Tag Archives: sci-fi

Electric Sheep Film Show December 2016

arcadia
Arcadia

audioIn this festive Film Show edition, Alex Fitch talks to director Tom Large about his low-budget dystopian drama Arcadia, while Charles Barker discusses his virtual reality thriller The Call-Up in a Q&A recorded at SCI-FI-LONDON. Also, in a talk recorded at London’s Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, Maura McHugh explores David Lynch’s Fire Walk With Me, in advance of the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks.

The Electric Sheep Film Show is broadcast every third Wednesday of the month, 5.30-6.30pm at Resonance FM 104.4. Next date: Wednesday 18 January 2017.

This show was first broadcast on Wednesday 21 December 2016.

Clear Spot – 21 December 2016 (Electric Sheep) by Resonance Fm on Mixcloud

L’Etrange Festival 2015 Preview

EtrangeFestival2015_cropped
21st Etrange Festival poster by Dom Garcia

L’Etrange Festival

3-13 September 2015

Forum des Images, Paris, France

Etrange Festival website

The outlandish Parisian genre and fantasy festival returns from September 3 to 13 with another line-up bulging with wild, unhinged and lost treasures. The festival opens with Simon Pummel’s schizophrenic sci-fi thriller Brand New-U and closes with Bollywood epic Baahubali: The Beginning, with a full range of sleazy subversiveness and avant-garde strangeness in between, from Marcel L’Herbier’s restored 1924 art deco femme fatale tale L’inhumaine to Rolph de Heer’s grotesque family tale Bad Boy Bubby, not to forget a zombie all-nighter.

Highlights include the latest from three Japanese heavyweights: Takashi Miike’s Yakuza Apocalypse, Hideo Nakata’s Ghost Theater and Sion Sono with two films, Tag and Love and Peace. Also screening are The Blaine Brothers’ original and moving Nina Forever, Steve Oram’s category-defying Aaaaaaaah! and Ulrich Seidl’s exploration of Austrian cellars In the Basement.

We’ll be checking out Alex Van Varmerdam’s absurdist thriller La peau de Bax, Raúl Garcia’s Edgar Allan Poe animation film Extraordinary Tales, Michael Madsen’s speculative alien invasion documentary The Visit, experimental Afghanistan-set sci-fi Ni le ciel ni la terre directed by artist Clément Cogitore, and Jason Bognacki’s slick giallo-influenced tale of possession Another.

This year, the guest curators are Guy Maddin (also included in the main programme with his own The Forbidden Room), whose selection includes Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Teuvo Tulio’s Sensuela and George Kuchar’s The Devil’s Cleavage; Benoit Delepine, co-director of Aaltra and Mammuth, will present Tim Burton’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and hopeless Russian road movie The Joy; and Ben Wheatley has chosen Frantisek Vlacil’s sumptuous medieval fable Marketa Lazarova and Michael Mann’s legendary murky Nazi nightmare The Keep.

Documentaries include Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World, B-Movie: Lust and Sound in West Berlin (1979-1989), which features Blixa Bargeld and Nekromantik 2’s male lead Mark Reeder, as well as an exploration of the Turkish golden age of low-budget Hollywood remakes, Remake, Remix, Rip-Off, part of a focus on alternative Turkish cinema.

This year’s musical performance is truly exceptional: legendary masked industrial collective The Residents will play a new version of Shadowland as well as presenting a programme of films and documentary Theory of Obscurity: A Movie about The Residents.

As always, the line-up includes a vast and dynamic selection of shorts, ranging from Can Evrenol’s hard-hitting, gut-punching Baskin and Javier Chillon’s inventive, intelligent Die Schneider Krankheit to classics by Jaume Balaguero, Jonathan Caouette and Bill Morrison.

For the full programme and to book tickets plesae visit the Etrange Festival website.

SCI-FI-LONDON 14

Upside Down
Upside Down

SCI-FI-LONDON

24 April – 4 May 2014

Stratford Picturehouse and BFI Southbank

SCI-FI-LONDON website

The London International Festival of Science-Fiction and Fantastical Film returns for the 14th time with a programme packed with discoveries from Hungary to the Dominican Republic, programmes of shorts and special events including the 25th anniversary of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and anim&#233 and aliens all-nighters.

Taking place at Stratford Picturehouse and BFI Southbank, it opens on 24 April with the premiere of American psychological thriller Lost Time and closes on 4 May with spectacular French-Canadian sci-fi romance Upside Down.

We’re particularly looking forward to Suicide or Lulu and Me in a World Made for Two, inspired by Adolfo Bioy Casares’s brilliant novella The Invention of Morel, The Phoenix Project, described as ‘Primer meets Frankenstein’ and noir action thriller The Scribbler. We’re also intrigued by supernatural love story Soulmate, speculative exploration of genomics The Perfect 46, Dominican Republic thriller Wake and offbeat Belgian oddity When I Will Be Dictator.

For more information and to book tickets please visit the SCI-FI-LONDON website.

Electric Sheep Subterranea: The Last Battle

The Last Battle

Date: Saturday 24 April

Time: 4-8pm

Venue: Notting Hill Arts Club, London

Price: Free

Certificate: 15

Dir: Luc Besson, France 1983, 90 min

Notting Hill Arts Club website

Saturday 24 April, Notting Hill Arts Club, 4-8pm : The Last Battle + live rescore by TIME

Electric Sheep Magazine hosts a Rough Trade Shops’ RoTa afternoon of film, music and discussion in the underbelly of Notting Hill.

Main feature: Luc Besson’s fantastic sci-fi movie The Last Battle!

Presented with a new live soundtrack by TIME!

+ Apocalyptic garage punk from Speak and the Spells!

+ Apocalyptic shorts!

+ Resonance FM DJ Robin Warren spins soundtrack tunes!

We are very excited to present an apocalyptic afternoon in collaboration with Sci-Fi London. We will be showing Luc Besson’s stunning first feature The Last Battle, about one man trying to survive in a devastated future world. Starring Jean Reno, it has all of Besson’s stylistic flair but is unlike anything else he has made since. Surreal, blackly funny and visually striking, it is a fascinating addition to the post-apocalyptic sci-fi genre.

Sci-Fi London runs from April 28 to May 3 at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus Cinema, London.

The Last Battle will be shown with a live soundtrack by innovative string and synths duo TIME. Frances Morgan (former editor of Plan B Magazine) and Mark Dicker weave a web of sound where warm harmonies slowly mutate into saturated riffs while haunting vocals add a dimension of storytelling.

+ Speak and the Spells play a fast and furious set of garage instrumentals to bring about the end of the world.

+ Apocalyptic short films:

The Last Breath (David Jackson, UK, 2009, 10 min): When the Kelvin family surfaces after scuba diving in a lake, they find that the air has become toxic. With their tanks running low they embark on a race against time to reach the nearby dive hut. Tight and tense, this is a fantastic 10-minute thrill ride! It was produced by VBM Productions.

Die Schneider Krankheit (Javier Chillí³n, Spain, 2008, 10 min): This fantastic short presents itself as a newsreel recounting the rapid spread of a deadly virus after a spaceship containing a chimpanzee crashes in West Germany. The 50s newsreel style is perfectly reproduced, while the reasonable tone of the reporter is brilliantly contrasted with the outlandish events depicted. See more images on Die Schneider Krankheit website.

Choreomania (Louis Paxton, UK, 2009, 9 min): The zombie movie is given a comic and very British twist as a man on his way to work tries to escape the dancing plague that has turned everyone in town into twitchy ravers. Very funny!

+ Resonance FM DJ Robin Warren

Courtesy of Optimum Home Entertainment

Directing Low-Budget Sci-Fi

Franklyn

audioListen to Alex Fitch’s podcast for Sci-Fi London, Reality Check: Directing low budget science-fiction films (Part 1). In a panel discussion recorded live at last year’s London Science Fiction and Fantastic Film Festival, Alex Fitch discusses the many aspects of creating convincing SF scenarios on film with a quartet of eminent low-budget film directors – Marc Caro (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children), Stuart Hazeldine (Exam), Cory McAbee (Stingray Sam), Gerald McMorrow (Franklyn) and Richard Jobson (A Woman in Winter). Part 2 will be online shortly. Both parts to be broadcast 17/03/10 as an hour-long ‘clear spot’ on Resonance 104.4 FM.

Sci-Fi London runs from April 28 to May 3 at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus in London.

Watch an episode of Stingray Sam:

REALITY CHECK PODCASTS ON SCI-FI LONDON

alex-fitch-corner
Alex Fitch

Check out Electric Sheep’s collaborator Alex Fitch’s podcasts on Sci-Fi London:

Episode 1: The Smoking Cabinet
Alex Fitch talks to curators Claire Cook, Simone Pyne and Kate Grove about the Curzon’s Burlesque season of silent cinema, live acts and talks which featured an eclectic mix of Edwardian titillation, melodrama (The Blue Angel) and circus performers.

Episode 2: Nostalgia and Cult TV
Two interviews recorded at last summer’s Cult TV Weekender: Alex talks to actor Philip Glenister (DCI Gene Hunt) and writer Matthew Graham about “Life on Mars” / “Ashes to ashes” and to Alan Shubrook, writer of the coffee table book “21 Century FX” about his time working on “Thunderbirds” in the 1960s.

Episode 3: Other Cinema DVDs
Alex talks to Noel Lawrence, founder of the “Other Cinema” DVD label about their range of esoteric / underground movies and collections of short films such as ” The Net – The Unabomber, LSD and the internet”, “Experiments in Terror”, “Decasia” and “Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y”…

Episode 4: M.R.James’ Ghost stories at Christmas
Alex talks to Dexter O’Neil, head of Fantom Films, a new company that have been producing cult CD and DVD releases over the last year or so, including a new range of M.R. James audio books featuring the best of his “Tales of the Supernatural” read by the likes of Geoffrey Bayldon. Includes an extract from “There was a man dwelt by a churchyard” read by Gareth David Lloyd (Torchwood).

Download them from sci-fi-london.com/audio

More info here: panelborders