Time sure flies. It doesn’t seem that long ago when we covered the 2017 edition of Trieste Science + Fiction and yet Italy’s foremost genre festival is already gearing up for its 18th edition, which starts in a little over a month (October 30 - November 4).
To mark the occasion, the festival has shared with us the near-future snapshot that serves as the poster for this year’s event. Created by illustrator and designer Matteo De Longis, the 2018 poster is meant to confront viewers with rapidly changing times and the fluidity of the sci-fi label itself. In De Longis’ own words:
“While making the poster I realized I was critically approaching the subject: I was drawing a city strongly resembling the urban spaces of Ghost In The Shell or Blade Runner, but let’s not fool ourselves, that’s not the future anymore, it’s the present. The girl taking a selfie was born and bred surrounded by this science-fiction-come-true: the net, instant sharing, VR visors, drones, a hyper-global city exploding with lights and consumerism. The present has been catching up with science-fiction for some time now, a young girl turning towards us saying: ‘We’re already there, what other fantastic and unpredictable things will you invent next?’”
Trieste Science + Fiction also announced Richard K. Morgan (pictured below) as President of the Asteroide Award Competition. A celebrated author whose works include Altered Carbon (2002), Morgan will be helping helping other jury members decide on the best science-fiction or fantasy directorial debut.
Read on for an official festival statement and expect to learn all there is to know about this year’s program in the near future.
WRITER RICHARD K. MORGAN, AUTHOR OF THE NOVEL WHICH INSPIRED THE NETFLIX SERIES ALTERED CARBON, GUEST OF THE TRIESTE SCIENCE+FICTION FESTIVAL 18TH EDITION TRIESTE
September 13th, 2018 – Famous British writer Richard K. Morgan will be a guest of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, the most important science-fiction and fantasy event in Italy, taking place frlm October 30th to November 4th, 2018 in Trieste. He will be participating as President of the jury of the Asteroide Award competition, the prize given each year to the best debut feature science-fiction or fantasy film by an emerging director.
Born in the United Kingdom, Richard K. Morgan is the acclaimed author of The Dark Defiles, The Cold Commands, The Steel Remains, Black Man (published as Thirteen in the U.S.), Woken Furies, Market Forces, Broken Angels, and Altered Carbon, a New York Times Notable Book that won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2003. He was also responsible for a short comicbook run featuring the Marvel character Black Widow in the early 2000s, worked as lead writer for the video games Crysis 2 and Syndicate, and has collaborated on adaptations of his own work in a variety of media.
The movie rights to Altered Carbon (originally published in Italy with the title Bay City) were optioned by Joel Silver (producer of iconic films like The Warriors, The Matrix and V for Victory) and Warner Bros on publication, and the book remained in feature film development until 2015. It is now a 10 episode Netflix series produced by Skydance Media and Laeta Kalogridis; the show launched in February 2018 and a second series is now in production.
Inspired by hardboiled literature, William Gibson’s work and Blade Runner, full of citations from French and Japanese movies, Morgan’s novel Altered Carbon embodies its author’s idea of a future with noir undertones, technologically advanced and morally corrupt, where the “real death” seems to have been beaten thanks to the possibility to digitalize conscience and transfer it in another body, as it happens to the main character, Takeshi Kovacs (portrayed by actor Joel Kinnaman in the Netflix series).
Market Forces, was also optioned to Warner Bros, before it was even published, and it won the John W. Campbell Award in 2005. Black Man won the Arthur C .Clarke Award in 2007, The Steel Remains won the Gaylactic Spectrum award in 2010, and its sequel, The Cold Commands, was listed in both Kirkus Reviews‘ and NPR’s best Science Fiction / Fantasy books of the Year. Richard’s latest novel, Thin Air, a return to hardboiled SF, will be published this October.
Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, this year at its 18th edition, is the most relevant Italian science-fiction and fantasy event. Cinema, television, new media, literature, comic book art, music, visual and performative art all make part of the exploration of the meraviglie del possibile (the wonders of possibility). Founded in Trieste in 2000, the festival continues the legacy of the Trieste International Science-Fiction Festival (1963 – 1982), the first genre film event in Italy and one of the first in Europe.
The Trieste Science+Fiction Festival official selection runs across three international competion sections: the Asteroide Award for the best science fiction film by an emerging director and the two European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation Méliès d’argent awards for the best European fantastic genre feature film and short film. The Spazio Italia section includes the best Italian film productions of the genre. Last but not leat, the unmissable Futurology meetings, a focus on science and literature, in collaboration with the main scientific institutions, and the Urania d'argento career award to a master of the genre (in collaboration with the Urania magazine published by Mondadori).
Trieste Science+Fiction Festival is organized by the film and audiovisual research and experimentation Centre La Cappella Underground with the support and collaboration of: Friuli Venezia Giulia autonomous regional authority, Trieste Municipality, Trieste University, CRTrieste Foundation, Kathleen Foreman Casali Charity Foundation.
Trieste Science+Fiction Festival’s main venue is the Politeama Rossetti theatre, in collaboration with the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia. The Casa del Cinema building, home to the the main film culture associations in Trieste, will be the festival’s headquarters and with the collaboration of the Teatro Miela will host the festival’s collateral sections, while other events and special programmes will be held in the Ariston art house theatre.