2024 Trieste Science+Fiction Festival

From David Moreau, director of Ils e Seuls/Alone, a thrilling single-take chiller shot in five days in the Grand Est region of Northeastern France. A teenager stops off to see his dealer to test a new drug before heading off for a night of partying. On the way home, he picks up an injured woman and the night takes a surreal turn with ferocious twists leading to a powerfully shocking climax. Ambitious visual effects, stunning cinematography, an innovative multi-character perspective and fresh performances from a cast of rising stars promise a unique and unforgettable experience for the audience.

Fargeat's explosive feminist take on body horror.

Real and unreal appear difficult to distinguish, especially when perception is mediated by a screen. First-hand experience can be rewarding and liberating, as long as one is prepared to be contaminated by reality, remembering that there is no safe place. Non-competitive selection of the best sci-fi short films from around the world.

In an alternate version of 20th century America, all citizens are subject to government-issued neurological implants which they are told prevent their heads from exploding. When Arkady has his implant forcibly removed by an unknown assailant, his reality begins to collapse and he scrambles to find answers.

When an engineer who destroys malfunctioning androids encounters a shocking abnormality in a rebellious patient, she risks everything to save her new friend and herself.

In Australia, a pregnant woman immerses herself in the serenity of the wilderness. There, she awakens an unknown entity that inhabits the undergrowth. As night falls, a wail that mimics her voice rises from the depths of the forest, forever changing the nature of her unborn child and her trust in the natural world.

Famous writer Li Wenru holds an online book live broadcast press conference, but the signal frequently disconnects, occasionally accompanied by embarrassing barking sounds. Just as the guests discuss literature in the era of artificial intelligence, Li Wenru, who is out of the camera, unleashes violent attacks on his girlfriend and dog at home. In an instant, sounds of fighting, crying, and barking fill the space and the live broadcast room. Faced with technical issues and the tense pressure of broadcasting, director Wang Jie continues to strive to save this live broadcast. However, all clues point to an impending larger crisis.

During the Edo period in Kyoto, a samurai prepares to fight a ronin, when a flash of lightning hits him. Waking up he learns he's been transported through time to the present day and the duel location is now a film set for 'jidaigeki' TV shows and movies. Still in his samurai clothes, he's mistaken for an extra and immediately thrust into the world of movie production. Due to his 'authentic' look and language, he's employed on many shows and soon plays the role of a 'kiraeyaku', a swordsman whose job is to spectacularly, and continuously, die on screen.

There is an ancient villa where desperate people have the opportunity to revive their fortunes by selling their bodies to mysterious entities in exchange of money. When huge and age-old creatures emerge from the deep woods surrounding the villa, a series of strange and sinister events prompt three unlikely guests to band together in a desperate escape.

A 23 year-old girl is contacted by an unknown life form claiming to be able to bring her older brother safely back to earth, who disappeared during a space mission.

"We are the gods of technology. In the beginning, we built its shape, but over time it has come to shape us." The unmistakable and evocative voice of rock icon Debbie Harry echoes through the void, acting as a narrative guide through this timely, sensorial documentary about the interwoven relationships between cinema, humanity and technology.

The Time Machine goes Time Bandits in a meta-universe comedy fantasy of the year from the Shakespeare Sisters. Best friends Ruth and Megan run the vintage bric-a-brac shop Cha Cha Cha in Muswell Hill, London. Stumbling across a time machine, they embark on trips to the past to stock their emporium with quirky artefacts with no idea of the irreparable damage they're causing to the fabric of the universe. After one excursion too many, an interdimensional fissure appears and Ruth must free Megan from The Unreason, a monstrous netherworld where convoluted gaming is played for all eternity.

Welcome to Alien Country! Out here everybody has a story about extra-terrestrials. Maybe their brother or cousin had a close encounter and were abducted and probed in a spaceship. Maybe they saw a UFO in the night sky. Now two people in particular are about to reveal the absolute truth and their unbelievable saga. Reeling from the news of an unexpected pregnancy, Jimmy, a wild and reckless demolition derby driver, and Everly unknowingly release an alien invasion in their small town and learn to work together in order to save each other, their town and evidently, the entire galaxy.

Sperm have to overcome the odds of 1 in 300 million to reach the egg and fertilize it. Sperm must be prepared for any situation through daily survival learning and training. Simon, the very happy sperm living in the testicles of the boy Jens, sets out on a journey that risks his life when Jens attempts to have sex with Lisa for the first time on a camping trip. Will Simon, along with the other sperm risking everything for fertilization, be able to reach the egg and fertilize it, avoiding the attacks of spermicides on the long and difficult journey to the womb? Spermageddon, a collaboration between Dead Snow's Tommy Wirkola and animation director Rasmus A. Sivertsen, stands out for its ingenious imagination, portraying the harsh competitive world of sperm through an action-adventure drama. The comical action adventure of the sperm, the coming-of-age romance between Jens and Lisa, and the musical sequences with dancing and singing provide great fun not to be missed. The tip that condoms are not the ultimate solution for contraception is a bonus.

The Black String, and starring horror icons Tobin Bell and Tony Todd, comes an alien invasion with a stark difference! When mysterious intergalactic ships appear in the sky, government scientist Dr. Michelle Reilly (a compelling performance from Chelsea Edmundson, star of Army of the Dead) is assigned a crucial role in the ET research and sealed in an underground bunker. There she must create a bio-weapon to stop the unknown visitors before they can take over the Earth. But paranoia and isolation cause her to question the true intention of her mission with devastating consequences.

In 2053, amidst a devastating pandemic, an elderly gravedigger from Elementar Corporation insists on burying his wife with just a shovel, rejecting the corporation's new burial technology, the "Cube of Miracles."

In a future where life is nearly extinct and the earth is shrouded in pollution, Kron, a mutant surgeon and alchemist, fights for change. His strength comes from his missing daughter and his determination to fix humanity's faults.

Following a serious bereavement, Elsa temporarily moves to her sister Anna's house. In this suspended dimension, the faith of both is tested by the manifestation of strange phenomena.

In 1919 San Francisco, a man is standing on the ledge of a building ready to jump. Desperate, he relives in his memories the absurd and shocking episode that led him to the brink of suicide: the encounter with the monstrous and mythological Great Old One, DAGON.

Carlo Nonessu works at the reception of a hospital owned by a multinational that does not admit patients who do not have sufficient credit to pay for treatment. When one day, out of pity, he lets an elderly man in without the necessary credit, the boss threatens to fire him.

When estranged siblings, Joseph and Sidney, rendezvous at a local diner after a close-call robbery, they hightail it to an abandoned farmhouse that transports them to a different time in order to escape the local cops. But when they try to return to their present after the coast is clear, an unknown metaphysical force cuts them off and maroons them on the land unless they do exactly what they're told. What comes from this not only bends the forces of spacetime but also bends Joe and Sid's familial bonds beyond the point of trust and forgiveness.

A time-travelling Android from the future seeks the Last King to record his beautiful voice which will deliver existential answers to the machines of the future. It's the year 2022 and the King is about to sing. Preparations for a Miracle is a sci-fi documentary about our exploitation of nature and machines, seen through the eyes of a time-travelling Android, who interprets everything wrong. Or so it seems.

Genre icon and TS+FF Lifetime Achievement Award winner Christopher Lee is brought back to life in an innovative documentary by director Jon Spira (Elstree 76) using fresh interviews, archive material and multiple forms of traditional and cutting-edge animation. The world famous actor played Dracula and transitioned from Hammer Horror mainstay to a distinguished career encompassing James Bond and the Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings franchises. Less well-known are his aristocratic and operatic Italian roots, British wartime experiences, post-war Nazi-hunting adventures and heavy metal rock singing. All revealed in a superb tribute to a fantasy legend.

In 2064 the world is on the verge of climate change destruction. The UN has developed a form of time travel: a person's memories and personality can be transmitted to their moment of birth. Inventor Henrik, a brilliant but narcissistic physicist, has been chosen for a mission to publish the blueprint of the fusion reactor to the entire world and thus prevent climate change from ever happening. But something goes wrong: Henrik is born in the wrong body and must live a new life. A compelling science fiction drama that travels through time to explore relationships, identity, greed and the reasons why humans have not yet been able to stop climate change.

Sybil works in a funeral parlour as a professional mortician. She has spent her life looking for love. Brought up as a privileged carefree child, she lost everything in a tragic accident and nothing was the same again. A darkness fell over her as the bright lights of her life were snuffed out swiftly and cruelly. Now an emptiness, an aching loneliness prevails, a void which she seeks to fill. But this gloomy desire is getting more insatiable and progressively out of control. Will she ever find happiness and contentment especially as the company she keeps is mainly deceased?

An intense and original sound experience, especially created for the TS+FF by kariti, polyhedral artist who celebrates a classic of German expressionism, The Hands of Orlac, the progressive mental disintegration of a famous pianist whose hands are amputated after a train crash, and replaced with the hands of an executed murderer. Shivers of a grand guignol and German expressionist aesthetics, reuniting the actor and director of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

On the runway of Mermaid Lagoon Island, Flight 123 is ready to take off to Hamburg. Among the passengers is Professor Singh who has smuggled an exotic creature aboard, well hidden in the aeroplane cargo hold. But not for long because the unknown ferocious fluffball escapes and all hell breaks loose as it expands in size, releases mind-altering gases and racks up the kills. What can arrogant pilot Captain James Pillow or flight attendant Natalie do to calm everyone down in a comedy horror that's part Critters, part Airplane! and much funnier than Snakes on a Plane.

Join TS+FF in celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the classic cyborg shocker that put director James Cameron on the genre map, minted a franchise for the ages and made Arnold Schwarzenegger a megastar. Time-warped back from the technology-dominated future of 2029 to 1984 Los Angeles, a programmed-to-murder Terminator robot must assassinate the mother (the brilliant Linda Hamilton) of the leader of an upcoming human resistance movement. And so the relentless, thrilling non-stop tracking begins with all the breathless action adventure that put this dynamic comic book fantasy into the all-time great SF category.

Plunged in a dystopic future where the border between real and virtual is fading, Josie, a young student, finds herself with no memory of her closest friends. At school everything seems normal, except for a small detail: the corridors are empty, classrooms are cold and sterile, and the teachers have disappeared. Josie's friends are concerned, since she doesn't seem to recognise them any more, as if part of her memory had been rewritten. A science fiction short story born within project PCTO school-work alternation 5IPA of the school year 2023-2024 at the professional institute L. Galvani of Trieste.

The sci-fi creature feature bites back! The Tyler Corporation figured out how to genetically engineer a prehistoric raptor, but didn't stop there… they also made it invisible. Unfortunately, he's a really smart invisible raptor. After easily breaking out of its enclosure, it's now up to washed-up, amusement park palaeontologist Dr. Grant Walker and hapless loner Security Guard Denny Denielson to stop the predator before it wreaks havoc on the entire community of Spielburgh County. With the help of local celebrity chicken farmer Henrietta McCluckskey and Grant's old flame Amber, they uncover the truth behind the mysterious apex predator.

On his way to school, Bastian (Barret Oliver) ducks into a bookstore to avoid bullies. Sneaking away with a book called "The Neverending Story," Bastian begins reading it in the school attic. The novel is about Fantasia, a fantasy land threatened by "The Nothing," a darkness that destroys everything it touches. The kingdom needs the help of a human child to survive. When Bastian reads a description of himself in the book, he begins to wonder if Fantasia is real and needs him to survive.

On a summer break, Mia and her friends try a meditation app that delivers a mind-bending experience. Police investigation reveals darker forces behind it. When one of the girls ends up in a hospital and the other one escapes, Mia is grappling with the choice to save them or join them.

A quantum physicist's machine opens a portal to a subatomic universe, accidentally discovering a radical cancer treatment. As human trials begin, the stakes rise in this Cronenbergian sci-fi comedy.

Rumours about a mythical free land sow havoc in an ultra-regulated society where citizens wear paper bags on their heads to dissolve their differences. In this stylish sci-fi animation, a well-oiled system with echoes of George Orwell's 1984, starts crumbling when whispers of a land where freedom reigns begin to spread. The hero, a fresh council member in love with a free-spirited girl, finds himself involved in a complicated net of incidents that open his eyes to a new reality.

January 2021. The UK is in its 3rd lockdown and all entertainment venues remain closed. For theatre actors Sam and Mark, the future looks bleak. As the pandemic drags on, Mark - single and childless - is increasingly socially isolated, while Sam panics about how he is going to support his young family. They spend their days in the online digital world of Grand Theft Auto and when they stumble across a theater, they suddenly have an idea to stage a full production of Hamlet within the game. This film charts their ridiculous, hilarious and moving adventure as they battle violent griefers and discover surprising truths about life, friendship and the enduring power of Shakespeare.

Summer, 1982, and in a small Oregon town excitement has been building for days. A Hollywood studio is holding a test screening of a new blockbuster movie in the local cinema. Could it be the new John Carpenter, the latest Steven Spielberg, another Star Wars? Four lifelong friends can't wait to take their seats for the preview. But rather than a toe-dip screening, the film they watch is actually a mind-control experiment that has terrifying and devastating effects on the community. Get ready for the sci-fi high of the year as The Thing meets Society in a 'Stranger Things' universe.

A twisted splatter-fest featuring Bill & Ted star Alex Winter as a neighbor from Hell! William is a frustrated recording engineer with a dream of composing an epic progressive rock album. But at every turn he's hindered by his new neighbor, Vlad, a loathsome and loud lunatic. Vlad's constant noises and ear-splitting blaring music at all hours are driving William insane. As a result of the stress he loses his girlfriend, then he loses his job and soon after he starts slowly losing his mind. Yet only when William accidentally kills his neighbor, does the nightmare fresh hell truly begin.

Nebbish Seymour Krelboind works for the ultra-cheap Gravis Mushnick at his skid row floral shop. He's infatuated with his coworker, Audrey, but knows he'll never be able to win her over—that is, until he grows a special plant he calls Audrey, Jr. The only downside? Audrey, Jr.'s ability to talk and its hunger for human blood!

A thought-provoking, slick and visually striking story about the lives of three young brothers tackling life in a post-apocalyptic, infected world, shot largely in monochrome tones, with flashes of colour for special moments. Living in a cabin in the middle of the woods the trio hide a dark, disturbing secret in their basement in Mexican Isaac Ezban's fifth feature rooted in the primal, emotional bond between parents and their offspring. Compelling and engaging, Ezban's fantastic eye for carefully composed gothic tableaux in his zombie Lord of the Flies makes Párvulos (Pre-schoolers) an arresting and shocking treat.

An algorithmologist begins to question his beliefs when a woman shows up to his office.

This seriously absurd environmental comedy tackles both urgent earthly and unearthly issues like space debris, the climate crisis, and human waste, as seen by a lonely astronaut, Antonio, who was left behind on the moon after his coming out.

Set in the distant future. Zin, a desperate mother, breaks into a reclusive man's home to extract and steal valuable memories that will fund her sick daughter's medicine.

In outer 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, mysterious desert planet where he hopes to find the meaning of existence.

Oz, an irresponsible man baby, nearly misses his girlfriend's Graduation because he's too busy playing with toys. Before he can make amends, a mysterious package arrives containing a mangy old hand puppet. Despite the pressing need to be there for his girlfriend, Oz can't resist trying on the puppet first and instantly has his soul imprisoned in its soft foam body. Oz is left to contemplate the sorry state of his life choices while his human body dies before his eyes. If he's to have any hope of saving his relationship, and surviving, he'll have to do the one thing he's always avoided: grow up.

Startups are using AI to create avatars that allow relatives to talk with their loved ones after they have died. An exploration of a profound human desire and the consequences of turning the dream of immortality into a product.
"I wanted to see if he was okay," explains Christi, one of the users of Project December. With this innovative software, users can communicate with a virtual version of the deceased through a chatbot that simulates the dead person's conversation patterns. Hers was an attempt to check on her first love. Others may simply miss someone, seek permission to move on, or want to rid themselves of guilt.
Little is known about the effects that this kind of generative AI might have on our brains, hearts, and wallets. The filmmakers, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck (The Cleaners, 2018 Sundance Film Festival), do not claim to have the answers, but instead bring up various emotional and moral complexities we should be aware of. Eternal You poses important questions about algorithmic immortality, and the need to take a closer look at our future "digital remains."—AT

Three high-schoolers gain the ability to sneeze themselves 20 years into the future in this maximalist martial-arts time-travel caper from writer-director Yang Li (Lee's Adventure).

Written and filmed during Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Pavlo Ostrikov's debut feature is a true wonder and a prescient reminder how important it is to connect with someone who understands during the darkest of times.

Julia and her loving husband are celebrating their son's birthday on their yacht in the middle of the ocean. When a violent storm nearly capsizes them, the family awakens in a post-apocalyptic desert land. For the Earth has undergone a tragic polarity reversal that has drained all the water from the seven seas. And danger lurks in every nook and cranny that once were hidden depths. When an unexpected tragedy strikes Julia must save her children in a new world where crazed humanity and hungry creatures from the abyss now hunt for human flesh.

A cataclysmic event has blackened the sky plunging the earth into an endless winter. Toxic clouds turned rain to acid, crops can't grow and the human race is all but extinct. Deep in the dying forest Son and his Father eke out an existence scavenging the wreckage of the former world. Though their lives are bleak they have each other. But when Son's girlfriend is struck down by an infection, everything falls apart. A group of violent cannibals descend on their safe haven, take the antibiotics keeping his girlfriend alive and a treacherous journey into the unknown begins.

May, 1942. World War II rages across a divided globe and a Japanese Hell Ship transports prisoners of war to occupied territories for slave labour. Onboard is Saito, a traitor to the Japanese, and sentenced to death. As further punishment, Saito is shackled to British soldier and Japanese hater Bronson. Torpedoed by Allied submarines, Saito and Bronson are thrown overboard and wash ashore a deserted island where they are hunted by a monstrous creature – the Orang Ikan. Bronson and Saito must put aside their enmity to survive the island and kill the creature before it kills them.

In an abandoned factory a young man with an insatiable fetish for metal objects inserts a piece of scrap metal into a self-inflicted wound on his thigh. When he staggers out into the street off his head, he is hit by a car. The driver, an office worker, wakes up the following morning and notices a metal hair growing out of his cheek. And that's just the start of what turns out to be an unprecedented mutation process. Imagine a cyberpunk version of Kafka's The Metamorphosis: shot on 16mm film, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, with its perverse sense of humour, is to this day one of the most extreme apocalyptic debuts in recent decades.

The original giant insect movie also remains one of the most effective creature features ever made. Thanks to the faux documentary stylings of director Gordon Douglas, the serious approach to the plot and convincing special effects, it became a huge hit and unleashed a swarm of oversized bugs on eager 1950s' audiences. Ants grow to enormous size thanks to wayward Atomic bomb testing in the New Mexico desert. All attempts to exterminate Them! by the police, scientists and FBI agents lead to a thrilling, tense and exciting final confrontation in the Los Angeles storm drains. A creepy-crawlie classic!

A cat wakes up in a flooded world and tries to overcome his fear of water.

A kindergarten teacher is assigned to educate an advanced prototype of artificial intelligence, on the condition that he approaches it as a child.

A twenty-centimeter tall robot has to compete against its competitor, a cat, and save a young girl from the attack of a monstrous machine.

In a not-so-distant future where AI technology is part of everyday life, Rebecka, a successful architect and mother to Nonno, works from home with her sick daughter while her partner Carl is away.

In a dystopian world in the near future, limousine driver Arthur is transporting different passengers around the centre of Riga. Every move of Arthur is watched by the limousine's jelous artificial intelligence MO. Arthur distracts MO by telling jokes to avoid activating the emotion control device.

Grégoire is a building superintendent who takes care of his ailing foster mother. Every night, he transforms into a strange insect-like creature. He takes notice of a mother and daughter who have fled from the abusive husband. This short, which is a loose adaptation of Franz Kafka's short story The Metamorphosis, stylishly portrays the protagonist's repressed inner self, showing how he is treated as just another cog in the machine by everyone around him.

Pesudo, a young man with a rare facial deformity, works in a robotics and artificial intelligence factory. One afternoon, while cleaning, he begins to feel a strange connection with a new robot in development.

Action adventure with offbeat humour, anchored by emotional relationships between a struggling young pilot, Kai, and his fighter robot, Little Dragon, striving to bring peace in a time of epic galactic warfare that tore his family apart. Kai dreams of joining the military's elite force, the Mecha Corps, to follow in his parents' footsteps and aid Earth's efforts to end war. To achieve this, he must build a close bond with his robot and pass the academy's tests. Thus begins their unique journey together through the challenges of the times, while forging a special friendship that will help them survive.

Sendai is an urban agglomeration whose creator and only master is the Big Brain, an ever-expanding creature, feeding on the emotions of slaves living under the surface of the city and governed by three watchwords: Order, Wellness and Safety. Elections are a formality to decide who will be the right-hand man of the eternal creator. But a group of mutants resist the power of cybernation, the process that nullifies and blends the individual into the indistinct mass that constitutes society. Marco Bolognesi's stunning style combines handcrafted techniques with digital techniques, reworking and reassembling cult genre movies to build a never-before-seen sci-fi story.

In the latest from Nacho Vigalondo (Colossal, TIFF '16), Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) soulfully portrays a bereaved man who enrolls in a clinical trial for a drug that allows him to reunite with his lost lover (Beatrice Grannò) through lucid dreams.