Eli Sasich’s HENRI is one of the highlights of Philip K. Dick film festival
IndieScreen
285 Kent Ave. at South Second St.
December 7-9, $5-$55
347-227-8030
www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com
www.indiescreen.us
During his short life, Philip Kindred Dick, who died in 1982 at the age of 53, wrote nearly 50 novels and more than 150 short stories in addition to nonfiction essays and books. The work of the science-fiction master has been turned into such major films as Blade Runner, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, The Adjustment Bureau, and Total Recall and has inspired countless others. The Philip K. Dick Film Festival, taking place in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan December 7-9, celebrates Dick’s legacy with three days of features, shorts, animated flicks, and more either based directly on his writing or focusing on such favorite Dick themes as the changing nature of humanity in a world overrun by technology. The festivities get under way on Friday night at IndieScreen with John Alan Simon’s Radio Free Albemuth, which is based on the 1976 novel and includes a character named Philip K. Dick, played by Shea Wigham; Alanis Morissette also appears in the film. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Simon. Next up is Eli Sasich’s dazzling short, Henri, in which a robot is brought to life as disaster looms; yes, those two actors are indeed Margot Kidder and Keir Dullea. Among Saturday’s special events are the panel discussions “H. P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick,” “Intruders Amongst Us — ETs and UFOs,” and “Is Science Fiction the Science of the Future?” in addition to such films as Odokuro, In Aeternum, First Winter, and Ninjas vs Monsters. Sunday’s selections run the gamut from Demonen — Inviting the Demon and Blood for Irina to Transmission and Caterwaul, a charming little examination of a lonely old man (George Murdock from The Twilight Zone, Barney Miller, and myriad other television series; he passed away this past April at the age of eighty-one) who finds an odd companion in a very different kind of lobster. There will also be a shorts program on Friday at the Instituto Cervantes and screenings on Saturday at Singularity and Company in DUMBO, the Producers Club, and the Spectacle Theater. And on Sunday, the Museum of the Moving Image will host the all-star panel “The Outsider in Science Fiction — African American and Latino Perspectives” with Walter Mosley, Samuel R. Delany, Alex Rivera, Lawrence Oliver Cheery, Lola Salvador, and Carlos Molinero, moderated by Warrington Hudlin. There are various options for buying tickets, from paying $5 per short to $10 per feature to $15 per day or $45 for all three days, with prices going up the day of the event.