Cyberpunk Now Festival

old 2020 cyberpunk now film festival banner image showing a man wearing vr goggles with drones and filmmaking equipment in the background

This project came from discussions in the New York City 2600 hacker community about how much our present day urban surroundings look and feel remarkably like what was predicted in speculative fiction of the “cyberpunk” genre decades ago.

A common joke in the group was, “it’s so cyberpunk,” which would be said regarding anything that that was both cyberpunk-looking and remarkably common.

You really don’t need a lot of fancy production design to make a cyberpunk movie today, because you can just shoot anywhere in NYC and there will be neon signs, electric cars, and people talking on mobile phones in the background.

We live in “the cyberpunk now.”

Current Festival

2025?!

Discussions are currently in-progress regarding the future of the Cyberpunk Now project and whether a new competition event will be held in conjunction with the upcoming 2025 Hackers on Planet Earth conference.

Subscribe to the festival Mailing List and join the Discord server for updates.

Past Festivals

2020’s Cyberpunk Now Film Festival during HOPE

In 2020, during the global health crisis lockdown, 2600 Magazine hosted the usual Hackers on Planet Earth conference in an online-only format, and a part of that was the first Cyberpunk Now Film Festival (CNFF).

The first CNFF was modeled on 48-hour film festivals held around the world, wherein filmmakers collaborate to write, shoot, and edit their films in a short period of time.

All teams started on the same footing at the beginning of the event due to “required challenge elements” that were not published until the start of the festival. Requiring all submissions to include these ensured a large measure of fairness to the competition.