Film Festival
Escape Velocity 2019 will present its annual science fiction film festival, featuring new, independent, science fiction features and short films. Filmmakers are invited to enter at:
https://filmfreeway.com/EscapeVelocityFilmFestival.
The panel of judges will include Academy Award winner Russell Williams II, American University professor Ana Cetina, and QVC Content Production Writer/Producer and TCM Fan Programmer Chris Mich. Films will compete in the following categories:
- Best Feature Film
- Best Short Film
- Best Director
- Best Actor
- Best Cinematography
- Best Soundtrack (Sound Design or Film Score)
Winners will receive the third-annual Museum of Science Fiction Maria Award for Excellence in each category!
The Maria Awards
The line-up of competing films in the 2018 Escape Velocity Film Festival offered unique views into worlds ranging from the microscopic to the philanthropic. The Maria for BEST SHORT went to Adam Azmy’s Murmurs of a Macrocosm – an exploration of microscopic environments via drone footage of the Snowdonia National Park in Wales and NASA Apollo mission audio recordings.
BEST DIRECTOR went to Joseph Sapienza and his documentary Centralia– a film which chronicles the trials and tribulations of Pennsylvania residents dealing with an ongoing underground coal fire that cost many of them their homes and their health. Sapienza has since donated a portion of theater screening ticket sales to the surviving residents of Centralia, PA.
BEST FEATURE and BEST ACTING went to the visually-stunning and superbly-acted Flora – a science fiction thriller following a group of young scientists and professionals that learn they have more to fear from plant-life than just a little hay fever. Each year, new types of films are added to the mix of entries. When will your film be part of our legacy?
Acknowledgements
We especially thank Jeff Rutenbeck and American University for making the Museum’s film festival so successful and Garen Daly with his team at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival for their generosity and continued support.
