Other Worlds Austin Announces Mary Shelley Award Finalists

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley by Richard Rothwell

It's hard to imagine either science fiction or horror without Mary Shelley, the creator of fiction's greatest mad scientist, Frankenstein. That's why sci-fi festival Other Worlds Austin has the Mary Shelley award for women genre filmmakers, and the list of this year's finalists is out.

Roxy Shih, writer/director of postapocalyptic thriller The Tribe, was already the first name on the list, and now she is joined by:

– Erin Li: co-writer/director, "Kepler X-47"
– Tia Salisbury: writer/director, "Allhallowtide"
– Rebecca Martin: writer, "Creatures of Whitechapel"
– Tricia Lee: director, Blood Hunters

The jury-selected $500 prize will be announced during this year's OWA, running Dec. 1-4.

This year’s jurors draw on some of the best independent talents working within cinema today: Hamptons International Film Festival executive director Anne Chaisson; Broad Street Pictures founder and actress Alysia Reiner (producer and star of Equity, and Fig in Orange Is the New Black); and writer/director Sarah Adina Smith, whose The Midnight Swim was one of the highlights of OWA's year-round programming, and whose new film Buster’s Mal Heart (starring Mr. Robot's Rami Malik) tore up Fantastic Fest.

Festival founder Bears Fonté said, "The Mary Shelley Award is probably the thing I am most proud of at Other Worlds Austin, and I thank these amazing jurors for being a part of that."

Last year, writer/director Claire Carré won the inaugural award for her debut feature, the mesmerizing Embers, which we called "poetic and cerebral": read our full review here.

Other Worlds Austin SciFi Film Festival runs Dec. 1-4, at Flix Brewhouse, 2200 N. I-35, Round Rock. Visit www.otherworldsaustin.com for more info.