Browse complete film festival programme or see list of categories below.

Science fiction and fantasy transcend political and geographical borders, and do not belong in Hollywood alone. This year’s selection of films in Icon provides an international panorama of science fiction and fantasy works from various countries, various cultures and various languages.

The Icon International Film Festival is a rare opportunity to get to know film industries far removed from the Israeli scene and their unique view of science fiction and fantasy. Most of the films in the festival were never screened in Israel (commercially or otherwise), and this will be the only opportunity to see them in Israel on the big screen.

The International Film Festival will include more than fifty films: narrative and documentary, comedies and dramas, horror and animation, and much more in between. The movies come from the USA, France, Russia (and the former USSR), Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Hungary, Switzerland and more.

Filmmakers from all over the world will come to Icon to talk about their films, including: guest of honour Neil Gaiman, whose movie MirrorMask will be screened in the festival and Robert Nichols, producer of Adventures in Digital Comics.

As part of our mission to encourage original Israeli works, Israeli cinema will feature prominently in the film festival: directors Ari Pullman and Danny Lerner will present their film Made in Israel, as well as Pullman’s Saint Clara and Lerner’s Frozen Days, and will discuss the creation of movies with a fantastic tinge in Israel and talk about the boundaries of the genre. Two special events will be dedicated to short Israeli films produced in the last few years, including meeting their creators.

Many short films, carefully selected like the rest of the movies in Icon, will be screened at the festival. Short films are often where great filmmakers begin their career; in Icon we will present a quality worldwide selection of such movies, in three compilations: science fiction and fantasy, animation, and fantasy horror. Come and see an assortment of good short stories and discover the great filmmakers of the future.

The festival’s opening film, coming from France, is Renaissance. Dark and futuristic, this unique and innovative project combines photography and animation, and is influenced by Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City.

The films will be of varied genres and topics:

Animation and Anime: In addition to the opening film, Renaissance, there will be an assortment of traditional animation, computer animation and anime (Japanese animation) films from all over the world: Japan, Hungary, the USA, Russia and more.

By Fans, about Fans: Movies for and from science fiction and fantasy fans, gamers and roleplayers.

Horror: This genre often uses fantastic narrative elements, and fits well alongside and inside the science fiction and fantasy genre. The Film Festival will include many fantastic horror movies from around the world, including the Philippines, Thailand, Korea and Spain, as well as a special midnight programme focused on one of the first modern horror writers—H. P. Lovecraft. ”Cthulhu at Midnight” will present two movies based on his stories, The Call of Cthulhu and Dagon, as well as The Road to L: The Story of H.P. Lovecraft in Italy, a contemporary journey in his footsteps.

Friday the Thirteenth: From the horror genre to its parodies—this programme will consist of zombie movies from around the world, and foremost among them are the Irish teen zombie movie Boy Eats Girl, and Zombie Honeymoon—an American love story with undead background, as the name implies, courtesy of Shapira Films.

Comedy and Adventure: In this programme we will meet high-school students who are also daring secret agents (D.E.B.S), encounter all sorts of superheroes (Gagamboy, Special), and explore the Dungeons and Dragons universe.

Midnight Madness: Several movies stood out as out of place in any category, except for the one trait which links the all—weirdness and utter insanity, in plot or in cinematic technique. The cult programme includes the cinematic insanity of Survive Style 5+, the insane plot of Nothing and the general insanity of the trash cult Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. And, of course, no Midnight Insanity programme would be complete without The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The films in the festival are candidates for the Icon Award, granted by the judges as well as the audience, according to criteria predetermined by the management of the festival.
The full list of films appears in the printed programme and in the website (in Hebrew).