Roll up, roll up! Come one, come all!

Welcome to the second annual Apocalypse Later International Fantastic Film Festival (ALIFFF)!

The venue is the same for year two: the Phoenix Center for the Arts in downtown Phoenix.

However, we're expanding to a full day event in 2017: Sunday, 15th October.

Submissions Submissions for 2017 are now open! We're accepting short films and features from across the fantastic film genres.

Tickets Ticket sales for 2017 are now open! Cost is $30 for a full day event pass. That's the same price as 2016, just multiplied up from 2 slots of films to 6 slots (either features or 90 minute sets of shorts). Beer and concessions will be available for purchase. Parking and popcorn remain free!

What We Are

ALIFFF is the only annual dedicated genre-based film festival in the sixth largest city in the United States: Phoenix, AZ.

There are two other events in the area that are worthy of note and we highly recommend both, but neither is dedicated:

• The International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival started as a genre film festival in 2005, but it was folded into the Phoenix Film Festival in 2011 and has functioned as its genre track since then. You can't buy an IHSFFF pass, just a PFF pass.
• Phoenix FearCon started as a horror film festival in 2006 but is now a convention with a film track. It's also not annual, usually running every other year.

So we're not replacing them (in fact we work both of them and love them to bits). We're merely giving audiences back a dedicated event that will concentrate entirely on high quality genre film and run every year.

We plan to grow ALIFFF in future years, but it will remain true to its core ideals, which are to find the very best genre films and screen them to audiences at as low a cost as is possible without sacrificing quality.

Our first event in 2016 only featured horror and sci-fi short films. Our second is expanding both to include features and to widen the scope of what we call 'fantastic film' to include other genres: fantasy, action, crime, steampunk and what can only be described as 'cult'.

Check out the films that were selected for the Apocalypse Later International Fantastic Film Festival 2016 by clicking the laurels below:

Where We Are

The Phoenix Center for the Arts is our home in 2017 as it was in 2016. Their address is 1202 N 3rd St, Phoenix, AZ 85004.

It's conveniently located in downtown Phoenix right off I-10 and there's free parking right next to the building. It's about a quarter of a mile from the light rail and about half a mile from Central Ave. & McDowell Rd.

At P.C.A., we're in the Third Street Theater, which seats a comfortable 210. The venue allows the sale of alcohol, so we'll have a selection of beers on sale. We're adding concessions for 2017 but we'll still have free popcorn throughout the weekend.

When We Are

Genre festivals are traditionally late in the year and our second annual event will fill Sunday, 15th October, 2017. Times are still to be confirmed but we'll be running all day.

We'll be screening features and sets of short films. There will be Q&As with any filmmakers present and intermissions between the sets. An award ceremony will run on Sunday evening.

Who We Are

ALIFFF was founded by Hal C. F. Astell, a film critic and author who has been part of the film festival community since 2007. It is a cornerstone of the Apocalypse Later Empire.

Hal programs and hosts mini-film festivals at conventions across the southwest. He screens and/or judges a number of major film festivals and film challenges. He programs and judges the short film track for Phoenix FearCon. He writes at Apocalypse Later and his fourth book was The International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival: The Transition Years, which covers every feature and every short screened at that event in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

We change judges every year to keep choices fresh. However, all are established names within the local film community. Our judges for 2017 are:

• David Stipes is a VFX artist with two Primetime Emmys (for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager) and 40 years of experience in visual effects and animation. He ran his own visual effects studio for 12 years and currently teaches at The Art Institute of Phoenix. His website is DavidStipes.com.
• Chris Wilembrecht is the Vice President of Acquisitions and Marketing at Maxim Media Marketing. He's also a writer and producer of short films and one of the core cast of the Cult Film in Review podcast.
• Monte Yazzie is the Festival Director of the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival, the genre track for the Phoenix Film Festival. He also reviews films at The Coda blog.

Our graphic artist is Marty Freetage of Freetage Designs. He handles the graphic art for the Phoenix Film Festival, the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival, Phoenix FearCon, Phoenix Comicon etc. He also designed and created the cover for the book mentioned above.

Our awards are utterly unique, because they were commissioned from the utterly unique Tom Deadstuff, a Phoenix-based artist who works in papier maché. Check out his website or the amazing awards he designed and created for our 2016 event: