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Alan Jones • Trieste Science+Fiction Festival

Written By:

Martin Unsworth
ALAN JONES 2

Ahead of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, which takes place in Italy at the end of October, we caught up with Artistic Director Alan Jones to find out about what makes the event so unique and what we can expect…

A hugely successful sci-fi film festival has been held in the lovely city of Trieste since 1963. It changed to its current format in 2000. Jones, one of the four co-directors of the UK’s biggest event for horror fans, FrightFest, and a famous genre journalist in his own right, has worked with the Italian festival for several years.

STARBURST: How did you come to be involved with the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival?

Alan Jones: They invited me to be on the jury several years ago. I liked the city so much that I bought a place there. It was going to be a holiday home, but then, when they offered me this job, so it’s become like my second base.

How does this festival differ from FrightFest?

The Trieste Science+Fiction festival is part of the Méliès International Festivals Federation, which promotes and supports European cinema, particularly fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. So it’s a part of something bigger, and I have to understand what’s going on within that. It’s a whole different way of looking at things. It can be quite hard. When I make a decision on FrightFest, it gets done within five minutes. I have to go through a committee with Trieste. It can be quite daunting. Having said that, the good side of Trieste is that we have a decent budget to work with whereas FrightFest has no public money at all. Being part of the Federation means we have to programme a quota of European films, and I have to be very careful about what we choose American-wise, as we can’t have too many. There are also the awards that come with being part of the Federation, the Asteroid and Méliès d’argent for films screening and the Silver Urania Award, which is like a lifetime achievement thing [past recipients include Dario Argento, Ray Harryhausen, George A. Romero, Christopher Lee, and Alejandro Jodorowsky]. The whole thing works differently. There are press conferences – we don’t do those at FrightFest – whereas here I have to do one with the mayor of the town sat next to me discussing how great it is! The audience is different, too. At FrightFest, people will chat and say, “I’ve enjoyed this and enjoyed that”. I have tried to change the Trieste ethos. I felt up until I joined, it was a bit too serious, a bit too academic. There’s a part of the audience who want that, but there’s got to be a certain amount of fun involved. It’s been hard trying to get some feedback from the audience. The Italian audience is quite laidback. At FrightFest, I go out and talk to people and it’s great. You try to do that at Trieste, they shrink back and they’re horrified. I said to some of them a couple of years ago, “What’s been the problem?” They came back with, “No more zombie movies!” We had a time when literally every single film was some variation on zombies and viruses. I thought okay, we’ll take that on board. But then, the genre is cyclical, so it’ll be back!

There’s also an online component to the festival, too, isn’t there?

Yes, while we did it with FrightFest in COVID times, with Trieste, we get government money to be able to make things accessible online. However, when you deal with the film companies, they don’t want you to do it. Through COVID, they were fine because that was the only way they could show them. Sometimes it’s fine with the independent movies, but it can prove quite difficult.

What can we expect from this year’s festival?

We’ll be opening the festival with MadS, which is a film all the festivals have wanted. It’s from David Moreau, who did Them [2006]. It’s a really good one-shot, an end-of-the-world, apocalyptic thing that works on surprise. There are a few films we had for this year’s FrightFest, such as The Bunker, and Joanne Mitchell’s Broken Bird. We’re also going to be showing The Invisible Raptor, which did really well at FrightFest, it’s a real crowd pleaser. Meanwhile on Earth is a really interesting take on the body snatchers subgenre. I saw it in Berlin and I said we’ve got to have this. Other festivals are a bit sniffy about it, but I really liked it. It’s directed by Jérémy Clapin, who did I Lost my Body, the animated hand thing that was on Netflix. Speaking of animation, we have Ishan Shukla’s Schirkoa, which is set in a dystopian future where people walk around with paper bags on their head because they’re not allowed to show who they really are. It’s so great. Asia Argento and Gaspar Noé do the voices. We’re going to be showing The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee, the documentary. It’s by Jon Spira, who did Elstree 76. It’s so well done because Christopher Lee is brought back as animation – a glove puppet and things, and he talks about his life. There are all the usual talking heads, Peter Jackson’s in it all the way through. It’s one of the best documentaries I’ve seen for a very long time. There’s also Test Screening, which is really, really fantastic. Think Society meets The Thing, set in a Stranger Things landscape. These selections reflect my taste more than anything else. I can just say to them, “No, I like this film, it’s going to be in,” so there are no arguments about it, whereas we can actually have that with FrightFest [laughs].

Is sci-fi harder to programme?

Yes, very much. Horror films are ten-a-penny. Science fiction is really difficult, especially when you want to have some spectacle, you have to have some epics. These usually come from Russia, though. Unfortunately, we can’t show those anymore. Otherwise, you end up with four people in a room pretending they’re in a cube. We’ve been after a film called Youth for Ukraine for a long time but, of course, because of the war, they haven’t been able to complete it. We’ve been waiting for this one film to come through for three years! There can be a few epics coming from the unlikeliest places, usually Hungary or Sweden. Before I turned up to do the programming at Trieste, they were veering off and doing more and more horror. I came in and said “no, science fiction only”. Well, you can have one or two horror films, but you can’t have too many. There hasn’t been an epic to point to yet, but there is enough to go around some years, even if it’s just low budget. But then this works for horror, too. Sometimes, there’s a dearth of good stuff, so what do you do?

There’s an interesting category in the submissions calling for shorts produced using some form of artificial intelligence. Is there a worry that might prove controversial?

You’ve hit the nail on the head here! I visited the Pigeon Shrine studio in Coventry. They’re our sponsor for FrightFest. Tom Paton [CEO and filmmaker] also comes to train us to do things and talk about the whole AI experience. I wanted to see the studio, how it worked. It’s mind blowing what they’re doing. Every time I see Tom, I feel like I’ve been hit over the head with a time machine. I came out thinking of the possibilities, it’s just untrue. The backlash is completely misguided. They don’t understand what AI can do and can help with. If there’s something that can help you, why don’t you take it? Trieste is a city of science. Major geneticists are there. There are major laboratories. A lot of the students in all the universities are all geared towards a scientific career. I want AI to be part of that, so Tom is coming back to do another presentation.

What have been the standout moments for you from previous years?

Well, last year’s opening was good. I dressed up as an astronaut and I pretended to crash-land through the theater to David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Unfortunately, we set the bar way too high now and we’re going to have to do something really ultra-spectacular this year. We’ve got something planned, but I’ve taken my guide for more FICCO in Mexico, who do the most amazing openings – it’s almost like a Busby Berkeley song and dance. It’s incredible. The venue in Trieste is a theater that is only a cinema for us. Outside of the Science+Fiction Festival, it’s used for touring shows like Mamma Mia. Les Misérables comes in straight after us.

We guess being a theatre it’s set up differently…

Yes, there are plenty of things you can’t do in a cinema. Half the time, you’re not allowed to do them because of health and safety, whereas in a theater, it doesn’t matter!

It would be remiss of us not to mention the book of STARBURST reviews from FAB Press…

I’m so thrilled with it – I love it. You can see my progression as a writer and the genre itself. Cinefantastique and STARBURST are two of the most important things in my life. I was lucky to be in that period of time when the genre explosion was happening. It’s all the reviews I did; I didn’t edit anything out. I didn’t change anything – only mistakes! I can’t believe some of the things I said and can’t believe we got away with it. Like saying Jeannot Szwarc should die of cancer for directing Supergirl. How did they let me get away with it? How did the PR companies not jump on me? I mean, I was so rude! Unbelievable.

The 24th Trieste Science+Fiction Festival takes place between October 29th and November 3rd. You can find out more and book tickets at sciencefictionfestival.org
STARBURST: The Complete Alan Jones Film Reviews 1977 – 2008 is available from fabpress.com

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