By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and use of cookies and similar technologies. We store cookies and similar technologies on your computer or device to provide you with a great experience and help our website run effectively.
Filmmaker: Call for Entries
The Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival (SFFSFF) is an annual festival hosted by MoPOP and SIFF to celebrate new and innovative additions to the science fiction and fantasy cinematic arts.
Now in its 20th year, SFFSFF screens animated and live-action short films from around the world for devoted live audiences and a panel of nationally recognized judges. Films screened at SFFSFF have gone on to receive international distribution, Academy Awards nominations, and more.
Applications are open now for the 2025 season via FilmFreeway. Filmmakers 24 and under are invited to submit to our Youth Track.
Deadline Schedule
- July 22–August 31, 2024
$20 Early Bird Entry - September 1–October 31, 2024
$25 Regular Entry - November 1–December 1, 2024
$35 Late Entry
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. A life-long sci-fi fan, she 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).
THE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY SHORT FILM FESTIVAL IS SUPPORTED BY
