history
The International Science Fiction Film Festival’s first edition, in 1963, started the history of a revolutionary event bringing a whole bunch of celebrated international stars to the city of Trieste. In those years, the festival saw the participation of Arthur C. Clarke, Roger Corman, Riccardo Freda, Forrest J. Ackerman, Umberto Eco and Brian Aldiss, among others.
A group of “young visual poetry artists”, as Ungaretti called them in a cable he sent wishing luck to the Festival, coordinated at that time La Cappella Underground Research and Experimentation Centre. In the following years, they would turn the city of Trieste into a unique stage for genre films, until 1982, when the last edition took place.
In the year 2000, La Cappella Underground decided to pick up the tradition of the Festival and its innovative impulse on independent film productions, premieres and rarities with a new event called Science plus Fiction.
In 2002 the “Urania d’Argento” (Silver Urania) career achievement award was created, in cooperation with the magazine Urania, edited by Mondadori. During the following editions, this important award has gone to Pupi Avati, Dario Argento, Jimmy Sangster, Lamberto Bava, Enki Bilal, Terry Gilliam and Joe Dante.
In 2004, the fifth edition of Science plus Fiction, now one of the best known sci-fi, fantasy and horror genre events in Europe, picked up a new challenge by restoring the forgotten icon of the event that inspired the new Festival: the “Asteroide” award, hystorical prize of the “Trieste Science Fiction International Film Festival”.
In those years, the award for the best film in competition was called the “Asteroide d’Oro” (Golden Asteroid). It was designed and crafted every year by a different artist, like Nino Perizi and Marcello Mascherini, whose fame and talent was as exceptional as that of the sci-fi films and celebrities taking part to the Festival.
During all these years the Festival, which in 2007 updated its name to Science+Fiction, has never missed out in strength and innovation, planning an ever increasing range of events and reaching wider audience participation. Indeed, the program of every edition not only includes film screenings, but also a number of very popular side events: round tables and public meetings, scientific conferences, concerts and stage performances, art exhibitions and literary events.
Since 2005, Science+Fiction has been part of the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation (www.melies.org), a network including all the main events in the field and aiming at the promotion of European genre productions on a big scale. Becoming part of the Federation has confirmed this Friuli Venezia Giulia region event has reached true international status after only five years of activity.
The film schedule has always included a wide range of proposals bound to attract both fans and newcomers to the science-fiction, horror and fantasy genres. New sections have been added during the years: Brit Invaders!, a section on British science fiction; Marx Attacks!, an extended view on Russian productions; FantaEspaña, a focus on Spanish genre pictures; Asteroids, a selection of the best rarities from the past; European Fantastic Shorts and Spazio Italia, short films from all over Europe; Voyage Fantastique, a journey into French science-fiction, and many others besides Neon, the official section including the most recent films and premieres in and out of competition. This year there also is Fant’America on the list: a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, two hundred years from his birth.
Today, Science+Fiction is a well-known international showcase, greatly appealing for young viewers while also attracting a more adult audience, reaching a grand total of 11.000 spectators per year. A number of guests among the legion the S+F Festival has been able to bring to Trieste during these years deserve to be remembered: Valerio Evangelisti, Christiane Kubrik, Alfredo Castelli, Moebius, John Philip Law, Antonio Margheriti, Eugenio Martin, John Landis, Carlo Rambaldi, Stefania Rocca, Isabella Santacroce, Ian Watson, Brian Yuzna, Marc Caro and, finally, Terry Gilliam and Joe Dante, both presented with the career achievement award.
