London’s 11th Annual Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film started today, May 1 and continues until May 7, 2012 as I noted in my March 9, 2012 posting about the event. James Kingsland in an April 30, 2012 posting on the Guardian science blogs announces the winners in a Guardian newspaper contest to set themes for a 48-hour filmmaking challenge (part of the festival’s pre-programme) which took place the weekend of April 14, 2012,

This year there was an extra dimension to the challenge: readers of Guardian Science were given the chance to propose scientific themes for the filmmakers through a competition. There were around a hundred entries, some of them brilliant, some bizarre, many original.

Among my favourites from the far side of our readers’ imaginations were “Robotic Jesus disguised as iceberg sinks Titanic”, “Suicidal god in human form”, and “Acid was a gift from aliens”. Sadly none of these made the final cut.

Here are the winners and their ideas, in no particular order:

• A website to see into your future (Helen Worth)

• Death is no longer a certainty (Keith Stokes)

• Teleportation device ends privacy and property (Peter Dalloz)

• At the universe edge. A door ajar … (Tucker Stevens)

• Vaccine against mental illness. Recipients abandon religion (Katie Brown)

• We were born from the same … batch (Sophie Constant)

• Synthetic meat coincides with cosmetic surgery boom (Adam Smith)

• Two robots contemplate switching each other off (Haroon Saeed)

• Faster metabolism at cost of shorter life (Dan Smith)

• What if personality is an ancient parasite … (Adrian Rogerson)

• A virus that kills language (Alan Faller)

…

For those who do not live in or are not able to get to London for the festival, I’ve embedded a trailer for one of the films (not part of the 48-hour filmmaking challenge) that will be shown at the festival,

Here’s a description for the film, from the festival’s Blink of an Eye: Shorts Programme 1 webpage,

ALCHEMY & OTHER IMPERFECTIONS

(Dir. Zachary Rothman, Canada, 2011, 12mins)
A dark fable about a Man and Woman who have completely lost touch with the outside world.

This short film will be screened along with others included in Programme 1 on Thursday,  May 3, 2012 at 6:30 pm and on Saturday, May 6, 2012 at 2 pm.