On April 5, 2026, the legendary Roger Corman was born in Detroit, a director, screenwriter, producer and talent scout, whose school trained dozens of filmmakers, from Martin Scorsese to Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme and many others. We were fortunate to meet him twice and to have had the chance to appreciate his intelligence, warmth, and his undeniable practicality. It gives us great pleasure that Trieste Science + Fiction Festival, which hosted him with his wife Julie, dedicates the poster image to him and a retrospective, partly previewing the edition that will take place from 3 to 8 November, in the year when Corman, who passed away two years ago, would have turned 100.
Trieste Science+Fiction Festival: Tribute to Roger Corman
At a hundred years from his birth, the most important Italian festival of science fiction pays homage to Roger Corman, master of genre cinema, visionary producer and extraordinary talent scout, with a special retrospective spanning October and November. Special guest of the Trieste event will be Julie Corman, producer and wife of the filmmaker, who will guide the audience to rediscover his extraordinary cinematic legacy. Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, the premier Italian event dedicated to fantastical cinema scheduled from October 3 to November 8 in the Giulian capital, celebrates the centenary of Roger Corman’s birth, one of the most prolific and influential figures in cinema history, with a grand tribute that will traverse his work as director, producer, and formidable talent scout. A tribute that takes on a particularly meaningful resonance in Trieste, a city to which Corman’s cinematic legacy has been linked for more than sixty years. The relationship with the festival dates back to its origins: in 1963, during the first edition of the historic International Festival of Science Fiction, of which the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival is today the heir and continuer, the film directed by Corman The Man with the X-Ray Eyes won the festival’s top prize.
A bond destined to endure over time, with Corman returning to Trieste several times as a festival guest and today counted among the great international figures who have left their mark on its history. On the centenary of his birth, Trieste Science+Fiction Festival retraces the extraordinary cinematic journey of Roger Corman through six films, chosen to bring back to life the multiple souls of a creator who could move with absolute freedom between science fiction, horror, Gothic cinema and counterculture, often transforming production constraints into an inexhaustible workshop of inventions. Not only a cult director and tireless producer, but also one of the most important talent scouts in Hollywood history: throughout his long career Corman provided the first major opportunities to a generation of filmmakers who were set to change American cinema forever. And it is precisely from this polyhedral identity, that of Corman as producer and talent scout on one hand and Corman as director on the other, that the homage organized by the Festival takes shape.
The first part of the retrospective will begin before the official opening of the event, with three screenings at the Ariston Cinema in Trieste dedicated to the incredible ability of Corman to recognize and launch new talents. Three films and three future masters of world cinema who, at the beginning of their careers, found precisely in Corman’s productions a space to experiment, learn the craft, and build their own cinematic language. It begins Friday, October 9 at 10:30 PM with America 1929 — Kill Them Without Mercy by Martin Scorsese, to continue Friday, October 16 at 10:30 PM with Joe Dante, and to conclude Friday, October 30 at 10:30 PM with Terror at the 13th Hour by Francis Ford Coppola. Three titles that tell one of the most extraordinary aspects of Corman’s legacy: the ability to transform independent productions, tight budgets and tight schedules into a true cinema gym, offering freedom and concrete opportunities to young authors who would later leave an indelible mark on the history of the seventh art.
The celebration will then intensify from November 3 to 8 during the 26th edition of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, which will once again bring to the Giulian capital the best of international fantasy cinema through premieres, talks, and guests. The second part of the homage will be entirely dedicated to Corman the director: an enormous filmography built across genres, eras and different imaginations, from science fiction to horror, Gothic to satire, and from which the Festival has chosen three works capable of telling three cinematic souls. To represent the most famous and recognizable side of his production will be The Mask of the Red Death, among the pinnacles of Corman’s Gothic cinema and one of the emblematic titles of the successful cycle inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s works. Alongside one of his most beloved classics, the Festival will rediscover two titles particularly significant in his relationship with science fiction: Gas-s-s-s, an expression of the irreverent and countercultural spirit that runs through a fundamental part of his output, and Frankenstein Unbound, Corman’s return to directing after a long hiatus and his personal science-fiction reinterpretation of the Frankenstein myth. Three films that reveal the surprising freedom of a filmmaker capable of continually reinventing himself without losing the taste for experimentation, independence, and provocation. To make the homage even more special will be the presence of Julie Corman, producer and wife of Roger Corman, who will be a guest at the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival and will introduce the screenings dedicated to the director, guiding the audience through his work and extraordinary cinematic legacy.
(photo: Roger and Julie Corman in Trieste, 2009; America 1929: Kill Them Without Mercy)
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