Galactic Glamour and Cinematic Wonders: Unveiling the Spectacle of The Space Brains Sci-Fi Film Festival 2023!

Space Brains is thrilled to have hosted and created a spectacular film festival. Our goal was to provide filmmakers with a unique opportunity to showcase their work on the big screen, while also uniting the community in the joy of shared sci-fi movie-watching experiences and workshops.  

The first workshop of the day was a hands-on podcasting workshop presented by the me and fellow Space Brain Surrey. We went into a great deal of depth about podcasting with key information, practical demonstrations, and plenty of audience discussion.

The participants discussed their future podcast ideas, and you can tell there was future success stories in the making. I found that they all could talk abundantly which will mean they will have no troubles creating a podcast just like Surrey and I did when we created the Space Brains podcast. I look forward to hearing the day that their podcasts are out there on all the streaming platforms.

Stephen Dedman, whom is a science fiction award-winning published author based here in Western Australia, delivered a two-hour masterclass all about the tips and tools to write a science fiction story.

I think the audience soaked that up, because at the end of it, they were still asking questions. I had to wrap it up at the end due to time constraints. They wanted to know even more.

Stephen Dedman stated in his writing workshop “You can destroy entire planets, and nobody's going to come after you with an environmental impact statement. You can do whatever you like as a prose writer, and it costs nothing.”

 At Reading Cinemas, our red-carpet event allowed people the opportunity to pose for the paparazzi and have their photos captured at the amazing Space Brains media wall.

Proceeding on into the cinema the audience were treated to very insightful keynote speech delivered by award winning filmmaker Luke Sparke.

Luke is from the Gold Coast, he's Australian, and has completed several science fiction feature films. Luke Sparke’s most recent film, with Sam Neil and Barry Pepper, Bring Him to Me.

Luke Sparke explained his filmmaking experience with the following nugget of wisdom, “On a low budget film you get production managers come in, producers come in, crew who have done it for a long time, and the first thing they'll say to you is: “What usually happens..." And I hate that phrase so much because I turn around and I say, well that's great for all those films, let's try problem solve this way."

After Luke Sparke finished imparting his wisdom, we premiered 13 of the world's best international and Australian science fiction short films.

The films we selected were chosen for their inherent value in the realms of science, science fiction, and exceptional filmmaking prowess.  

Award winners were announced with a variety of categories: Best Director, Best Writer, Best Female Actor, Best Male Actor, Best Science Element in a Film, Best Space Brains Feature Film, Best Space Brains Short Film, Best Short film — Mandurah and Regional Western Australian, Best Short film — Australian, Best Short film — Youth/ Student, Best Sci-Fi Music Video and the coveted Best Short film — Audience choice award.

The film that received the most votes for the audience choice award, which this year went to 'The R Word'.

We had plenty of student filmmakers enter the festival and in fact 'The R Word' who won the audience's choice was an Australian student film.

Space Brains wanted to promote Mandurah as a place to come to visit for events. We got people in from Victoria, Perth, and regional Western Australia during the last two years. That has been fantastic result, putting Mandurah on the map. It's something that I know a lot of local Mandurah creatives have provided that positive feedback of such a big creative event happening in their local town.

It was an opportunity to have a local event celebrating locally made content. I feel it was an absolute smash hit and I am very proud of everything that Surrey and I (Space Brains) achieved.

The following was key awesome features of the Space Brains Sci-Fi Film Festival:

🎥 Entertaining Film Festival

🦋 Creative Workshops

👠 Walk the Red Carpet

🐝 Networking Opportunities

🍿 Cutting Edge Sci-Fi Films

👑 Award Ceremony

The second Space Brains Sci-Fi Film Festival occurred on Saturday 17th June 2023 in the beautiful coastal town of Mandurah, Western Australia.

The Space Brains Sci-Fi Film Festival was a competition for independent science fiction filmmakers to highlight their films and talents. The festival draws particular focus on the work of regional Western Australian filmmakers to help give them a platform to speak about their projects.

Thank you to everyone that attended and entered their films into the festival.

A special thanks to the City of Mandurah for sponsoring the event.