OMSI’s Sci-Fi Film Festival Is Returning for the First Time in Over Four Years

Opening March 29 at the Empirical Theater, the eclectic range of films includes David Lynch’s “Dune” and multiple “Mad Max” features.

Sting in "Dune" (1984) (IMDB)
By Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Sci-fi saints be praised: After a hiatus of more than four years, OMSI’s Sci-Fi Film Festival is back and is getting supersized.

Slated to open March 29 at OMSI’s Empirical Theater, the festival will begin with an opening-night celebration (with door prizes!) centered on a screening of The Fifth Element and will close mid-May (exact date TBD) with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a prequel to 2015′s Oscar-winning Mad Max: Fury Road.

Sci-fi films frequently get the repertory treatment in Portland at theaters like Cinemagic, the Hollywood, and the Academy. But OMSI’s Sci-Fi Festival is unique: An opportunity to spend over a month watching classics on the biggest screen (61 by 40 feet!) in the city, losing yourself in futuristic worlds crafted by the likes of Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, George Miller and the Daniels.

For March, OMSI is screening a series of well-aged touchstones (Forbidden Planet, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, The Thing) and modern hits on their way to reaching classic status (Serenity, Interstellar, Gravity).

Starting in April, however, things will get far out. On April 8 and 14, OMSI will screen David Lynch’s bedazzled Dune (1984), giving audiences the opportunity to decide whether Kyle MacLachlan (Lynch’s muse) or Timothée Chalamet (star of the more recent Dune films) is the more credible sandworm rider.

OMSI is also giving plenty of screen time to Christopher Nolan (who recently won his first Best Director Oscar for Oppenheimer). The British-American filmmaker will have three films in the festival in April: not only Inception and Interstellar, but Tenet, the twisty espionage epic that came and went during the pandemic and spawned those unstoppable hot sauce memes.

In addition to films widely venerated by sci-fi fans, OMSI is picking some notably less obvious options, including Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville (April 7 and 10) and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (April 16 and 21).

Still, the biggest draws are likely to be lovingly crafted action spectacles like the Daniels’ Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once (May 19 and 23) and George Miller’s Mad Max 2 (April 26 and 28), which will tee up the director’s return to the series’ post-apocalyptic wasteland with Furiosa. Sounds like a lovely day.

Tickets are available at omsi.edu. Individual tickets are $6.50-$8 for regular shows and $20 for opening night; festival passes are $70-$95.

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