Festival Data:

• Established: 2006
• Genre: Sci-Fi - Fantasy - Horror (click to see)
• Attendance: 800
• Total Number of Films Submitted: 400
• Total Number of Films Screened: 77
• Total Screenings: 85
• Total National and International Premieres: 13
• # of Shorts Screened: 65
• # of Features Screened: 12

• Competitive
• Retrospective

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

"Science Fiction & Fantasy is where imagination doesn’t just play the game -it makes the rules. Join us."

The Athens Intl Sci-Fi & Fantasy Film Festival is organized by the Science Fiction Club of Athens, Greece (or “ALEF” for short). It started out as a retrospective of Greek genre Short Films, but it quickly evolved into a truly international event, screening both short films & features, always in the SFF-rated land of moving images.

To qualify as "Science-Fiction & Fantasy" films must critically include (in the plot or in the surroundings), something that as far as we know doesn't yet exist but can be imagined, or something that violates at least one natural law as we currently know them, or defies natural life, human history, material world, social structures, or the universe of the mind, as we know them. Space is fair game, too. Animation is of course pretty much welcome.

SFF-rated Athens International Sci-Fi & Fantasy Film Festival awards include:

Two awards for short films: Best Short and Best Idea.

Three Awards for features: Best Film, Best Director, Best Scenario

Plus: The Audience Controversy Award. (SFF-rated Athens has the means to sci-fi-ntifically determine which film created the biggest turmoil and controversy amongst viewers, and it will award it because controversy implies strong artistic power.)

If Nikos Kazantzakis had hosted a film festival blog ( sffrated.wordpress.com ) we can imagine such commentary as: "after our invited Greek Directors lay it out for the audience, in words this time... then we are going to eat Mystic Pizza (made with cannabis sativa), drink Absinth(e) and dance. And start thinking about SFF-rated 2011. Yes, once more, it’s called obsession." The spirit of Zorba lives, as in time travel, at the SFF-rated Athens International Sci-Fi & Fantasy Film Festival.