The 24th edition of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, Italy’s leading science fiction event held at Politeama Rossetti, Teatro Miela, and the Sci-Fi Dome in Piazza della Borsa, concluded with an awards ceremony at Politeama Rossetti on Sunday, November 3.
Organized by La Cappella Underground, film and audiovisual research and experimentation center, the 2024 festival once again brought the best fantastic productions to the big screen, with over 50 world, international, and national film premieres and three competitions attended by directors, actors, and authors from around the world. The 2024 edition saw the participation of over 20,000 people who attended the screenings and conferences on the program, confirming the success of the Italian festival that brings the best of world science fiction to the big screen every year.
“The 2024 edition of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival was a huge success, exceeding even our wildest expectations,” said director Alan Jones. “We screened the best films from around the world, addressing a wide range of stimulating ideas and themes that will affect our lives in the future. The audience responded with passion and amazement, filling the theater with enthusiasm. The Politeama Rossetti and Teatro Miela theaters recorded record attendance, while the Sci-Fi Dome in Piazza della Borsa proved to be an unmissable attraction, becoming a new destination for science fiction fans eager to discover the festival’s side events, from artificial intelligence to new technologies, from books to interviews with prominent guests. Preparations for the 25th anniversary in 2025 are already underway, and we intend to build on this year’s extraordinary results in every single aspect.”
THE WINNERS OF THE TRIESTE SCIENCE+FICTION FESTIVAL 2024
Asteroide Award
The Asteroide Award selects the best science fiction, horror, and fantasy film from among the first, second, or third works of emerging directors, grouped in the Neon section of the festival. The award was assigned by an international jury made up of Allison Gardner, Justin Lockey, and João Monteiro.
Winner of the TS+FF 2024 Asteroid Award
“U ARE THE UNIVERSE” by Pavlo Ostrikov (Ukraine, 2024)
Reasoning
This entertaining and touching film is rich in depth and emotional nuance. The simplicity of the concept is held together by Volodymyr Kravchuk’s extraordinary solo performance, but compliments also go to Max (the on-board computer!).
Synopsis
Written and filmed during the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, this film is a true marvel and a prescient reminder of how important it is to have someone who understands us during the darkest moments. In the near future, space trucker Andriy Melnyk transports nuclear waste on a cargo ship bound for Saturn’s abandoned moon, Callisto. While in orbit, Earth suddenly explodes and Andriy becomes the only living human being. Until he receives a message from Catherine, a French meteorologist on a distant space station. Despite the difficulties, Andriy decides to find her.
Méliès d’argent Award – Feature Films
The competition is organized in collaboration with the Méliès International Festivals Federation (MIFF) and is dedicated to European fantastic feature films. The 2024 jury for the Méliès d’argent Award is made up of Jeremy Dyson, Luna Gualano, and Cristian Solimeno.
Winner of the Méliès d’argent Award – Feature Films TS+FF 2024
“AFTER US, THE FLOOD” by Arto Halonen (Finland, 2024)
Reasoning
For the inventiveness and originality with which it depicts the family environment, for its humanity and the universal questions it raises. We particularly appreciated the completeness of the story, the character development, and the way it makes you feel and reflect even after the screening. All this has resulted in a very satisfying, enjoyable, and stimulating film.
Synopsis
In 2064, the world is on the brink of environmental catastrophe. The UN has developed a way to travel through time, transferring personality and memories at the moment of birth. Henrik, a brilliant but narcissistic physicist, is chosen for the mission: he must publish his nuclear reactor design worldwide and thus prevent devastating climate change. But something goes wrong: Henrik is reborn in the wrong body and has to live a new life. A compelling science fiction film that travels through time to explore friendship, identity, greed, and the reasons why humans are still unable to stop climate change.
Méliès d’Argent Award – Short Films
The competition is organized in collaboration with the Méliès International Festivals Federation (MIFF) and is dedicated to European fantastic short films. The award is voted for by the audience.
Winner of the Méliès d’Argent Award – Short Films TS+FF 2024
“OÙ VA LE MONDE” by Mickaël Dupré (France, 2024)
Synopsis
In space, the captain of a crew accompanied by his faithful robot decides to abandon his duties to follow a creature called “Intuition.” The creature takes him to a strange and mysterious desert planet where he hopes to find the meaning of life.
The Begin Hotels Audience Award
Promoted for the first time by The Begin Hotels and dedicated to fiction feature films in the Neon section, the award is voted for by the audience in the theater. “For The Begin Hotels, each property in our collection is a space not only for those who come to the city, but also for those who experience it every day,” said Guido Guidi, President of The Begin Hotels. “Being a partner in this project and being able to reward a film loved by the audience is another way to put our philosophy into practice. We believe it is essential to create connections with local realities and projects such as this, which we consider to be the lifeblood for telling the story of the destination itself.”
Winner of The Begin Hotels TS+FF 2024 Audience Award
“U ARE THE UNIVERSE” by Pavlo Ostrikov (Ukraine, 2024)
Wonderland Award – Rai4
RAI4, media partner of Trieste Science+Fiction Festival 2024, awards the Wonderland Prize to the best film of the 24th edition.
Wonderland Award Winner – Rai4 TS+FF 2024
“THE COMPLEX FORM” by Fabio D’Orta (Italy, 2023)
Reasoning
A magical place, a mysterious contract, a hypnotic wait fraught with mechanical and repetitive gestures, downtime, and agonizing questions. Then, suddenly, thunder, the sound of sirens, the prodigious appearance out of nowhere of sumptuous entities who have come to redeem a tribute of bodies. A European fantastic film, adult, enigmatic, disturbing. For an independent, free, courageous, entirely auteur cinema: from writing to directing, from photography to editing and visual effects.
Synopsis
There is an ancient villa where desperate people have the opportunity to change their destiny by selling their bodies to mysterious entities in exchange for money. When enormous centuries-old creatures emerge from the grounds surrounding the villa, a series of strange and sinister events prompts three unlikely guests to join forces in a desperate attempt to escape. A science fiction work that is both sober and excessive, where the austerity of the unity of the place coexists with the wonders coming from Elsewhere, an existential limbo that has always existed just beyond the threshold of our perception.
SNCCI Italian Critics Award – National Union of Italian Film Critics
Award dedicated to debut films and assigned by a jury made up of three critics from the National Union of Italian Film Critics: Sara D’Ascenzo, Chiara Nicoletti, and Emanuele Rauco.
Winner of the SNCCI Italian Critics Award TS+FF 2024
“THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT” by Michael Felker (USA, 2024)
Reasoning
Entering the seemingly overused realm of time travel and paradoxes requires courage to avoid sounding trite. In this case, there is also the talent to construct an original story, capable of conveying a subtle anguish and private emotion, and the strength to maintain rhythm and keep the actors in tension thanks to the staging and editing. For its ability to invent and never lose its way, we award the SNCCI Award for best debut film to Things Will Be Different.
Synopsis
Brothers Joseph and Sidney find themselves in a diner after a messy robbery. To escape the police, they take refuge in an abandoned farm where a time portal transports them to another dimension. Once the danger has passed, they try to return to their present, but a metaphysical force to which they must blindly obey separates them and abandons them to their own devices. In addition to bending the laws of space-time, what happens to Joe and Sid will put their brotherly bond to the test. A sci-fi thriller full of plot twists, horrifying darkness and suspense.
Event Horizon Award – INAF
An award given by the National Institute for Astrophysics to the feature film in the festival that most effectively addresses particularly relevant and innovative topics in the field of science through cinematic techniques and engaging narrative devices.
Winner of the Event Horizon Award – INAF TS+FF 2024
“U ARE THE UNIVERSE” by Pavlo Ostrikov (Ukraine, 2024)
Reasoning
For creating a sci-fi film that combines irony, romance, adventure, tragedy, and film references with intelligent writing that avoids clichés and tackles the big questions that have always shaped the genre: the human condition in space, what it really means to act like humans, mortality, isolation, and the need for connection. Ostrikov and his team tackle these themes with minimalist narrative means, a vintage setting, Kuzmenko’s functional cinematography, and Kravchuk’s performance, focusing on the conflicts and development of the truck driver-space character, who must open up to another person just when—mirroring current events—the horizon on the world he knows closes. The delicate balance of the narrative successfully produces an allegory of hope in the darkest moments.
Synopsis
Written and filmed during the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, this film is a true marvel and a prescient reminder of how important it is to have someone who understands us during the darkest moments. In the near future, space trucker Andriy Melnyk transports nuclear waste on a cargo ship bound for Saturn’s abandoned moon, Callisto. While in orbit, Earth suddenly explodes and Andriy becomes the only living human being. Until he receives a message from Catherine, a French meteorologist on a distant space station. Despite the difficulties, Andriy decides to find her.
CineLab Spazio Corto Award
Dedicated to the best Italian short film presented in the Spazio Corto section, the award is assigned by a jury composed of students from ISIS Carducci Volta Pacinotti in Piombino (LI) as part of the project “DigiTales, Cinema in the Digital Age,” class 4E of the social sciences high school, socio-economic curriculum, and class 4G of the scientific high school, sports curriculum.
Winner of the CineLab Spazio Corto TS+FF 2024 Award
“GOLDEN SHOPPING ARCADE” by Francesco “Skino” Ricci Lotteringi (Italy, 2023)
Reasoning
Thanks to an effective screenplay and a remarkable (and dual) performance by Marco Sincini, the short film excellently addresses three fundamental themes of our society: the monotony of a life made up of work and family obligations, the ethical problem of the use of technology, both by the powers that be and by nobodies, and, finally, the great question of freedom. The alternation between realistic and grotesque tones makes the world described in Golden Shopping Arcade seem both disturbing and familiar. The tension is resolved in a masterful ending.
Synopsis
Carlo Nonessu works at the reception desk of a hospital owned by a multinational corporation that does not admit patients without sufficient credit to pay for their treatment. When one day, taking pity on an elderly man in financial difficulty, he lets him in, his boss threatens to fire him.
