Sci-Fi Short ‘Escape Attempt’ Is First Film to Win the Filmquest Festival Grand Prize “Golden Cthulhu”

Sci-fi short ‘Escape Attempt’, directed and produced by Alex Topaller and Daniel Shapiro of Aggressive, has taken home two of the top awards at this year’s FilmQuest. In addition to Best Sci-Fi Short, it is the first film to ever win the Golden Cthulhu Grand Prize.

The cerebral short is based on a 1962 novel by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, whose works include 'Roadside Picnic' (on which Tarkovsky’s seminal film 'Stalker' is based). Their allegorical universe and societal themes have resurfaced with urgent timeliness in contemporary political conversations within Ukraine - and have been referenced numerous times in interviews by Zelensky’s top advisors.

It sees a soldier escape a WWII concentration camp to find himself on an unknown planet in a distant future - only to discover a frozen gulag controlled by a brutal alien race. At its core lies a fundamental question about history and the nature of humanity: is change possible? Can humans shift the way they behave, or are they forever condemned to re-enact past tragedies?

The film met with resounding success and had its US premiere at the competitive FilmQuest event, one of the largest genre festivals in the country with a record-setting 1,600 films and screenplays submitted for consideration.

‘Escape Attempt’ premiered globally at the 2023 SITGES festival in Spain on October 9th 2023, and is set to continue its festival run over the coming months. A feature version of the film is in development.

Alex Topaller and Daniel Shapiro comment: “When we first decided to create 'Escape Attempt', we envisioned it as a warning. But sadly, over the course of our production of the film, the horrible events unfolding around the world have turned it from an imagining of a possible future, into a dire commentary on the present.”