Saturday is the big day of the Festival. It’s pretty much 24 hours non-stop, which is great for the punters but tough on the staff and volunteers who are fuelled by their unbounded enthusiasm and the generous sponsorship of Red Bull.
The day kicked off with a couple of hiccups, which meant that the schedule for the film school had to be reversed, and RECON 2022 had to be shown first. Not a big deal really but watching zombie sex first thing in the morning is not to everyone’s taste. Not only was this the first public screening of the movie but also the first time that the director, Christian Viel, had seen it all in one sitting. In fact he only finished it the day he left to come to the Festival, due to a few technical hitches. The version shown was not the final version but close.
The film school was run by Neil Oseman, who made an effects laden indy fantasy adventure called SOULSEARCHER that was made on a very low budget with really imaginative effects created with bathroom taps, milk and sugar. Neil demonstrated these techniques with video clips from his film. Because of the change of order of the morning session, Christian took questions from the audience about his film they had just seen. He told me afterwards he was really impressed by the depth of the questions, something he was not used to, compared with his usual audiences.
Meanwhile, in another screen, a panel of actors, writers and producers gathered together to discuss their project of reviving the classic British sci-fi series BLAKE’S 7 as an audio series (to be broadcast on www.scifi.co.uk. After a brief introduction to their project the panel took questions for the audience.
Saturday lunchtime was set aside for the STRANGER THAN FICTION documentary strand of the Festival, which was reasonably well attended although we did expect more Browncoats to show up for DONE THE IMPOSSIBLE, although many of them were attending the Memorabilia Show elsewhere in the country.
SCI-FI-LONDON has always been a supporter of short films. We always show one before every feature and in previous years we ran the Mini-Cine so people could sit and watch some of the hundreds of submissions we get every year. This year we had well over 300 films sent to us, of which 13 were chosen to be screened, and what a fantastic selection they were. From 15 second gems like TAROT to the very touching Spanish film VICTOR Y LA MAQUINA. But the one that got the best reaction was COMING TO TOWN, another take on the BAD SANTA idea, which went on to win the Audience Award. If you didn’t get a chance to see it you can watch it here.
Come evening and it was World Premiere time again, with another two films get their international debuts. First up was the finished version of Simon Davison’s homage to British sci-fi B-movies, CAPTAIN EAGER AND THE MARK OF VOTH. Simon has shown the film as a work in progress at the last two SCI-FI-LONDON Festivals so it was great to see it finished. Accompanied by a Panvolkian Leader, Simon introduced the film with a short song and dance routine. James Vaughan, Tamsin Greig and Rick Leaf, along with other cast and crew members were all in attendance.
 Panvolkian Leader 3 |
 Simon Davison and Tamsin Greig |
Christian Viel’s sequel to RECON 2020, RECON 2022 had its official world premiere, which was attended by the director and some of the cast, who were seen afterwards enjoying a bottle or two of Cobra Beer.
 |
 |
By now the crowds had arrived for the main event, the All-Nighters. The word must have got out about last year’s MST3K event because this sold out long before the Anime, although, admittedly it is in a smaller screen, but the fan-base for this old TV series is still strong. And our two special guests from last year made a welcome return.
For the anime folk we had the Manga wall again, and a few cosplayers were in evidence, but the vibe was good and everyone was looking forward to a varied programme of the finest of Japan’s latest animated features. From our perspective the allocated seating certainly made life a bit easier or at least less of a crush, as the need to queue for prime seats was eliminated. Goodie bags were distributed and the marathon session was under way.
For more Festival photos click here.