Another day of unmissable events and screenings is in store on Thursday, October 30 at the 25th Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, which runs through Sunday, November 2. The program begins at 11:00 a.m. at Miela with “Captured Souls: In Conversation with Graham Humphreys” by Chris Collier, a documentary exploring the life and legacy of the United Kingdom’s most iconic horror illustrator, creator of posters for cult films such as The House and Nightmare – From the Depths of the Night for their UK theatrical releases, as well as the poster for the 2022 Trieste Science+Fiction festival. At 3:00 p.m. at the Rossetti, theinternational premiere will take place in the presence of the co-screenwriter of “Falsehood” Ethan Hickey (Canada, 2025), set in a dystopian future where humanity’s memories are government-controlled products, when an ancient memory—the answer to the question “Where do we come from?”—is stolen for political purposes.
At 3:30 p.m. the program continues at the Teatro Miela with Italian short films from Spazio Corto, while at 5:30 p.m. at the Politeama Rossetti, “Bureau 749” by Chuan Lu (China, 2024)<span style="font-weight: 400;" will be presented out of competition and as anItalian premiere “Bureau 749”—a science fiction epic that prompts deep reflection through the story of Shan, a young man who, a victim of discrimination due to his physical anomaly, joins the mysterious Bureau 749 to defeat a science-fiction epic that prompts deep reflection through the story of Shan, a young man who, a victim of discrimination due to his physical anomaly, joins the mysterious Bureau 749 to defeat a horde of giant alien monsters. Also at Rossetti at 8:00 p.m. will be the Italian premiere of “ Egghead Republic” by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja (Sweden, 2025), previous winners of the Asteroide Award at the 2019 Trieste Science+Fiction Festival for “ Aniara”, who present a new dystopian satire in which the Cold War never ended and a journalist must report from an area contaminated by an atomic bomb.
The evening continues at Rossetti at 10:00 p.m. with the Italian premiere of “ Junk World” by Takahide Hori (Japan, 2025), the spiritual sequel to the stop-motion film “Junk Head”, in which a fragile alliance between humans and a workforce of emancipated clones is threatened by a group of terrorists from a sadomasochistic cult that disrupts an expedition in search of a mysterious anomaly. At 10:30 p.m. at the Teatro Miela, the Italian premiere—out of competition—of “ OBEX” by Albert Birney (United States, 2025), a film inspired by “ Eraserhead” and imbued with a retro sci-fi aesthetic that evokes the nostalgic aura of early video games, creating an evocative journey into the dawn of the computer age. The final screening on Thursday, October 30, again at Miela will be the Italian premiere at 12:30 a.m. of “Touch Me” by Addison Heimann (USA, 2025), a gory sci-fi comedy in which two dysfunctional slackers find themselves caught in a love triangle with a narcissistic alien—a tale of addiction, violence, intoxication, and tentacles.
Thursday, October 30 at 5:00 p.m. the second day of Mondofuturo events kicks off with the talk “ The Future of the City – How to Design Urban Spaces to Address the Climate Crisis” curated by landscape architect Eleonora Ceschin, who will transport us into the cities of the future: The climate crisis is posing new challenges for livability, inclusion, and social justice in urban spaces, and—amid rising sea levels and heat islands—we’ll explore vertical cities, floating cities, and cities built under geodesic domes. At 6:00 p.m., this will be followed by the talk “True Italians. Evolutionary and Genetic History of Our Country” during which Giacomo Moro Mauretto will take us on a journey spanning millions of years to remind us—by weaving together genetics, archaeology, paleoanthropology, biology, and botany—that there is no such thing as a “true Italian” and that our roots are a tapestry of migrations and intermingling. The Mondofuturo 2025 series of events will conclude at 7:00 p.m. still on October 30 the contemporary master of science fiction, Ted Chiang – named by Time Magazine among the 100 most influential people in the field of AI – who will lead a discussion titled “Artificial Futures – A Conversation onAI” with journalist Matteo Bordone: Will artificial intelligence shape new ways of being creative, new ways of being intelligent, and new ways of being human? Also on Thursday, October 30, as part of Mondofuturo at 8:00 p.m. at Miela , there will be a screening of the documentary “Orwell 2+2=5” by Raoul Peck, a reflection on the authoritarian drift of contemporary society based on the novel “1984” and the diary of its author, George Orwell, directed by the filmmaker behind “I Am Not Your Negro” and “ The Young Karl Marx” and produced by Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker© Alex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side”).
Thursday, October 30 the final day of events for the new series Things to Come: The day begins at 11:00 a.m. with “Images from the Future: The Relationship Between Cinema and Technology,” in which futurist Wenzel Mehnert will explain how science fiction cinema manages to give visual form to technologies that do not yet exist. At 12:00 p.m. Isabella Hermann will discuss a new form of science fiction storytelling: “Anti-dystopias”. In a present dominated by climate catastrophes and malevolent artificial intelligence, anti-dystopias present us with imperfect but desirable futures that may prove to be an excellent remedy for contemporary pessimism. At 4:00 p.m. Beatrice Petrella, author of the essay Still Online, will explore the changes in our relationship with death, amid digital traces and virtual avatars: “Thanatos: Mourning in the Digital Age”. To conclude the Thing to Come program at 5:45 p.m. at the Teatro Miela, there will be a screening of Peter Watkins’ masterpiece, “The War Game”, a BBC docudrama released in 1965, followed by a discussion between Pierluigi Masai and Wenzel Mehnert.
BookInvaders is back—the series of science fiction-themed events organized by the festival in collaboration with the local writers’ collective FantaTrieste, featuring national and international guests. The four-day program, running from Thursday, October 30, to Sunday, November 2, is packed with conferences on topics related to fantasy literature and presentations of books and comics in the genre. Also kicking off is IVIPRO DAYS, the international event dedicated to video games as a medium for showcasing the local area and cultural heritage, which is making its fourth appearance at the science fiction festival from Thursday, October 30, through Saturday, November 1 at the Sci-Fi Dome in Piazza della Borsa with numerous events and guests from around the world.
Also on Thursday, October 30 starting at 6:00 p.m. the program includes a walking tour with film journalist Elisa Grando to discover how Trieste was transformed into postwar New York in the film “Napoli – New York” by Gabriele Salvatores. Through real images and locations, we’ll explore the film’s shooting locations and the magic of cinema that reinvents the city. Also on Thursday, October 30 at 7:00 p.m. at the Teatro Miela (Ridottino space) the performance by and starring Laura Bussani and Omar Giorgio Makhloufi will take place, presenting a reinterpretation of the Frankenstein myth to reflect on the environment, power, and the fragility of life. At 9:00 p.m. at the Sci-Fi Dome, “ The Worst Books of Our Lives – Auroro Borealo Reads Bad Books”, the new show by performer and singer-songwriter Auroro Borealo, who will present a live performance where bad books become cult classics.
TS+FF 25 – Day 3
