Following the extremely successful virtual pandemic-edition of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival® in 2020, Festival Directors Gwen and Brian Callahan were thrilled to present the 2021 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival as a hybrid event for the first time! The 26th annual festival took place with live screenings October 1-3 at the beautiful Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon with more than 60 short and feature films, visiting filmmakers, and in-person audiences. The virtual edition, with bonus streaming exclusive content, streamed worldwide October 8-10 with live and recorded filmmaker Q&As.
Every year, a few meaningful awards are given to honor the films that truly exemplify the festival's celebration of cinematic adaptations of stories by H. P. Lovecraft and his contemporaries, as well as other works in the genres of Cosmic Horror, the Weird tale, and the Uncanny. The Award winners for the 26th Annual H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival were announced on Monday.
In the annual screenplay competition, The Haunter of the Dark by Brian Hauser and Philip R. Garrett stood out among the 60+ entries. The feature screenplay delivers on the Weird and uncanny as it presents a fresh and thoroughly modern mashup of the Lovecraft stories “The Dreams in the Witch House” and “The Haunter of the Dark.”
Each year, teams of filmmakers are challenged to make a Lovecraftian short film using a required prop and line of dialogue in just 72 hours. The qualifying entries are screened at the festival and the audience decides who did it best. This year’s Lovecraft Under the Gun winner was “Terror of the Lost Utensils” by Trash People from the Dump, aka Lora and Theo Friess, for their imaginative mythology surrounding mysterious silverware, complete with their signature musical elements!
The HPLFF audience is extremely engaged with all of the films that are shown, and nearly all audience members vote for the highly coveted Audience Choice Award. Top runners up were "Transfer" by Jonas Govaerts, "Dice" by Michael Squid, and Exegesis Lovecraft by Qais Pasha! The winner is, “Good Head” by Matt Servitto! This was truly a crowd pleaser, delivering a well rounded package of supernatural horror, gooey effects, and pitch perfect comedic timing.
The award for Best Adaptation went to “The Book in the House” by Gianni Di Nino and Danilo Marabotto. This beautiful black and white translation of the Lovecraft story “The Picture in the House,” had its World Premiere at the festival. Di Ninno and Marabotto shot the film 35 years ago, but the film was lost and then rediscovered in 2010. In 2020, under quarantine during the pandemic in Italy, more scenes were shot with the original actor Franco Leo, and they were able to finally finish the film!
Best Short award went to “The Relic,” directed by J.M. Logan. This frenetically paced tale of archaeologists gone wild shows us the third act of what feels like a classic Call of Cthulhu® role playing game scenario with horrific practical monster effects, and a very satisfying Cosmic Horror ending.
Out of the 6 independent feature films screened at the festival, The Fall of Usher, earned the Best Feature award with standout performances by leads Riker Hill and Savannah Schafer. The debut feature by Kentucky filmmaker Brian Cunningham presents a beautifully modern and nuanced retelling of Poe’s stories and provides a deep exploration of his favored themes of grief, madness, and loss.
**************************************************
Congratulations to all of the winners!
Submissions for the 2022 Festival are currently open on FilmFreeway. The final submission deadline is August 2, 2022.
Mark your calendars for the next H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR, October 7-9, 2022!
The 26th Annual H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival® takes place October 1-3, 2021 in person at the historic Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon, AND streaming online October 8-10th on Eventive. Whether you want to attend in person or stream from home, you can support the festival by pledging for deluxe ticket packages and exclusive rewards like our "Tillinghast Engine" T-shirts and lapel pins that won't be available for sale later.
ATTEND IN PERSON: The in-person show October 1-3 will be a safe and fun fully vaccinated/tested event (all attendees will need to show proof of vaccination or recent negative PCR test), and masks will be required at all times. This will NOT be the crowded experience you remember from previous HPLFFs, and is your first chance in many years to see ALL the movies in one easy programming track, and enjoy the festival without lining up for seats in upstairs auditoriums! It has been designed to be a streamlined and safe experience for a limited number of people, with plenty of room to spread out.
STREAM FROM HOME: Our streaming event will happen the following weekend, October 8-10 on the Eventive platform where you can watch the festival on a computer browser or in the Eventive app on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, or Apple TV. Film blocks will go live on a rolling schedule starting 7 pm Friday Oct 8th with the last block going live at 9 pm on Sunday Oct 10th. All film blocks will continue to be available until 11:59 pm on October 12th to allow for more relaxed watching of everything on offer!
Regular non-deluxe packages and single day tickets for both the in-person and streaming event will go on sale soon! Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified when they're available, and also when the full film list and schedule is ready.
THE 2021 LOVECRAFTIAN MICRO FICTION CONTEST IS OPEN!
DEADLINE IS EXTENDED TO SEPTEMBER 6, 2021
What is it?
Micro Fiction is very short prose fiction. Smaller than Flash Fiction but bigger than a haiku. Usually 500 words or less. There are some famous short short stories, including Hemingway’s - For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Lovecraftian fiction usually takes the form of Cosmic Horror, Weird Fiction, or Speculative or Science Fiction with a Horror twist, as well as horror or ghost stories with an uncanny tone.
According to Lovecraft, “The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain--a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.”
What do I get if I win?
- The winning authors will be published in a book with the current year's Challenge From Beyond! Winning authors will receive 2 complimentary copies of the book.
- The overall winner will be invited to participate in the 2022 Challenge From Beyond round robin story project with some of the finest modern Lovecraftian Authors! (Past authors include Molly Tanzer, Joseph Pulver, Sr., Wilum Pugmire, Nick Mamatas, Ross Lockhart, Cody Goodfellow, Pete Rawlik, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, Gemma Files, Lee Zumpe, Selena Chambers, Nadia Bulkin, Michael Cisco, and Tim Pratt.) Participation is not mandatory if you win.
- The overall winner, if planning to attend the Portland H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, will have an author reading slot reserved for them so they can read their story at the festival! (this is optional)
How to Submit
Go to the submission page on ArkhamBazaar.com - and please read all the rules and guidelines! There, you can submit up to 5 entries.
Rules, Terms and Conditions
- Stories must be 500 words or less. Entries of more than 500 words will be disqualified with no refund. Please check your word count before submitting! Most word processing programs have a built in word counter. There are also web sites for this, like wordcounter.net
- All entries must be English language.
- Stories should not require any special formatting besides normal paragraph breaks. We're looking for content, not visual formatting.
- All entries must be written by you. You may not submit another author’s work. Your original stories only, please.
- Your entry must contain your legal name, your author name (if different), and story title.
- Deadline for entries is SEPTEMBER 6, 2021
- Winning entries will be notified no later than SEPTEMBER 10, 2021.
- The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® & CthulhuConTM reserves the right to publish the winning entries in a limited edition book with the current year's Challenge From Beyond, which may be sold to cover printing costs. All submissions may be used for promotional purposes. Authors of the top 10 entries will receive 2 complimentary copies of the book, for which shipping in the US is free, and outside the US may incur a small shipping fee. Additional copies will be available for purchase.
- Overall winner will be invited to participate in the 2022 Challenge From Beyond round robin story project, which will take place in summer 2022.
The H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival returns to Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, RI for it's 3rd Bi-ennial event! Scheduled for 2020, this event could not happen in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so a one-night streaming event was held instead. However, high vaccination rates and loosening restrictions on indoor activities have allowed the festival to return with Weird and Uncanny force to the historic and beautiful Columbus Theatre on H. P. Lovecraft's birthday weekend, August 20-22, 2021! Three days of short and feature length films include adaptations of the works of Lovecraft, his forebears like Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Robert W. Chambers, and original Cosmic Horror stories by a diverse selection of international filmmakers. Features include a special 35th Anniversary screening of FROM BEYOND, in honor of the late great Stuart Gordon, our friend and friend of the festival.
The festival takes place Friday August 20th 7-11pm, Saturday August 21st Noon-4pm and 7-11pm, and Sunday August 22nd 1-5pm. For the safety of our patrons, the Columbus Theatre will be requiring all attendees to show proof of COVID-19 Vaccination, and attendees will be asked to wear masks in all areas of the theater, except when actively eating or drinking in their seats.
Tickets are on sale now at the Columbus Theatre web site, with more film announcements and full schedule coming in the next few days. Get tickets here.
Check out our 2020 Award Ceremony video to see all the winners for the 25th Anniversary H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, which streamed worldwide (due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis). We also think it's pretty entertaining, with tons of clips, a dramatic fiction reading, and a special musical performance.
The Kickstarter has landed! This year, it's a quick one, only 10 days, so don't wait to pledge. With the ongoing global health crisis, we weren't sure what form the fest could take until it was too late to really have a full fundraising campaign, but we know a lot of you love our yearly Kickstarter exclusives, so we've put together a streamlined campaign with some cool experiences, including our VIP Drive-in theater experience in the Dalles, Oregon.
This year, anyone in the world can enjoy the festival from the comfort of their homes. If you're inside the US, you can get a full festival pass with an exclusive T-shirt and more, and those outside the US can pledge for a limited pass which gives you access to as many of the films as we can show you (10+ hours and growing). This is a first for a streaming festival for international fans, and is only available by backing our 25th Anniversary Kickstarter campaign.
Support the festival on Kickstarter until Friday, September 25th.
The 25th Anniversary H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival streams October 1st through the October 4th, 2020, with over 50 short and feature Lovecraftian films, featuring Guests of Honor Barbara Crampton and Victor LaValle.
UPDATE: The HPLFF BIPOC Waiver program is live! Please CLICK HERE for more information and to apply.
Over the 25 Years of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival®, it has showcased movies from filmmakers from all walks-of-life, including professionals, amateurs, and students, and from all the dark corners of Earth, including the US, UK, France, Spain, India, Panama, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Ireland, Cyprus, Finland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Peru, Poland, United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Argentina, Norway, Russia, and Taiwan. However, works from people of color have been traditionally under-represented.
To help increase this aspect of diversity at the HPLFF, starting with the 2021 season, for which submissions open in December 2020, the organizers will launch a new fee waiver program specifically for film directors who are black, indigenous, and people of color. This will allow BIPOC creators to apply for a waiver to submit their works to the festival at no charge. While this is only half of the issue of representation, where the other half is selecting more films by people of color, a similar program to reach out to women directors for Portland Horror Film Festival™, the HPLFF's sister event, resulted in dramatic increases in the representation of women in the horror field at the festival, and praise from the audience for increasing the diversity of horror showcased on the screen.
Details of the program and how to apply will be published following the 2020 festival this October, and will be availabel to filmmakers when submissions re-open in December. It is the sincere hope of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival that this will be a successful first step in increasing the diversity of the festival's offerings, and will show that despite H. P. Lovecraft's racist personal beliefs, the genre of Cosmic Horror is not and will not be limited by skin color.
The highly-anticipated new HBO series, Lovecraft Country, based on the excellent and exciting book by Matt Ruff and produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us) premiered on August 16, a mere four days before H. P. Lovecraft's 130th birthday. It recontextualizes the Lovecraftian narrative of battling cults and monsters from beyond with black actors during the Jim Crow era of American history. It shows the kind of story that fresh voices can lend to Cosmic horror, and uses both the history and Lovecraft to great effect.
When speaking of Lovecraft's stories, author Matt Ruff cited The Shadow Over Innsmouth as partial inspiration for elements of the book. “It is a very specific story about a white man threatened by this mixed-race horde but it’s also one of the most effective tales of attempted lynching I’ve ever read. Lovecraft captures the fear brilliantly. I can learn from that and do interesting things with it while rejecting the underlying idea.”
While the series (and book before it) has created some controversy, both critics and many Lovecraft fans are enjoying its take on the universe of H. P. Lovecraft.
Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff is required reading. Get it at Amazon in a variety of formats.
You can watch the new TV Series on HBO or with the new HBO streaming service.
Get streaming tickets to our one-night streaming event to celebrate H. P. Lovecraft's 130th birthday, featuring short films both new and classic from the 25 year history of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival®! You can join in the fun anywhere in the US!
Some of these classic films have not been seen since they first played at the festival. As a rare treat, we've gathered the filmmakers of those early films for an interactive Q&A!
The "130 Years of H. P. Lovecraft" streaming show takes place on Saturday, August 22nd, 4-8 pm Pacific time (7-11 pm Eastern time).
Suggested SCHEDULE - remember you can access the films anytime starting 4 pm on 8/22 and have access until 8/23 at 11:59 pm.
Block 1 - 4:00 pm
Q&A with "Classics" Filmmakers - 6:15pm (ish)
Block 2 - 7:00 pm (or after the Q&A)
You can purchase streaming tickets on the Hollywood Theatre website.
You can purchase the commemorative T-shirt HERE.
Whether you're on the East Coast or the West Coast, you've probably been wondering what's going to happen with the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival®. We've been closely watching the COVID-19 situation in both Rhode Island and here in Oregon, and it is apparent that neither show can happen in person this year.
This would have been our 3rd bi-ennial HPLFF in Providence in coordination with our friends at the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council, but since we can't gather in person, we invite you to join us on August 22nd for a one night streaming event celebrating 130 Years of H. P. Lovecraft, featuring new Lovecraftian short films plus newly restored classics of the genre! While meant to bring the joy and horror of Lovecraftian Cinema to our friends in Providence, the silver lining is that Portlanders (and anyone else in the US) can also tune in!
We're heartbroken that we won't see you in Providence (or challenge you to another round of Lovecraftian Pictionary!), but besides having no open theatrical venue, as Oregonians, we can't even enter RI without a 2 week quarantine. BUT the thought of cancelling the festival outright was too much to bear. Luckily for all of us, this is 2020 and we have the technology!
This year is also the 25th Anniversary of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR, and we will be streaming the full 3-day event directly into your living room, October 2-4th! We were really looking forward to celebrating this milestone with our festival family in person. However, after watching the COVID-19 numbers increase here in Oregon, and discussing this with the Hollywood Theatre, it does not seem likely that they will be allowed to be open in October.
This is normally a huge festival that takes place on 3 screens and in secondary venues with multiple art, music, film, and live events. The easiest thing would have been to cancel it and have our big 25th Anniversary bash next year, but we didn't think that was fair to you, or to the filmmakers who rely on us to showcase their particular kind of Weird cinema. In the face of ever-increasing weirdness and isolation in the US, we think the right thing to do is to bring the right kind of Weird directly into your home! The up side: for the first time ever, folks in Providence (or elsewhere in the US) can easily enjoy the Portland show!
We've got some fun stuff planned that will make this much more than just watching movies at home, so mark your calendar and stay tuned for more info!
- Saturday, August 22, 2020 - 130 Years of Lovecraft
streaming show begins 7 pm EDT (4 pm PDT)
GET STREAMING TICKETS
Join the official Facebook event here - October 2-4, 2020 - 25th Annual H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival
streaming show begins Friday Oct 2nd (exact times tbd)
Kickstarter Fundraiser coming soon!
Join the official Facebook event here.
F.A.Q.
Is there going to be a Kickstarter campaign?
We're 99% sure there will be a Kickstarter fundraising campaign for the Portland festival that will let you pledge for streaming tickets, plus exclusive merchandise. We'll update you as soon as we have more info!
What if the theaters in Providence and Portland are suddenly open?
This is the number one thing that makes our decision so tough. We have seen that things are opening at a different pace from state to state as infection numbers are monitored, which means that things could change without much notice. However, while it's possible, everybody involved thinks it is very unlikely that theater venues will be open at all. When they do eventually open, even after phase 3, the consensus is that they will still only be able to do so with very very limited seating capacity and by maintaining social distancing.
In our traditional Providence venues, this would mean only being able to seat about 25 people. In the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, this number may be less than 100. In both cases, maintaining proper social distancing also means limiting movement before, during and after the show, limiting restroom capacity and the ability to exit the auditorium to use it, no concession stand so there are no lines, and one way traffic flow in the auditoriums. It's a bleak view of the movie-going experience and is probably the best case scenario. Again, neither we, nor the theater believes they will be open at all.
How can I watch the August 22nd -130 Years of Lovecraft show?
We're streaming via the Hollywood Theatre, here in Portland, OR, and tickets will be available soon. The theater's platform is a web based video player that works on any browser by clicking the link in the ticket confirmation email or by logging into your account. We used this system for Portland Horror Film Festival™ and it worked great! There may be other ways to watch, but these are the ones we know work:
- Watch on your computer, laptop, tablet, mobile device
- Watch on your TV
- by connecting your computer, laptop, tablet, etc., to it with an HDMI cable. (For tablets or slim computers like a Macbook Pro, you might need an adapter, like the Lightning --> HDMI or USB-C --> HDMI).
- Use Chromecast: If you have a Chromecast device connected to your TV, you can cast to it from any computer on your Wi-Fi network by opening the video stream in a Chrome browser with the Chromecast extension installed. Then just cast the tab with the video window to your TV. Easy!
- Use the Amazon Fire TV stick: log in to the theater website using the Silk web browser that is built in to the Fire stick. You can access your ticket and links in your account details.
- Use Roku: Cast from your mobile device using a third party app like "Web Video Caster"
Is the content going to be different for the two events?
For the August 22nd one night show, we will be showing a mix of new films, a few classic films that we've been working on restoring, and films that were screened at the October 2019 festival in Portland, OR but not in Providence at Necronomicon. There may be a little bit of overlap if you attended the Portland Festival last year, but it represents a very small portion of what we'll be showing in October. In other words, there won't be a bunch of repeats, so you can enjoy both shows!
I'm not in the US, can I watch the shows?
We know that some of you from far off lands such as Canada, Sweden, and Taiwan, have been able to join us in person in past years. However, in the same way that Netflix has different catalogs for different countries, we expect to only be able to secure streaming rights inside the US for most of our content. It is possible that we may be able to make a limited amount of content available to our festival family outside the US and we will update you as we have more news.
We'll be back soon with more details, but in the meantime - Stay safe, stay healthy, keep watching the stars!
Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!
Gwen and Brian Callahan