The New York Science Fiction Film Festival has announced the the award winners for its fourth annual event, which presented a lineup of films, discussions, virtual reality, and screenplay and graphic novel competitions. Screenings were held on Saturday, September 14, 2024 at Stuart City Cinema in Brooklyn. 

Best Science Fiction Feature

• Red Earth (2022)

Director: Georg Adrian Koszulinski

66 minutes, USA

Red Earth imagines a world in the late Anthropocene, where large parts of Earth have become inhospitable to life. The story follows three generations of Martians, from the first colonists to the first expedition to return to an Earth decimated by interplanetary war.

Best Supernatural Feature

• The Coldness (2024) — NY PREMIERE

Director: Gustavo Sampaio

75 minutes, USA

Nick Polito, a retired Jersey City homicide detective with a haunted past, comes to Los Angeles in search of answers to a recent gruesome death that is shockingly like a case that has been an obsession for him since 1999. Determined to find out what happened, Nick connects with his former partner and encounters a cast of characters that lead him steadily down a disturbing path into lethal occult darkness.

Best Science Fiction Short in a Dramatic Setting

• LifeQuest (2023)

Director: Richard Lounello

25 minutes, USA

A young physicist lives out his life in search of his greatest scientific discovery and finds one extraordinary truth.

Best Conspiracy Science Fiction Short

• The BiodiverCity (2024)

Director: Masataka Ishizaki

11 minutes, USA

In 2035, people live in one big area due to the biodiversity program in which humanity must stay away from nature for the environmental treatment. Nora thinks about Tree because she never saw it. So she decides to go outside to see it with Eric.

Best Short Documentary

• You, Forever (2024)

Director: Brenda Kovrig

14 minutes, Canada

A short hybrid film that incorporates documentary and dark comedy fantasy fiction. Robert Ettinger, ‘the father of cryonics,’ speaks of his life’s work while his ‘patients’ experience an unnatural existence in suspended animation.

Best Animation Short

• Sileo (2023)

Director: Demeter Lorant

8 minutes, Hungary

A robot after working for years in a factory and being repaired and replaced bit by bit realizes that he doesn’t want to loose his identity and sets out to find his creator.

Best Horror Short

• Dear Elf on the Shelf (2024)

Director: Tor Martin Norvik

2 minutes, Norway

A captivating tale of a young girl’s emotional journey, intertwining reality with the magical lore of the Elf on the Shelf. As the holiday season envelops her home in joy and cheer, nine-year-old Emily encounters her family’s Elf on the Shelf in an unexpected light, sparking a series of mysterious events.

Best Dark Fantasy Short

• ADA (2023)

Director: Anaïs Vachez

16 minutes, France

Ada, an eight-year-old girl, witnesses the ongoing tensions between her parents. One evening, a particularly heated argument breaks out.

Best Trailer

• Wisper (2018; Trailer)

Director: Russ Emanuel

1 minute, USA

In June 2016, a loving family was found shot to death at their suburban home in Northern New Jersey.

Best Music Video

• The Panharmonion Chronicles: Times of London (2022)

Director: Henry Chebaane

3 minutes, UK

The video was written and shot as a short film teaser, introducing the creator of the story as a character inside his own fictional universe, which happens to exist also in our own reality. Here, the author-protagonist appears as a time-travel engineer who got lost into the dreamlike world of his own creation.

Best Virtual Reality

• Asteroid Quest

Director: Bertrand Jack Daniel Loyer

France

Best Feature Sci-Fi Screenplay

• Alpha Chase

Writer: Chuck Gordon (United States)

Best Feature Supernatural Screenplay

• Restoration

Writer: Don Stroud, Winter Mead (United States)

Best Graphic Novel

• Halloween Girl Book One: Promises to Keep

Writer: Richard T. Wilson (United States)

Best World Building Sci-Fi Screenplay

• Inversion

Writer: Suzy Stein, Fernando Perez (United States)

Best Sci-Fi Short Screenplay

• I/O (Input-Output)

Writer: Molly J Vernon (United States)

Best Supernatural Short Screenplay

• Sight Specific

Writer: Peter Hardy (United States)