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Witness the Future of Short Films
Created in collaboration with the Seattle International Film Festival, MoPOP’s SFFSFF celebrates out-of-this-world short films and the daring filmmakers who make it happen.
Now in its 19th year, SFFSFF brings the work of creators from around the globe to Seattle for one weekend only—we’re talking world premieres and soon-to-be cult films that aren’t streaming anywhere.
Previous SFFSFF films have gone on to receive international distribution deals, Academy Award nominations, and the undying love of a huge network of devoted fans.
Grab your tickets early!
Main Showcase, Q&A, Awards
Saturday, June 1
2:30pm–8:00pm
Doors open at 2:30pm
Show starts at 3:00pm
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
805 E Pine St
Seattle, WA 98122
$23.50 Adult
$21.50 Youth
Youth Showcase and Award Winners Encore
Sunday, June 2
12:30pm–4:30pm
Doors open at 12:30pm
Show starts at 1:00pm
SIFF Uptown
511 Queen Anne Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109
$23.50 Adult
$21.50 Youth
Main Track
AIKĀNE
Daniel Sousa, Dean Hamer, & Joe Wilson (USA, 14 min)
A valiant island warrior, wounded in battle against foreign invaders, falls into a mysterious underwater world. When the octopus who rescued him transforms into a handsome young man, they fall in love and an epic adventure begins.
A Capsule for Robin
Lalithra Fernando (USA, 13 min.)
An optimistic host's dinner party goes awry when her husband reveals he doesn't want to have kids in the face of humanity's impending extinction.
Zeke's Magic Plant Shop
Lucas Marchi & Keaton Hanna (USA, 4 min.)
When a cute customer, Tommy, comes to Zeke's Magic Plant Shop, Zeke messes up his potion and turns them both into little plants guys! Now they have to traverse the dangerous plant shop to get the magic B-gone potion and undo the spell while working together and falling in love.
Dragon Saga
Kent Nelson (USA, 8 min.)
A young Norse woman, offered as a sacrifice to a dragon, must use her wits to survive. A Viking Age thriller!
Bisected
Danny Pineros (USA, 8 min.)
A couple witnesses a paranormal event that separates them into two distinct dimensions.
The Sprayer
Farnoosh Abedi (Iran, 9 min.)
In a world where all plants are outlawed, one soldier’s unexpected discovery becomes the seed of something extraordinary and ultimately revolutionary.
ExpoZure
Kimson Albert (USA, 8 min.)
After the world experiences an atmospheric collapse, a determined scientist races against time to save humanity from self-destruction.
Routine Delivery
Elizabeth Cox, Kirill Yeretsky (USA, 10 min.)
22-year-old Ada doesn’t know whether she wants kids, but she definitely doesn’t want to be pregnant and thinks the physical ordeal of childbirth is clearly not suitable for civilians. At her job as a library assistant, she discovers plans for an artificial womb in the private archives and imagines a life where she could have children without giving birth, but soon must confront the unintended consequences of this technology–and of her off-limits research.
Lost in the Sky
Simon Öster (Sweden, 12 min.)
A lone rescue robot locates a surviving astronaut about to be consumed by a looming black hole in this live-action space adventure made entirely with practical effects over the course of six years.
In the Shadows
Nico Isaque Barrett (USA, 11 min.)
It was supposed to be a simple mission! A quick pit stop for the spacecraft. But when Nate's shadow comes to life, electronics start going haywire. Now he's stuck out in the middle of space with Cosmo, a robot he doesn't get along with.
Fred the Super Computer
Sam Kimbrell (USA, 7 min.)
A man looking for answers befriends a supercomputer with control issues in this tech-comedy exploration of why we’re here and how much technology truly means to our existence.
Soulmate
Richard Fenwick (United Kingdom, 15 min.)
Anna, a lonely computer coder, has been nurturing an illegal romance with an AI in a computer simulation for the past six months. When her company uncovers the affair, she’s forced into a desperate battle to save her precious relationship.
Future Flowers
Hao Zhou (China, 10 min.)
A lesbian and a gay man in a sham marriage ambivalently follow a propagandistic program that nudges them toward a single goal: procreation.
Donut Time
Morning M. Wu (USA, 4 min.)
The world is ending, so Harold decides this is the perfect time to eat a donut. However, the Donut is alive and tries to convince Harold to fulfill one last salacious request before the world’s end. Harold refuses, and soon their argument escalates into a fight to the death, leading to an emotional reveal of the Donut’s inner struggle that makes Harold reconsider.
GMAN: a qixia in space
Yuchen Liu (China, 9 min.)
The battle between good and evil gets turned on its head in this space adventure short that asks: Who is the hero? And what do arch-enemies truly want?
Las Muertas
Lindsay Philippa Heatley (USA, 7 min.)
A group of women channel the supernatural power of La Santa Muerte to avenge themselves against their abusers.
Subject
Fraser Whitehead (Australia, 15 min.)
The subject of an inhumane scientific experiment is freed from their sensory confinement and allowed to experience the novel environment beyond.
God and the Human Experiment
Julia Yu Ley Pai (USA, 14 min.)
When an AI is brought into consciousness, it holds all the answers to the world’s most sought-after questions—that is, all but one: Why don’t straight men want to get pegged?
Death in Training
Miguel Angel Duran (USA, 14 min.)
A comedic take on the origin story of the Grim Reaper, with Death as a clumsy trainee who must collect one soul in order to become the next Soul Collector. When he mistakenly takes the soul of the wrong patient, he embarks on a wild journey with Nurse Mariela to return the soul and fulfill his destiny.
Interdimensional Pizza Portal
Aron Kantor (USA, 4 min.)
When Grover summons a slice of pizza through an interdimensional portal, his best friend Aliee's concerns about the potential unintended consequences lead them both down a dark path.
YOUTH TRACK
Back to Mama!
Caz Weng (Australia, 3 min)
A scientist returns an alien egg back to its mama.
Plica Polonica
Agata Tracevič (Lithuania, 8 min.)
People once believed in a disease called plica polonica that would make your hair uncombable. This is the story of one severely tangled girl on the search for a “cure,” seeking answers from the most tangled of them all: the infamous Baba Yaga.
A Shadow's Glow
Josh Mizrahi & Cole Fourqurean (USA, 5 min.)
In a world where light and shadow are personified, a creature of shadow must journey across his dark homeland to return a young spirit of light back to his home battling the elements, his own people, and his instincts as a creature of shadow along the way.
Out of Order
Ellen Chee Shao Wei (Singapore, 16 min.)
Four kids discover a mysterious, phenomenon in the form of a wish-granting claw machine and start to play around with it, unaware that everything comes with a price.
My Dog's Leg
Ashton Polak (USA, 4 min.)
A father creates a monster-driven fantasy story to explain to his daughter how their dog lost her leg—and how he and the dog tried to get it back.
Cohesion
Sara Magdalena Sawicka (Poland, 5 min.)
A woman journeys through the depths of her subconscious, where events unfold as surrealistic interpretations of hidden fears.
Enter Your Name
Aubrey Scott (USA, 3 min.)
A surreal fantasy film serving as an allegory to the experiences of a pre-transition trans person, with horror elements to allude to the complex emotions and inner turmoil that one can go through.
Wednesday
J. Vega Brando (Spain, 16 min.)
33-year-old Luis Miguel is unemployed, lonely, and bored with life—until he realizes that his Wednesdays are disappearing. Turns out a shadowy association is stealing them, and Luis Miguel must turn his sad life upside down to fight back.
Shuck
Emerson New (UK, 5 min.)
In a purgatory that looks like the Norfolk Broads, dying souls wander through the tall grasses to find their afterlives. Among them is Murph, a woman on her deathbed, and Shuck, the Grim Reaper in the form of a dog. Together they will attempt to overcome Murph's fear of death and Shuck's loneliness.
Nix's Symphony
Karina Xiao Loerchner (Canada, 6 min.)
Libelle, Nix's mother, possessed exceptional abilities,not only excelling in science and engineering, but also gaining fame as a distinguished inventor and composer. Nix, a young aspiring musician and inventor in her own right, is now burdened with the responsibility of upholding this remarkable legacy.
Ant Hotel
Yu-Hsuan Teng (Taiwan, 9 min.)
Somewhere amidst this rain-pouring city, there is a tiny hotel with one counter staff. On this day three sets of guests came by, along with some annoying ants that never go away.
ORR
Jakob Vyzina (Germany, 4 min.)
After a fatal accident, Martin copes with the strange requirements of the Office of Rebirth and Reincarnation (ORR) and its administrator, Beate, while trying to find a suitable life for himself.
Naut
Christopher Powers (USA, 9 min.)
Henry and Mel sail the open seas in their minivan. When a storm separates them, Henry is deserted and hopeless until a little bird guides him home.
2024 Jurors
Aaron Douglas (he/him)
Aaron Douglas is best known for his portrayal of Chief Galen Tyrol on Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica. With over 100 other Film-TV & Video Game credits on his impressive resume—including X-Men 2, iRobot, Stargate SG-1, The Bridge, Hellcats, Hemlock Grove, The Killing, The Returned, Falling Skies, The Strain, iZombie, The X-Files, Supernatural, The Flash, Once Upon A Time, Dirk Gently Holistic Detective Agency, Imposters, Motherland Fort Salem, Van Helsing, The Watchful Eye, Jordi Chin in Ubisoft’s WatchDogs and more—Aaron is now creating and writing Comic Books for AfterShock and Dark Horse Comics. Aaron’s first book in the Borealis series for Dark Horse was released on Dec. 20th, 2023. Aaron co-created and co-wrote the series with his good friend and fellow Battlestar Galactica alum Mark Verheiden.
Isis Asare (she/they)
Isis Asare is the CEO/Founder of Sistah Scifi (www.sistahscifi.com). Sistah Scifi is the first Black-owned bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy in the United States as validated by the American Booksellers Association. Located in cyberspace, Sistah Scifi is a national brand with over 40K points of contacts. In February 2023, the first three Sistah Scifi Book Vending Machines were launched in California and Washington.
Crís Vázquez de Mercado (they/them)
Filmmaker and artist Crís moved to Seattle in 2011 to study film and creative writing. Passionate about fostering community through the arts and media, they are an active participant in Seattle’s thriving DIY scene and have written for Screen Queens, a blog focusing on women filmmakers and the LGBTQ+ film community. While at Seattle University, they interned at TheFilmSchool and The Vera Project. Crís also co-wrote, cast, and art directed the short Out of Print, which won first place and the Audience Choice Award at Seattle University’s 2014 Film Festival, as well as the Audience Choice Award at NFFTY.
They first became involved at NWFF in 2014 when they interned as the Gala Coordinator, and now serve as NWFF Cinema Programmer.
Jessica Lane (she/her)
Director, Education + Programs @ MoPOP
Jessica has worked in museums and educational organizations for over twenty years and with MoPOP since 2015. She is a life-long sci-fi fan who proudly displays her Star Trek cast autographs, original Star Wars action figures, and female hero collectibles anywhere she can. She believes in the power of pop culture to teach everyone about inclusion, acceptance, and compassion. In her spare time, she can be found hiking up mountains and digging in the dirt, watching Aliens for the 792nd time, or sipping on a nice scotch (preferably something from the highlands).
SFFSFF SUBMISSION DETAILS
MoPOP recognizes the importance of representation and accessibility both behind and in front of the camera. We continue to learn and grow every year, working to ensure our festival reflects the vast diversity of science fiction and fantasy creators and fans, especially those who have been historically excluded.
As part of this commitment, we can offer partial and full entry fee waivers to filmmakers who would otherwise be unable to submit their film to the festival, with priority given to creators identifying as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, and low income.
Please fill out this short form if you’d like to request a waiver code: https://forms.office.com/r/A2ZPtRwzq6. Got questions? Contact Maddy Szmidt – maddys@mopop.org.
Young filmmaker aged 24 or under? SFFSFF’s Youth Track program is for you! Top films in this category will be screened in an exclusive Youth Track showcase, and the winner—selected by MoPOP’s Youth Advisory Board—will go on to show their film as part of the main festival programming.
Completion Date:
Films must have been completed no earlier than January 2020.
Film Length, Genre, Qualities:
- Films must be no longer than 15 minutes.*
- *Films that exceed 15 minutes may still be considered for festival programming but will not be eligible for awards.
- Films are selected on the basis of originality, innovation within the short film format, purposeful vision, contribution to science fiction and fantasy genres, and representation of diversity behind and in front of the camera.
- Animated or live action.
- Must be science fiction or fantasy genre (examples: futuristic stories, space adventure, technological speculation, social experiments, utopia and dystopia, sword and sorcery, folklore, urban fantasy, magic, mythic adventure).
- At MoPOP & SIFF we seek to create an inclusive space, open to all ages, genders, races, cultures, religions, abilities, and the full expression of self. In support of all marginalized peoples in our communities, films that promote institutional oppression are not welcome at our festival and will be disqualified from selection.
- August 4–August 31: $20 Early Bird Entry
- September 1–October 31: $25 Regular Entry
- November 1–December 1: $35 Late Entry
- December 2–January 15: $40 Extended Entry
- March 8, 2024: Notification of Acceptance
- March 29, 2024: Film Files Due
THE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY SHORT FILM FESTIVAL IS SUPPORTED BY
