The Golden Blasters 2011 winners are below! Congrats! Click here for all posts about the awards last year. Our open-call for 2012 entries starts Tuesday, February 14th, 2012.

The Golden Blasters 2011 Winners!

Well, well! Octocon's annual film festival and awards, The Golden Blasters, sure were an interesting bunch this year! The room was packed, and everyone we met afterwards had strong opinions about the films.

Two other shorts were shown, besides the nominees, as they had great merit, but didn't quite make the cut for different reasons. These were Tod Polson's Escape of the Gingerbread Man, and Anthony Woodley's Arca.

Having shown all of our films, it was then up to our audience, and our judges, to pick the Silver and Golden Blasters, respectively. Of course, there wasn't much of a divergence between the two this year, as both awards went to one film: Hai In Mano Il Tuo Futuro!

The short revolves around a man's daily trip to have his urine monitored, like everyone else. But what happens when one just can't go? The audience were laughing their hats off at this Italian gem of political satire, so it was no wonder that this piece won. Well done to Enrico Maria Artale and everyone involved in this movie's making.

In the Short Script Competition, our judges whittled the many entries down to just one, but it was tough. This year's winner was, once again, Stuart Creque, who won last year's award, as well. This year he won for his script Wet Rot. Stuart's writing is just pure, twisted genius, we have to say. With original ideas, clever dialogue, and brilliant execution, we genuinely can't wait to see his scripts produced.

We also wanted to give honourable mentions to (in the Horror category) - The Disappeared by Hugh Travers and (in the Sci-Fi category) The Date by Edd Howarth. Those were some impressive scripts, too. Nice job, one and all! :)

Our competition will be taking some bold new steps for 2012, so stay tuned for the opening of next year's competition, very soon!

Love,

The Golden Blasters Team

MISSION & OBJECTIVE
The Golden Blasters (The National Irish Science Fiction Film Awards) is a film festival dedicated to short science fiction, fantasy and horror stories. We aim to bring the best speculative fiction to Octocon and expose more people to the wonderful art of the short film.

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The Festival, in its fourth year, will be taking submissions from the general public for the short film competition, as well as for our script competition from February 14th, 2012 onwards.

The Festival is held annually at The National Irish Science Fiction Convention, Octocon, as part of its programme. We take submissions from anywhere in the world, and the winners are selected by audience vote and the deliberations of our panel of judges, sometimes including Octocon's guest of honour.

The festival's first winners were...

The Silver Blaster - Elobb Utobb (Sooner or Later) - Hungary, dir. Istvan Madarasz
The Golden Blaster - The Silent City - Ireland, dir. Ruairí Robinson

The second year's winners were...

The Silver Blaster - "The Astronomer's Sun" by Simon Cartwright & Jessica Cope
The Golden Blaster - "Ubermensch" Directed by Simon Temple and written by Daniel Poole

The Best Script was "He Knows" by Stuart Creque

The third year's winners were...

The Silver Blaster - "Hai In Mano Il Tuo Futuro!" - Italy, dir. Enrico Maria Artale

The Golder Blaster - "Hai In Mano Il Tuo Futuro!" - Italy, dir. Enrico Maria Artale

The Best Script was "Wet Rot" by Stuart Creque

GENERAL RULES


SCRIPT FORMAT

Scripts can be up to twenty pages in length (this is a shorts
competition) and must be in the correct format (Courier, font size 12).

SHORT FILMS

Films can be as short as you like, however the ideal maximum running time should be 12 to 15 minutes ... this is dedicated to the art of the short ... we will look at films that run a minute or two longer than that and will consider them if their quality is high enough.
Shorts can be dedicated to horror, science fiction and fantasy, and can be a mixture of live action, animation and music video.

Short Film Exhibition Format
Can be filmed on 35, 16 mm or video but entries must must be on DVD or CD-ROM, the same with exhibition copies. We ask for two copies.

Entry Deadline
Early Bird Entry Deadline: 30th April 2011
Standard Deadline: 30th June 2011
Final Deadline: 31st July 2011

Awards

* Best Short Script
* Best Picture
* Audience Award (All audience members are entered automatically into a prize draw!)

To enter, click the button below!

For details on the 2010 Golden Blasters, click here!
For details of the 2009 Golden Blasters, click here!