Feature: NEKROTRONIC (Dir: Kiah Roache-Turner; 99 mins, Australia)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: A down-on-his-luck sewage worker is dragged into a global conflict between the Nekromancers, a family of badass demon hunters, and an evil demon who absorbs people’s souls to increase her power. Director Kiah Roache-Turner’s follow-up to his cult smash Wyrmwood is an insanely entertaining comedy-horror romp, described by the director as, “An Australian Ghostbusters on acid!”
OFFICIAL SELECTION: TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Following the feature, the Nekrotronic cast & crew will hold an audience Q&A, moderated by SciFi Film Festival Program Director Simon Foster.

Short: BROLGA (Dir: Adrian Powers; 15.37 mins, Australia)
WORLD PREMIERE: In a ravaged future-Australia, a solitary hermit guarding a priceless treasure is forced to offer sanctuary to a young girl who is fleeing murderous scavengers. With danger around every corner, can they learn to survive together?

Feature: THE FINAL LAND (Dir: Marcel Barion; 113 mins, Germany)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: Across the bleak wilderness, the prisoner has escaped, looking for a rumoured ship that might get him off-world. One of his pursuers discovers him aboard the craft and instead of turning him, in declares he also wants a way out. Echoing the real-world visual motif of Scott’s Alien universe, Marcel Barion’s debut feature is a taut, tense two-hander as much about the character’s inner space as the vast void they exist within (German with English subtitles).
OFFICIAL SELECTION – LONDON SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL
WINNER: BEST FILM – BERLIN INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

Short: SOMNIUM (Dir: Mayed Al Qasimi; 14.21 mins, U.K.)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: An intergalactic postal worker on her final job with her laconic yet trusted ship must face unexpected challenges in the vast endless space.

Feature: ERRATUM 2037 (Dirs: The Benoit Brothers; 77 mins, France)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: When two teens receive a message from the future, they become wide-eyed heroes in a world at the mercy of space-time paradoxes. By using old school visual effects delivered with the passion on prowess of filmmakers twice their age, The Benoit Brothers adventure pays homage to the great sci-fi productions of the 80’s that inspired them (French with English subtitles).

Short: SPICE FRONTIER (Dirs: Jalil Sadool, Adam Meyer; 8.10 mins, U.S.A.)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: Centuries after the destruction of Earth, Kent and his cyborg companion, C-LA, embark on a flavor-driven adventure across the dangerous intergalactic trade route known as the ‘Spice Road.’

The 2019 Short Film Showcase will be followed by an audience Q&A, moderated by SciFi Film Festival Program Director Simon Foster.

SPIRAL (Dir: Steven Kerr; 10.53 mins, Australia)
Following WW3, a young woman working in an Australian outpost confronts prejudice as she attempts to save a Soviet cosmonaut marooned in space.
HASHTAG (Dir: Ben Alpi; 14.58 mins, U.S.A.)
In a looming future where social media celebrities dominate our culture, X is the world’s supreme online icon— but how far must she go to hold on to her popularity?
COPING MECHANISM (Dir: Sean Roberts; 10.11 mins; Australia)
A long-overdue date between two old school friends begins to go bad. We’veall been there; what could possibly make this better? Featuring Home and Away’s Bonnie Ferguson.
PERFECT WORLD (Dir: Yuske Fukada; 11.17 mins, Japan)
In 2121, citizens in the ‘City’ are judged based on a score of one’s efficiency, called a SPEC. Doctor K faces a question between the law and morality when visited by his pregnant ex-lover.
CARCEREM (Dir: Jason Trembath; 6.40 mins, Australia)
The lives of career combat officers who choose to remain on the remote desert planet of Carcerem.
IDEAL HOMELAND (Dir: Bo Wei; 15.26 mins, China)
In the near future, A.I. controls the population of Earth. Joe, the carrier of AI’s sexual experience, does the most mechanical task every day to obtain survival credits but yearns for the freedom of independence.
TRUTH.exe (Dir: Ricky Townsend; 18.30 mins, New Zealand)
A young hacktivist is given a USB drive which contains an extraordinary truth; his mission is to upload it to the internet.
THUNDER FROM A CLEAR SKY (Dir: Yohan Faure; 21 mins, Canada)
Ten years after the discovery of a remote planetary system likely to sustain the early stages of a civilization. the whole world answers the question: “Should we meet this civilization?”

Feature: A LIVING DOG (Dir: Daniel Raboldt; 94 mins, Germany)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: The war between mankind and intelligent machines has begun. In the vast emptiness of northern Scandinavia, deserter Tomasz meets Lilja, the last survivor of a resistance group, who is determined to fight the superior machines. With every minute that passes the machines get closer, their sensors programmed to detect human voice patterns. If you speak, even whisper – you die. A remarkable directorial debut from Raboldt, who draws upon great tales of deep-forest survival and classic, silent-era German expressionism to achieve a new form of futuristic thriller (German with English subtitles).

Short: THURSDAY NIGHT (Dir: Gonçalo Almeida; 7.36 mins, Portugal)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: An elusive stranger pays Bimbo a visit in the middle of the night to deliver a vital message.

Feature: HUMAN LOST (Dir: Fuminori Kizaki; 110 mins, Japan)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: Tokyo, 2036. Nanomachines guarantee humans a 120-year lifespan free from illness. An idyllic promise, for those who can access it. The reverse side of the ideal suggests a much darker evolution of humanity. From the director of Afro Samurai and based upon Osamu Dazai’s iconic novel No Longer Human, this blistering, brazen vision of a future-world on the brink of anarchy is the anime artform as pure kinetic screen energy; be amongst the first in the world to see 2019’s international animation blockbuster (Japanese with English subtitles).
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2019 ANNECY INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL

Short: SLICE OF LIFE (Dirs: Luka Hrgović, Dino Julius; 14 mins, Croatia)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: Forced to live on the edge of humanity and morality, one lonesome, low-life drug dealer will try to change his life against all odds.

Feature: ATTACK OF THE DEMONS (Dir: Eric Power; 72 mins, U.S.A)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: For centuries, a demonic cult has been plotting the destruction of mankind. When a small Colorado town is overrun by a legion of mutating demons, three non-demon hunter friends must use every skill their minds can fathom to stave off the demon apocalypse.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: CINEPOCALYPSE 2019

Shorts:
MONSTERS WALKING (Dir: Diego Porral; 1.05 mins, Spain)
‘Monsters Walking’ is a short film about monsters that walk.
TACIT BLUE (Dir: Wenkai Duan; 9.14 mins, China)
Carl must rescue his daughter Alice, who has been kidnapped and turned into a killing machine.
GUSTAAKH (THE ARROGANT) (Dir: Vijesh Rajan; 3.49 mins, India)
In a future cyberpunk city, a concerned citizen rises up to the occasion when an publicity hungry dictator fails to protect his people.
A DAY IN THE PARK (Dir: Diego Porral; 2.55 mins, Spain)
A grandfather explains to his grandkid how things used to be… or maybe how they are now.
ODDS AND EVENS (Dir: Michał Czyż, 3.36 mins, Poland)
A nameless astronaut’s journey through the universe and beyond human comprehension.
AVARYA (Dir: Gökalp Gönen; 19.58 mins, Turkey)
Hoping to find a habitable planet, a human becomes trapped in his own ship after his robot overseer finds every single candidate planet unsuitable.
M.A.M.O.N. (Dir: Alejandro Damiani; 5.00 mins, Mexico)
A war breaks out between a Trump-like mecha-robot and several stereotypical Mexican Latinos.

Feature: MY GRANDPA IS AN ALIEN (Dir: Marina Andree Skop, Drazen Zarkovic; 79 mins, Croatia)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: Una (the wonderful Lana Hranjec) and her new robot friend have 24 hours to find her Grandpa, who was kidnapped by aliens. A rollicking all-ages adventure that recalls such 80s classics as Short Circuit, Starman and *batteries not included, Marina Andree Skop’s heartfelt tale of two friends from different ends of the universe is a joyful celebration of mateship and family (Croatian with English subtitles).

Short: CURIOSITY (Dir: Lukas Pace; 10.20 mins, U.K.)
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE: A lonely 10 year old girl named Katie one day stumbles upon a forgotten robot of days gone by and mistakenly activates it.

Presented in conjunction with Women in Film & Television (WIFT) Australia.

Following the session, WIFT NSW chair Megan Riakos will host a Q&A with women directors, producers and writers of science fiction cinema.

PARIS YOU GOT ME (Dir: Julie Boehm; 9.15 mins, Germany)
The street artist George lures Ksenia into his magic world of art illusions.
I-RIS (Dir: Leila Garrison; 12.11 mins, U.S.A.)
In a world where people can get eye implants to adjust what they see, complications with one girl’s operation cause her traumas to manifest visually.
DEER BOY (Dir: Katarzyna Gondek; 15.00 mins, Poland)
A hunter’s son, born with antlers, learns that each man kills the thing he loves.
TRANSMISSION (Dir: Rebecca Gardiner; 14.45 mins, Australia)
Desperate to find a missing research team, Commander Sterling and her crew venture deep into an unknown planet.
SAMMY (Dir: Dana-Lee Mierowsky Bennett; 14.00 mins, Australia)
In a war torn Australia, 10-year-old Sammy must build a hot air balloon so she and her little brother can find their parents.
UNREGISTERED (Dir: Sophia Banks; 15 mins, U.S.A.)
Los Angeles, the not too distant future: the government limits one child per home as a solution to overpopulation. The love between Rekker and Ata force them to question the state of society – as well as confront a secret of her own.
MOBIUS BOND (Dir: Emilija Riviere; 15 mins, Lithuania)
A girl experiences strange body symptoms, which become an evidence of a Mobius-like topology of the Universe.
EINSTEIN-ROSEN (Dir: Olga Osorio; 9 mins, Spain)
Teo claims he has found a wormhole. His brother Óscar does not believe him… at least not for now.
LAB RAT (Dir: Nour Wazzi; 15.28 mins, U.K.)
A group of scientists trapped in a lab learn that one of them is an A.I….. and it has been deceiving them.

Feature: NORMAN (Dir Joel Guelzo; 105 mins, U.S.A.)
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE: Norman becomes trapped and isolated in the past, jeopardizing life in both realities. He must invent a way back to the future before the world collapses. Rich in imagery and ideas that reinforces the creativity bubbling below the surface of its middle-American production history, Joel Guelzo’s time-travel existential dramatic-thriller is the thinking person’s sci-fi; a complex, deeply satisfying puzzle of a narrative that recalls Christopher Nolan’s Inception in its intricacies and the best Twilight Zone episodes in its inventiveness. .
OFFICIAL SELECTION: LONG BEACH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: SANT ANDREU De La BARCA FESTIVAL, SPAIN.

Short: AUDIO GUIDE (Dir: Chris Elena; 9 mins, Australia)
WORLD PREMIERE: An art gallery audio-guide starts speaking hard truths about the world and those around us.

Feature: 5-25-77 (Dir: Patrick Read Johnson; 113 mins, USA)
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: An enthusiastic young film fanatic sets out to produce home-brewed sequels to his favourite sci-fi films, eventually finding himself at an advance screening of the film that will redefine the genre for a generation of movie lovers. Fifteen years since director Patrick Read Johnson began shooting his troubled passion project, 5-25-77 makes its Australian debut (the first time the film has screened in the Southern hemisphere). A love letter to the last golden age of American science-fiction cinema and the millions of young minds that were enraptured by its visions of galaxies far, far away.