festival line-up:
The 2005 festival line-up is now finalised and full details are online at www.sci-fi-london.com - we have very few "classics" in the line-up, deciding to focus on new material and we have some excellent movies this year. Also you will notice we are at 2 new venues - thanks to the Odeon Cinemas for hosting part of the festival this year. Tickets will be on sale from 15th Jan.
Our big news is the World Premiere of SLIPSTREAM- starring Sean Astin, who played Sam in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Ivana Milicevic, from Paycheck and... Vinnie Jones! Professor Conway (Astin) who lost his research funding plots a bank robbery based around his newest invention - a time travel gadget that will send its user 10 minutes into the past. Everything goes according to plan until a group of violent thieves arrive, lead by the notorious Winston Briggs (Jones), they've planned their heist for the same day. This is a rollercoaster movie with a wonderful premise - imagine having a time travel machine that only did 10 minutes? We screen this movie on Thursday 3rd Feb at the Curzon SOHO - tickets go on sale next week.
Some of you may also be shocked to see we have included some Star Trek in the line-up. Well, we have a bit of a Trek thing going on. First, we have the UK Premiere of TREKKIES II - sequel to the controversial documentary about Trek fandom - this one is just as funny, insightful and at times very scary
Second, we are proud to have the World Premiere of a documentary about Bob Rajic a man obsessed with William Shatner - AUTO DESTRUCT follows Bob as he tries to get laid by Klingon Chicks at his local FedCon, records his first album with tribute band "USS ROCKNROLL" (see the single video online) and leaves dozens of messages on Bill Shatner's answerphone... is this guy for real? is he really this obsessed? and is someone really trying to kill him? - real or not this will have you squirming in your seat! With so much Trek stuff in the line-up we thought we would show one of the better movies - so, Saturday Morning Pictures at the Curzon we are screening STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT and as always all adults go free! (if accompanied by their under 16 year old kids! - note: this movie is rated 12) Come and throw popcorn at the Borg. In fact we are actively encouraging audience participation and dressing up. So dust off the federation uniform, shine up the Klingon weapons and join us. Jeans are equally acceptable Okay, that is enough Star Trek, I remember saying years ago that we would not include the big franchises in the festival - well times change. So, next big news is the UK Premiere of SAVING STAR WARS (oh... that's the two biggest movie franchises included now
which will be introduced by David 'Darth Vader' Prowse and Director Gary Wood. This movie made us laugh outloud many times, this is a very low budget feature but is the funniest movie we have seen since Galaxy Quest.Other highlights include a special preview, ahead of its March 11 release, of THE MACHINIST - starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh. We also screen PRIMER which not only won a Grand Jury prize at Sundance in 2004 - we picked it as our BEST FEATURE FILM.
nice shorts:
As you know we are very committed to short form movies and this year we had hundreds of submissions - it was tough choosing, so we decided to put double the usual amount in. We have two short film programmes running and as usual the Curzon SOHO bar will be home to the mini-cine. This year we are on a plasma screen supplied by MAXENT and playing from a really cool new Hard Disk Video player from LITE-ON, thanks folks!
As well as free shorts at the mini-cine, we have picked 3 longer short films to play at the Odeon Covent Garden, every day of the festival at 5.30pm - free of charge, just turn up.
all-nighters:
Presented in association with those lovely people at SFX magazine, we have a SHAW BROTHERS TRIBUTE, all the MATRIX movies and a cool line-up of ANIME - these take place at the Curzon SOHO, starting at Midnight and ending around 9.00am. Complimentary tea and coffee throughout the night, a little Redbull and Ben & Jerry's for a bit of energy and some great movies, all for £20!
tour news:
SCI-FI-LONDON on Tour is confirmed. Check online for the details of the first ever SFL tour. We will be taking selected short film highlights, the MATRIX and ANIME all-nighters and the following movies on tour: PRIMER, CUBE ZERO and LADY DEATH. The tour starts on Feb 18th at the Edinburgh Cameo. On the 25th we arrive at the fabulous Liverpool FACT centre. On March 4th we are at the York Picturehouse and the tour ends down south at the Exeter Picturehouse on 11th March. Hope to see you there!
competition:
That's it for this edition, bar the usual competition, which will involve a trip to the website... To win a pair of tickets to a screening at the festival, any screening - you tell us which one you want... just answer this question:
Which festival film has STEVEN SODERBERGH as its executive producer?
first 5 correct answers out the hat will get tickets of their choice! (it's not really a hat, it is a random number generator) -
Hope you are ready and able...
end:
Finally, Louis is on the fantastic Jonny Trunk Soundtrack show on Jan 22nd - 2 hours of SF sound tracks - on London's coolest radio station Resonance 104.4fm (www.resonanceFM.com).
Cheers
Louis and the SFL team.
PS: a little late this offer - it should have been before Xmas - but we have been busy doing festival programming stuff - so there! Anyway... why not treat yourself or a loved one to a subscription to the UK's best genre mag - SFX
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