The first annual Maelstrom Festival Of Fantastic Film kicks off this Friday, Sept. 18, and runs through Sunday evening, Sept. 20. Taking place at the beautiful SIFF Cinema at McCaw Hall in downtown Seattle, MIFFF brings you a huge array of short films from the animnation/fantasy, sci-fi, and horror genres in the day programming, and some of the seasons best feature films in the evenings. Head programmer Eric Morgret and myself are proud to present the hilarious and clever zombie opus THE REVENANT as our opener on Friday night. Saturday you can spend the afternoon and early evening checking out our short films programming, which is packaged in genre specific programming blocks, and we cap off the night with an encore Seattle screening of one my favorites of this past year, PIG HUNT (review here). Sunday closes out with a bang when we screen a couple of local-grown sci-fi treats, TIMETRAVEL_0 and ENDS OF THE EARTH early in the day. Then as evening closes in we bring you UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US, a beautifully made documentary on the infamous Norwegian black metal scene with interviews from the progenitors of the culturally relevant genre. The night ends on a particularly high note with the premiere West Coast screening of Faye Jackson's brilliant Romanian vampire mythos STRIGOI (review here and interview here) So all you greater northwestern cinemainacs please do come out and join us in helping to make the festivals inaugural year a success. Again, I'll be there all weekend introducing some of the films and doing Q and A's with some of the guests, so most surely come up and say "hello" if you see me bouncing around. The full schedule is after the break!
FRIDAY* 8:00PM Doors Open / Introduction
* 8:30PM Opening Night Films
o Death In Charge
o The Revenant
* 10:45PM Opening Night Festivities
SATURDAY
* 11:00AM Doors Open
* 12:00PM Animation / Fantasy Shorts
o Egg Robot Momo
o Enter the Sandbox
o Gul (Flower)
o Skylight
o The Urge
o X-Mess Detritus
o Sunday
o Firemount
o The Tree Man
o Hart
o Tropezones
o Milbe (Mite)
* 2:30PM Science Fiction Shorts
o The Kirkie
o Enigma
o Greenspoke
o Die Schneider Krankheit (The Schneider Disease)
o Mr. Gun
* 6:00PM Horror Shorts
o aQua ad lavandum - in brevi
o Cheerbleeders
o Dead Bones
o Foet (Director's Cut)
o Lazarus Taxon
o The Auburn Hills Breakdown
o The Ugly File
o Thirsty
* 8:30PM Horror Films
o The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon
o Pig Hunt
SUNDAY
* 11:00AM Doors Open
* 11:30AM Seattle Sci-Fi
o TimeTravel_0
o The Ends Of The Earth
* 2:30PM Fantasy Shorts
o La Glacière Rouge (The Red Icebox)
o Der Weltenbauer (The Builder Of Worlds)
o Badewanne zum Glück (Bathtub To Happiness)
o Fantastic Magnifico
o The Delivery
* 6:00PM Documentary
o Until The Light Takes Us
* 8:30PM Closing Night Films
o Virtual Dating
o Strigoi
Please visit the official site for more information.