That’s what Alan Jones thinks. but then he has good reason to champion the virtues of Italy’s most famous science fiction festival!

“I am thrilled and honoured to have been made Artistic Director of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival. I first attended the festival in 2004, loved it and the city so much I became a permanently invited fixture and decided to make Trieste my second home. So, I couldn’t be more excited with the fantastic opportunity to turn this absolute jewel on the genre festival calendar into a more international institution, a heritage destination for world-renowned filmmakers and industry creatives to positively interact with their audience.

Festivals are more important than ever in the current shrinking landscape for showcasing, giving a diverse voice to and real chances at greatness to the many below-the-radar independent movies that could and should go the distance given the right boost and positioning. I am determined that Trieste Science+Fiction will continue to provide that crucial outlet and attract an ever-increasing fan base for the still buoyant genre this wonderfully supportive city has been synonymous with for nearly sixty years now”.

And with those press release words from January 2022, I took over control of one of the oldest and most beloved fantasy festivals in Europe. The offer to do so came completely out of the blue. La Cappella Underground, the Italian organisation which manages the finances and day-to-day operation asked their staff who they thought would be the best person to update and take the festival forward and, amazingly, their choice was yours truly. Based on my co-director FrightFest experience, my constant attendance at Trieste S+F and complete grounding in understanding of the vagaries of the Italian Film Industry, thanks to my relationship with Dario Argento it must be said, everyone thought I was in the best position to make a massive mark on what is still a festival in the shadows. It is my mission to change all of that and make sci-fi fans everywhere fall in love with the city as I did when I was first invited to take part in the ‘Brit Invaders’ strand in 2004 along with my great friend, writer Kim Newman. I dubbed the two of us ‘Extra-Triestrians’!

If you believe in fate, then I suppose I was earmarked for this job back in 1963. Let me explain. Over the past few years I’ve written three books about exploitation movies; The Act of Seeing co-authored with Drive (2011) cult director Nicolas Winding-Refn, The FrightFest Guide to Exploitation Movies and The FrightFest Guide to Grindhouse Movies, (the last two still available at www.fabpress.com). In all three, but mainly the latter, I extensively wrote about my (de)formative years as a fledgling genre fan, driven crazy by all the posters advertising X certificate releases I was too young to see that appeared on billboards at the end of my Southsea, Portsmouth, home street. Teenagers from Outer Space (1959), The Day of the Triffids (1963), Island of Terror (1966), The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) and more became a tracking-down lifelong obsession, one that happily and gratifyingly turned into my profession.