Blog: Film festivals

If you know us, you already know.

If you‘re just discovering us, it's pretty simple. We strive to be that independent fest that loves filmmakers, screening films, and then talking about them in the most convivial of ways. That’s us. That’s Boston SciFi aka Boston Science Fiction Film Festival & Marathon. We love the possibility of ‘if’, and we love the film culture. By now it we be pretty good at it. We’ve been doing it for 46 years.

So we got history.

The legendary Orson Welles Cinemas is where it started. Legendary? Yep, the first manager was some dude named Tommy Lee Jones, and people like Peter Bogdanovich, Neil Young, Errol Morris and many more experienced formative cinematic awareness there. It was a 3-screener, it had a restaurant. There was a film school and more. It burned in 1986, and we are all that survived. Making films, showing them, and celebrating the creators is in. our DNA.

Today we are housed in the vintage, independent Somerville Theatre. That’s in Davis Sq, the front door to Tufts University, and just T stops (Boston’s subway system) to Harvard, MIT, Boston University & Northeastern.

We are an 11-day event with two distinctive parts. "The Fest" and “The Thon”.

The Fest is 9 days of submitted and judged films. Tossed into this will be curated films, some classics, some global discoveries. There are also workshops, panels, and other special events. There a number of events/parties for filmmakers including weekend brunches and evening parties. They are convivial networking opportunities with fellow filmmakers and the industry.

The closing event is part two of Boston SciFi. It is “The Marathon”, aka The Thon. Where the greats, the not-so-greats, the not-even-close-to-great screen in a 13 film, 24 hour roller coaster of cinema and community. Some will even be in 35mm, and we’re always looking for a 70mm. Think of it binge viewing with 700 of your best friends, even if you just met. Since we’ve been doing this for 46 years, we consider ourselves the “Original Binge View.”

That’s the layout. When it comes to asking yourself to submit, you probably have questions. Hopefully you can find the answers here. One question often asked is how do we define science fiction. If Rod Serling played it on the original TWILIGHT ZONE, then who are we to argue? Whether it shorts, features, documentaries, animation, webisodes, whatever, we'll screen it. In our world, good scripts are more important than a conveniently placed piece of SFX. Although a well-done, nicely timed big boom is fun.

The organizers of BostonSciFi are industry professionals with decades of experience. One of the biggest reasons to enter your film is to get exposure to audiences AND the industry. It is this latter piece where our experience helps. We invite our friends to come, and we recommend BostonSciFi films to those we know.

So welcome to SF46, the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival, the US’ longest-running fest, and perhaps the coolest, SciFi festival in the US with a passion for film that comes age.

It's about exploring new worlds.