display their work as part of the city’s diverse filmmaking community. He noted that, “New York City has always been the perfect place to bring audiences cutting edge films that have an impact on our lives.” This year’s lineup consists of seven features, 74 shorts, nine screenplay entries, and spans 16 countries. Highlights include the East Coast Premieres of Exegesis: Lovecraftdirected by Qais Pasha, who takes viewers on a cathartic journey through the life of author H.P. Lovecraft, and Guilhem Bertrand and Quentin Bruet-Ferréol’s Extasium – A Doorway to Paradise, about an artist who builds a machine invoking the power of God.

The festival will also present several films produced in Asia with stories of the paranormal, advancements in technology, and the uncertainty of reality. “Our programming reflects many cultures and lifestyles, with a specific focus on the importance of Asian sci-fi,” said Abella. “We are proud to screen films that exemplify this smartly developed form of cinema.”

The festival opens with The Spiral directed by Peter Wong, a feature from Malaysia about a university lecturer overcome by a deadly supernatural force. Further screenings include the East Coast Premiere of the Japanese film 12 Months of KAI directed by Mutsumi Kameyama, about the relationship between a human and a personal care humanoid, and the U.S. Premiere of Victor Villanueva’s Lucidfrom the Philippines, which traces the impact of a woman’s dreams on her waking reality. In addition, the festival will hold a science fiction and supernatural screenplay competition as a means of showing the precision and accuracy necessary to the craft of screenwriting. “The screenplay has always been the most fundamental part of the filmmaking process,” said Abella. “This competition shines a light on the significance of good storytelling.”

The festival film schedule follows the jump.

[Based on a press release.]

FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2022:

Virtual Screening (https://www.newyorksci-fifest.com)

Block 1: Feature Presentation

Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm EST

The Spiral (2021 Director’s Cut)

Director: Peter Wong

Run Time/Country: 90 minutes, Malaysia

Synopsis: Jon Caine, a respected lecturer in a university, is missing. Three months later he resurfaces and massacres a group of civilians and police at a cafe. After being apprehended by Detective Inspector Aleana, he is sent to an asylum to be interrogated by a criminal psychologist, Dr. Melanie Surya. Dr. Surya soon discovers a secret that Jon has kept inside him – The Spiral, a supernatural realm that transcends time, space, and reality.

Block 2: Fantasy Sci-Fi Shorts

Time: 7:30pm – 9:30pm EST

Orbital Christmas (2021)

Director: Mitsuyasu Sakai

Run Time/Country: 17 min, Japan

Synopsis: In near future, ALI, a Muslim space pilot, is working alone on a space station during the Christmas season, because all other crew is back on the Earth for holidays. One day, TAKAKO, a Japanese girl who lives in the city on the Moon, stows away in an unmanned cargo ship and gets onboard the space station.

Nighthawks (2021)

Director: Jon Frier

Run Time/Country: 2 min, USA

Synopsis: A strange night out.

Rojas and Retribution (2020)

Director: Daniel Koenig Porter

Run Time/Country: 24 min, USA

Synopsis: A young shepherd living on the outskirts of time is attacked, awakening to find his goats murdered, his camp destroyed, and his mother’s gun stolen. Dying of blood loss and thirst, he must now cross the desert to find the thing responsible.

Banquet On The Beagle (2021)

Director: Joel Van Dyk

Run Time/Country: 8 min, Canada

Synopsis: The mostly true story of Charles Darwin’s historic voyage to the Galapagos Islands, and the culinary delights that followed aboard the HMS Beagle.

First Time (2021)

Director: Timothy Hawthorne

Run Time/Country: 15 min, New Zealand

Synopsis: A computer genius from a broken home living in the future returns to the East End London Pub where his deceased mother held her 21st birthday party in 1973. The dramatic events of that evening, which lead to the tragedy of their shared history, are played out before him.

The Terror Adaptors! – Blast Off! (2021)

Director: Peter Renzullo

Run Time/Country: 4 min, Australia

Synopsis: The debut video clip from the nerdcore rockers of Perth, Western Australia – six lunatics find themselves strapped inside a rocket, battling a mad scientist and its robot crew, with only three minutes to spare!

mi-fi (2018)

Director: David Mair

Run Time/Country: 8 min, USA

Synopsis: A very lazy man invents a teleportation device in order to maintain his sedentary lifestyle.

Fulgidusen (2020)

Director: Alexander Feichter

Run Time/Country: 23 min, Germany

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.

Coming Home (2020)

Director: Tatiana Samano

Run Time/Country: 9 min, USA

Synopsis: Two sisters uncover a secret dimension in their household attic.

Fish Hole (2017)

Director: Simon Beaupre

Run Time/Country: 8 min, Canada

Synopsis: When a giant hole appears at the edge of the Arctic, fish find themselves faced with a difficult choice. Fight the unknown or dive into a new life.

Odius Savor Sweet (2021)

Director: Fritz Master

Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA

Synopsis: Fish, Bird, Saint Saens.

Block 3: Sci-Fi Feature Presentation

Time: 9:30pm – 11:00pm EST

12 Months of KAI (2021) — EAST COAST PREMIERE

Director: Mutsumi Kameyama

Run Time/Country: 83 min, Japan

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.”

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2022:

Producers Club Theaters (358 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036)

Block 1: Best of International Sci-Fi

Time: 10:30am – 12:15pm EST

Enthusiasm Abounds (2019)

Director: Anthony Burkhalter

Run Time/Country: 2 min, USA

Synopsis: Teaser trailer for the feature film based on the award-winning science fiction short, Enthusiasm Abounds.

Ryoko’s Qubit Summer (2018)

Director: Yuichi Kondo

Run Time/Country: 1718min, Japan

Synopsis: Quantum butterflies with Qubit wings, The same technology was used to create KANUMA, an experimental world of Artificial Intelligence inside a quantum computer. Then one day, AIs began using words unknown to man. Scientists saw this as a threat and decided to “delete” KANUMA.

June (2021)

Director: Dwayne Cameron

Run Time/Country: 15 min, New Zealand

Synopsis: Willow and David receive a serious diagnosis from their doctor and attempt to deal with the mundane as their world disintegrates in the following 24 hours. This one day in June for the couple holds raw despair, unleashing carnal natures but a transcendent occurrence offers them the hope of new life.

Birth of the EMs (2020)

Director: Samuel Clemens

Run Time/Country: 4 min, USA

Synopsis: The last of the human resistance needs your help: Here’s how you defeat the EMs!

The Forgetting Device (2021)

Director: Chris Remerowski

Run Time/Country: 11 min, Canada

Synopsis: A man begins to suspect that something strange and sinister is responsible for his recent memory loss. Starring Jarod Joseph (The 100) and Anand Rajaram (Odd Squad).

Memory of Man (2021)

Director: Henri de Trogoff

Run Time/Country: 15 min, France

Synopsis: As Mankind went extinct, artificial Intelligence loads videos from the witnesses of the Apocalypse.

The Desert (2021)

Director: Michael Dockery

Run Time/Country: 5 min, Australia

Synopsis: Earth in a post-human age, where our creations are left to wander in desolation.

El Camino (2021)

Director: Fernando Campos, Jaime Jasso

Run Time/Country: 15 min, Mexico

Synopsis: In order to sustain his family, a troubled pilot accepts one last crooked deal to transport a dangerous cargo inside his spaceship.

Space Chaser – Remnants of Technology (2021)

Director: Lucas Fiederling

Run Time/Country: 9 min, Germany

Synopsis: A German thrash metal band gets teleported into a cantina bar in a distant galaxy and has to show all the alien creatures what they are about.

Kairos, tiempo cualitativo (2021)

Director: Carlos Scasso

Run Time/Country: 17 min, Spain

Synopsis: To curtail the spread of revolts against the System, the “Kairos Programme” has been activated. Issachar, one of the insurgents, will find himself faced with the chance of preserving something more important than his ideals.

Block 2: Technology vs. Humanity

Time: 12:15pm – 1:45pm EST

Jurassic Incident

Director: Jack Hussey

Run Time/Country: 3 min, USA

Synopsis: Two young men go to the lost world, Isla Sorna, to take some Herbivore dinosaurs to use for World War 3. But all hell breaks loose when the velociraptor virus starts infecting humans.

Welcome to Forever (2021)

Director: John Gray

Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA

Synopsis: The brilliant designer of smart houses leaves a posthumous surprise for his widow.

Ulom: The Primary Experiment (2019)

Director: Jon D.A.

Run Time/Country: 8 min, USA

Synopsis: A secret government film from the 1960s reveals a scientist desperate to work with a mysterious AI to uncover the secrets of a fictional reality invading our own.

Kaiju Decode (2021)

Director: S/N

Run Time/Country: 9 min, Japan

Synopsis: The catastrophe “Skyfall” was brought by the collapsed orbital space colony that 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.

Antenna (2016)

Director: Carsten Wolke

Run Time/Country: 16 min, Germany

Synopsis: A lonely 11-year-old-boy gets in contact with an alien via his old radio-device system. Or is the alien only a lonely old man?

The Unconscious and the Reflective Nemesis (2021)

Director: Adrian Stanley Thomas

Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA

Synopsis: A film that explores the ramifications of repressed trauma. Frederick, the film’s main character, has been tormented by a childhood of neglect and violence.

Moore’s Void (2020)

Director: Brad Bangsboll

Run Time/Country: 16 min, Canada

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

The Assistant (2021)

Director: Guil Parreiras

Run Time/Country: 7 min, USA

Synopsis: A theatre assistant (a human-like robot) dreams of becoming an actress, but when her work condition presents her with an ugly reality, she must fight to escape from it.

Pick Me Up! (2021)

Director: Alex Cherney

Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA

Synopsis: Heartbroken over a recent breakup, a young man gets more than what he bargains for when looks to gain his confidence back with the help of a friend.

Block 3: Best of Supernatural Sci-Fi

Time: 1:45pm – 3:45pm EST

Claws: A Telephonic Thriller For One (2020)

Director: Evan Neiden, John Ertman, Daniel Hendon, Jacob Leaf

Run Time/Country: 2 min, USA

Synopsis: Ring ring. You get a call from a young man named Danny. There’s a monster in his closet, and he needs your help. But as you go deeper into this telephone play, a simple ghost story reveals something altogether more sinister.

Melchior Strasse (2020)

Director: Peter Mason

Run Time/Country: 5 min, UK

Synopsis: The back streets of Weimar Berlin, madness is afoot.

Solstice (2019)

Director: Lisandro- Perez Rey

Run Time/Country: 16 min, USA

Synopsis: During a brutal winter storm, a bartender befriends a homeless man and brings him home for a warm meal and an ancient ritual.

We Are Nowhere (2021)

Director: J. Cody Spellman

Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA

Synopsis: After aliens abduct her husband, Minnie receives a visit from a mysterious man in black.

The Bus Ride (2021)

Director: Nathan Block

Run Time/Country: 8 min, USA

Synopsis: A young girl with dreams of a better life boards a bus where she meets a mysterious stranger.

There’s Something in the Silence (2020)

Director: Mike Castro

Run Time/Country: 8 min, USA

Synopsis: Erin’s new hearing aids have been picking up voices and sounds she’s unable to explain. In an attempt to quiet the voices, she confronts them head-on only to find there may be something more sinister lurking in the depths of silence.

Cold Caller (2020)

Director: Darren J. Perry

Run Time/Country: 10 min, UK

Synopsis: Deep within an English garden under a dark canopy of trees, other-worldly powers are at work which soon become a theatre for a malevolent puppeteer.

First Lesson (2020)

Director: Mathieu Di Muro

Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA

Synopsis: The human race has lost individual integrity. As forced accountability they wear their actions, their crimes, as marks on their skin, to act as reminders and as warnings to others.

Sereget (2018)

Director: Dempsey Tillman

Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA

Synopsis: An emotionally detached husband (with a child on the way) gets a rude awakening when aliens invade his home and target his family.

ZAP! (2020)

Director: Philip C. Sedgwick

Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA

Synopsis: An astronomer sharing online backyard observations of the center of our galaxy has a run-in with mosquitoes and a not-so-trusty bug zapper.

Block 4: Documentary Feature

Time: 3:45pm – 6:00pm EST

Exegesis: Lovecraft (2021) — EAST COAST PREMIERE

Director: Qais Pasha

Run Time/Country: 120 min, Canada

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.

Block 5: Sci-Fi Feature Presentation

Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm EST

Lucid (2019) — U.S. PREMIERE

Director: Victor Villanueva

Run Time/Country: 90 min, Philippines

Synopsis: Anne’s dreams are the exact opposite of her routine life. In one of her dreams, she meets a mysterious man who challenges her to make her dreams more adventurous. As she crosses paths with another lucid dreamer, Ann realizes her dreams are far more alive than her reality, making her question if it is worth staying there or not.

Block 6: Humanity Prevails

Time: 7:30pm – 9:45pm EST

In Search of Hawaiian Bigfoot (2021 Trailer)

Director: MarQ Morrison 

Run Time/Country: 1 min, USA

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.

Looking Glass (2020)

Director: Ginew Benton

Run Time/Country: 20 min, USA

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.

Cognition (2020)

Director: Ravi Ajit Chopra

Run Time/Country: 25 min, UK

Synopsis: An emotionally engaging father & son story. Starring Andrew Scott (Fleabag) and Jeremy Irvine (Green Lantern).

I Don’t Want to Be Alone Tonight (2021)

Director: Michael Cho

Run Time/Country: 7 min, USA

Synopsis: Paranormal activity prompts a sleepover between Caly and her gay best friend Rodger.

Low Down Larry Conquers The Moon Men (2019)

Director: Sammy Verni

Run Time/Country: 5 min, USA

Synopsis: At the height of the Space Race in July 1969, Larry Johnson and his trusty sidekick Spike, endeavor to be the first man (and dog) to set foot (and paw) on the Moon.

Solitary (2021)

Director: Daniel Farmer

Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA

Synopsis: The Demeter was supposed to carry the first crew to land on a habitable exoplanet. But after an accident en route, the ship is lost with a single survivor in an escape pod, pushing forward, determined to complete the mission.Alone in unexplored space, the Astronaut drifts, hoping to find humanity’s future.

Cosmic Playtester (2020)

Director: Arthur Vincie

Run Time/Country: 8 min, USA

Synopsis: Two board game play testers get together after the death of their best friend, to figure out what it all means. Oh, and one of them is an alien.

One-Hit Wonder (2021)

Director: Amanda Dow

Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA

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

Extasium – A Doorway to Paradise (2021) — EAST COAST PREMIERE

Director: Guilhem Bertrand, Quentin Bruet-Ferréol

Run Time/Country: 36 min, France

Synopsis: In the secrecy of a Parisian building, for half a century, an outsider artist has built a machine that has the alleged power of invoking God at will. Every night, his creation plunges him into a powerful ecstasy. A religious and sexual trance.

Block 7: Sci-Fi Feature Presentation

Time: 9:45pm – 11:30pm EST

Tales of Tomorrow (2020)

Director: Pedro de Lima Marques

Run Time/Country: 85 min, Brazil

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.

SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2022:

Virtual Screening (https://www.newyorksci-fifest.com)

Block 1: Our Brave New World

Time: 11:00am – 1:15pm EST

Lockdown: The Doctor Who Fans’ Survival Guide (2020)

Director: Roger Christopher Stevens

Run Time/Country: 46 min, UK

Synopsis: During the COVID19 pandemic, a call went out to fans of the BBC TV science fiction series ‘Doctor Who’ to film personal videos of how they coped with being confined in their homes for months on end. Shot on mobile phones, laptops, tablets and cameras…anything they could lay their hands on…the following film is the result.

Remote Viewing (2021)

Director: Jordu Schell

Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA

Synopsis: A genetic experiment goes wrong, potentially creating a disaster for humankind.

Populace (2015)

Director: Aaron Bevan Bailey

Run Time/Country: 14 min, UK

Synopsis: This film follows a day in the life of John, a clone, who works for the sinister Orwellian Populace corporation. His world is turned upside down when he is forced to choose between the reason he was created and the woman he loves.

Beta Test (2016)

Director: Joel Makar, Kenton Evenson

Run Time/Country: 15 min, Canada

Synopsis: A science fiction thriller that takes Eric Holt into a simulated world in order to relieve him of the stresses of his everyday life. When Eric enters the simulation, he relives some of his favorite memories from the past. However, complications in the program occur and Eric must face a memory he has been trying to bury.

i.am.real (2018)

Director: Eddie Frente

Run Time/Country: 9 min, USA

Synopsis: In the not-so-distant future a newly designed AI living among humans questions the very idea of what is real.

Zero One Zero (2021)

Director: Graham High

Run Time/Country: 13 min, USA

Synopsis: Looking to boost his confidence, Chuck tries a new meditation technique and manifests a night he won’t forget.

Invasion (2021)

Director: Joann Perez-Moya

Run Time/Country: 6 min, USA

Synopsis: A film noir horror. An Alien Detective hunts down a suspected Scientist trying to prove Aliens exist and possibly reveal their impending plan to invade earth.

Atlas – Chapter One (2021)

Director: Ayman Chaudhry

Run Time/Country: 10 min, UK

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

Block 2: Technology vs. Humanity

Time: 1:15pm – 3:00pm EST

The Dark Odyssey (2021)

Director: Michael Lavine

Run Time/Country: 9 min, USA

Synopsis: A brave captain and his faithful mate transport a captive warrior, who holds The Inventory of The Mind, across the interstellar line. When their ship is forced to navigate an asteroid field, their mission is jeopardized.

Stream (2021)

Director: Britt Couch

Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA

Synopsis: A heartbroken man pays a washed up doctor to insert him into the dangerous illegal virtual reality system called streaming.

Immortal Game (2021)

Director: John Freeman

Run Time/Country: 11 min, USA

Synopsis: Early in the 21st Century, Man has developed the technology to create humanoid androids with short, fixed lifespans. Ema returns to Earth with the hope of extending her lifespan. After discovering her creator has been murdered, she meets a new visionary poised to continue the fateful experiments.

EP (2021)

Director: Pat Campo

Run Time/Country: 10 min, USA

Synopsis: Pilot Episode. An AI robot and its owner make a living by hacking into computers and stealing important electronic files. During their usual escapade, they stumble upon a hard drive containing EP. But what is EP?

G-Rail (2021)

Director: Javier Merono

Run Time/Country: 10 min, Spain

Synopsis: G-Rail is a modern adaptation of the Arthurian myth of the Grail. Perceval Gallois attends a meeting where Gawain Hawk introduces him to a plan to save Arthur’s life. This leads him on an extreme and fantastic trip to endure G-forces, transcend the limits of human knowledge and discover the secret of the Grail.

The Stamp Collector (2020)

Director: Luke Momo

Run Time/Country: 9 min, USA

Synopsis: A high-tech thief comes home from the scene of a crime, reeling with guilt and misbegotten plans. How will his artificially-intelligent assistant, designed to help commit crimes, respond to his programmer’s sudden change of heart? An interactive thriller performed live, just for you, over the course of a phone call.

Transfert (2020)

Director: Jonathan Degrelle

Run Time/Country: 14 min, France

Synopsis: 1967: IV Reich. The Germans won the war. ISAAC, a survivor of the concentration camps, is sent by Max, a Nazi officer, in the middle of the Second World War to recover a strange mechanism. But during his quest, he will be facing his worst nightmare.

The Prospector (2020)

Director: Wade Chitwood

Run Time/Country: 14 min, USA

Synopsis: A lone man searches for his place in the Universe. This journey takes the prospector to a place where he has to look directly at his soul and decide what he is willing to sacrifice to achieve his ambitions.

Block 3: Sci-Fi Feature Presentation

Time: 3:15pm – 5:45pm EST

The Stars My Destination (2018)

Director: Keishi Suenaga

Run Time/Country: 135 min, Japan

Synopsis: A retired Russian-Japanese soldier, Eiji Onodera, was going to his hometown in Japan. But on his way, he was caught and given a new mission by his ex-colleague Captain Vadim Dadikov. Onodera and his father would never be free unless he completes the secret mission. He and the Master Sergeant Zinaida Zasyekina go to Hokkaido to monitor an ex-officer of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force, Toshio Honda. Honda has killed 27 people including his colleagues and is hiding in a mountain with a mysterious beauty, Risa.

Block 4: Best of Visionary and Supernatural Sci-Fi

Time: 5:45pm – 7:45pm EST

The Penny Dropped (2016)

Director: A D Cooper

Run Time/Country: 6 min, UK

Synopsis: A desperate woman seeks help from an unlikely source in a dark place. Neither of them realize that their futures will be decided by the flip of a coin.

Mother’s Day (2018)

Director: Elizabeth Tabish

Run Time/Country: 22 min, USA

Synopsis: California, 1968. Jane has a perfect life. A loving husband, a darling daughter, and -hands down- the grooviest home in the neighborhood. But all that is no match for the painful memories of Jane’s childhood as they emerge on the eve of Mother’s Day.

The Cabin (2021)

Director: Bartosz Tobola 

Run Time/Country: 20 min, Poland

Synopsis: Julka and Marek visit a mountain cabin to rest, but at the beginning of their journey, things get complicated as the violin, the forest, Venus and Schrodinger’s Cat come to the fore. The cabin has its secrets and so do the characters as the tension grows the deeper they walk into the forest.

Adam In Aeternum (2020)

Director: Pedro Jaen R.

Run Time/Country: 15 min, Spain

Synopsis: An exhausted traveler reaches the border of the world chasing his destiny: to face the demon that caused his misfortune.

Parallelism (2021)

Director: Marco Bolognesi

Run Time/Country: 16 min, Italy

Synopsis: In terms of Mind Philosophy, Parallelism is a mind-body interaction dualist theory affirming that mental and physical events take place on a parallel course of existence, and interact with each other in a not casual way.

Mercury XX (2021)

Director: Miriam Kuhlmann

Run Time/Country: 7 min, Germany

Synopsis: Mercury XX is a science fiction short Film which tells the story of an all-female space mission to draw the first breath on another planet. After an astronauts decade-long journey across the stars accompanied only by her spaceship’s AI she becomes conflicted with the realization of having to leave her sole friend behind or taking this next breath for humankind.

Retreat (2020)

Director: Joeri Verbesselt

Run Time/Country: 5 min, Belgium

Synopsis: A futuristic vision of a world on the brink of environmental meltdown, where a violent confrontation between the police and demonstrators, pollution and nature, is performed in a parallel reality.

Pale Blue Dot: A Tale of Two Stargazers (2021)

Director: Matteo Scarfeo

Run Time/Country: 18 min, Italy

Synopsis: A female form is sent to investigate a planet to see if it can be inhabitable, and upon crash landing, her directive is revealed as being a sacrifice for the exploration against her will. She is discovered by a robotic presence who explains that she is on Earth and that humans have been here before. Two lost souls, a direct result of human interference, make their own destiny against all odds.

Obsolete Model (2019)

Director: Warren DiFranco Hsu

Run Time/Country: 12 min, USA

Synopsis: A sentient artificial intelligence awakens to a world in dystopian ruin and charges two androids, INJUN and ISEE to seek a model-borg named SARA.H, who can save it by altering her past.

Block 5: Sci-Fi Feature Presentation (Out of Competition)

Time: 8:00pm – 9:15pm EST

The Final Equation (2021 Remastered/Director’s Cut)

Director: DUA

Run Time/Country: 70 min, USA

Synopsis: Through a series of String equations, physicist Jack Smith begins to realize Einstein’s Dream of a Unified Field Theory. When his calculations accidentally unlock a door between realities and start to unravel the fabric of his existence, Jack is forced to make a choice between science and faith.

Awards Ceremony

Time: 9:15pm – 9:30pm

Awards are presented to the category winners of The 2022 New York Science Fiction Film Festival.

Screenplay Competition:

Official Selections

The Hallowe’en House

Writer: Stuart Creque (USA)

Category: Best Supernatural Screenplay

Escape to Hollow Earth

Writer: Colin K. Stewart (USA)

Category: Best Sci-Fi Screenplay

The Cheating Vaccine

Writer: Duncan B. Putney (USA)

Category: Best Sci-Fi Screenplay

The Bad Ones

Writer: Dempsey James Tillman, Ted Dewberry (USA)

Category: Best Sci-Fi Screenplay

The Blue Blood Moon

Writer: David Sabbath (USA)

Category: Best Sci-Fi Screenplay

Reverie

Writer: Kelli Horan (USA)

Category: Best Short Screenplay

The Past Comes Back

Writer: Fran Sisco (USA)

Category: Best Short Screenplay

Savior

Writer: Cynthia Crofoot (Canada)

Category: Best Short Screenplay

Transistor

Writer: Brendan P Lee (USA)

Category: Best Short Screenplay

Festival Passes:

Passes are available at https://www.newyorksci-fifest.com. For virtual short film screenings, there will be a 7-day video on demand pass.

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.