SFL5 Day Two

After the opening night celebrations the second night was a relatively tranquil night. I say relatively, because at film festivals, especially the smaller, independent ones, nothing ever runs as smoothly as planned. Part of the problem comes from all the different formats the films come in, which is most evident with the short film programme, which had its first screening. Hopefully all the background scurrying was not too obvious and everyone enjoyed the best of the huge number of this year’s submissions.

The evening started with Ainoa, introduced by the producer Philip Weck, which has the distinction of being an Austrian sci-fi film, but apart from the German dialogue, there was very little to separate it from other quality sci-fi coming out of the more established genre territories. It just goes to show that a good story and craftsmanship will transcend geographic and linguistic boundaries.

Seksmisja was next up from a better-known filmmaking country, Poland. This is a 1980s’ classic and was presented by Wallflower Press, who are offering a 20% discount on their film studies books during the Festival.

Science fiction enthusiasts are not averse to discussion and debate on a variety of subjects that generally goes much deeper than which Star Trek series was the best. To cater for this Sci-Fi-London holds the Douglas Adams Memorial Debate. There a varying degrees of geeks that like sci-fi, but there are also geeks with degrees, and some of them participated in this year’s debate on The Battle for the Future, which was aptly prefaced by a clip from the Hitchhiker’s TV series, where Ford Prefect points out to the pub landlord that there is nothing he can do about the imminent destruction of the Earth. It was a healthy debate overseen by the Institute of Ideas. The debate was followed by this year’s winner of the Best Feature Film Award, Subject Two, which is being shown again on Saturday and is well worth seeing if you like your sci-fi intelligent and free from aliens and space ships.


The panel for the Douglas Adams Memorial Debate

Some of those that didn’t stay to watch the snowclad Utah of Subject Two, opted for the Spanish desert of FAQ‘s different look at the future. This film certainly had some interesting reactions from the female members of the audience.

While all the patrons were enjoying this cinematic smorgasbord, deep in the bowels of the cinema the gnomes and elfish folk were slaving away filling hundreds of goodie bags for the all-nighters. These alone have got to be worth the price of admission, before you even think about the great films on offer and the sustenance, all supplied by our generous sponsors.

More fun and great films to come…