Hajime Sato’s GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL sees dark days ahead
92YTribeca
200 Hudson St. at Canal St.
October 19-21, $12
212-415-5500
www.92y.org
www.doomsdayfilmfest.com
Despite the endless proclamations by a Facebook friend of ours that the world was going to end on September 21, 2012, it seems that we’re still here. But that doesn’t mean the end won’t eventually come, though hopefully not as predicted by the works that make up the annual Doomsday Film Festival & Symposium, running at 92YTribeca October 19-21. The three-day gathering promises to “explore our collective fascination with the apocalypse in film, art, and culture,” beginning with a group art show curated by Jenny He that looks at the end of days, with works by Rachel Abrams, Caitlin Bates, Holly Kempf, Allicette Torres, and others. The festival opens Friday night at 7:30 with Aaron D. Guadamuz’s short Yuichi: The Beginning of the End and Hajime Sato’s 1968 low-budget extraterrestrial mélange Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell, followed by a panel discussion focusing on Japan and the apocalypse with Grady Hendrix, Travis Crawford, and Linda Hoaglund, moderated by Marc Walkow. (In addition, as part of 92YTribeca’s Friday Night Dinner series, Rabbi-in-Residence Dan Ain and historian Stéphane Gerson will discuss “Nostradamus and Prophecies of Doom” at 7:00, with wine, cocktails, and a meal prepared by chef Russell Moss.) At 10:00, John Boorman’s psychotic 1974 fantasy, Zardoz, starring a naked Sean Connery, will be preceded by trivia from copresenter Arrow in the Head. On Saturday at 6:00, James Cameron’s revolutionary The Terminator will be screened, followed by a panel examining artificial intelligence with Steven Levy, Dennis Shasha, Manoj Narang, and Molly Sauter, moderated by Malcolm Harris. At 9:00 the festival celebrates the tenth anniversary of Danny Boyle’s awesome 28 Days Later, with discounted tickets if you come dressed as a zombie. Sunday kicks off at 1:30 with Walon Green and Ed Spiegel’s Oscar-winning documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle, introduced by star Lawrence Pressman and followed by a panel discussion entitled “Prophecies of Science” as well as a live insect-handling demonstration by Margaret Stevens. At 4:00, ten shorts of fifteen minutes or less will precede Peter Watkins’s forty-eight minute BBC film The War Game, about a nuclear attack on Britain. At 5:30, Kim Rosenfield, Aaron Winslow, Trisha Low, Lanny Jordan, and Andy Sterling will read “Apocalyptic Poetry” in the art gallery. The Doomsday fest meets its own end Sunday night at 6:00 with Deborah Stratman’s These Blazeing Starrs! [Comets] leading into Geoff Murphy’s 1985 postapocalyptic tale The Quiet Earth, for those few survivors left out there.