Europe’s Biggest Science Fiction Festival, UTOPIALES, will take place in Nantes (France) between the 31st of October – 4th of November 2019.
Utopiales is a multimedia SF festival featuring whole sections devoted to literature, comics, science, video games and, of course, film. The festival belongs to the most important SF cultural events in Europe and one of the biggest SF writers’ conventions in the world.
Last year, Utopiales’s attendance was over 90.000 participants, making the Festival the biggest Europe’s science fiction event.
Utopiales is not only the biggest European SF Festival, it’s one of the largest SF events on Earth.
As a comparison, the “World” Anglophone SF conventions have between 6 to 8,000 participants at maximum.
By the way, the so-called “Dragon Con” isn’t a science fiction event, is just a mercantile&consumeristic – fantasy&comic books – anglo marketing&advertising tool.
The Utopiales model, to open the gates of science fiction to the general public, to gather writers, scholars, scientists, artists plus fans and readers and gamers, it’s functioning and is generating audience and awareness.
“Our ambition, always as strong as ever, is to offer the Utopiales’ public a vertiginous panorama of the possibilities explored by science fiction and science. ” – Roland Lehoucq, President of Utopiales
Cité des congrès de Nantes/Events Center
THE 2019 UTOPIALES THEME :
“CODING / DECODING!”
-Code & Society
-Code & Language
-Code & Information
-Code & Creation
International Guests of Honour: Johanna Sinisalo (Finland),Thomas von Steinaecker (Germany), Tade Thompson (UK), Sarah Newton (UK), Brandon Sanderson (US), Jo Walton (Canada).
Full list of Guests: https://www.utopiales.org/guest/
Utopiales is an annual international science fiction festival held in Nantes, France, the largest European event for the field with 90.000 participants in the last years.
It covers science fiction and fantasy literature, film, fine arts, comics, role-playing games, and animation, from a distinctly European point of view.
Founded by Bruno della Chiesa, and run by science fiction museum director Patrick Gyger from 2001 to 2005, it is put on by the “Association du Festival International de Science-Fiction de Nantes”. The actual president of Utopiales is Roland Lehoucq and the chief artists were Ugo Bellagamba and actually Jeanne-A Debats.
The festival, run by professional staff, is funded in part by the City of Nantes (France) and has extensive corporate sponsorship, unlike conventions put on by traditional science fiction fandom. One feature of Utopiales is the “Prix Utopia” Grandmaster award, given for overall contribution to science fiction literature.
Past winners have included Robert Silverberg, Jack Vance, Brian W. Aldiss, Frederik Pohl, Christopher Priest, and Michael Moorcock.
“AN AMBITIOUS VOCATION
Building on the heritage left by Jules Verne and the surrealist past of the city, the Utopiales, International Festival of Science-Fiction, held since the year 2000, is now part of the cultural landscape of Nantes.
The festival was created with a view to giving a qualitative vision of the Future, new technology and the fantasy world to the greatest number of people. Above all, the festival aims to reach a non-specialist audience and show the public that behind dreams and evasion, science-fiction is a powerful tool to explore real life.
AN ORIGINAL CONCEPT
Literature, science, cinema, cartoons, exhibitions, role games, video games and Asian cluster… For over 19 years, the Utopiales line-up built, on a multi-disciplinary approach, brings together the worlds of science and science-fiction.
Seventeen years later, with over 600 films screened, 2,000 authors, cartoonists, invited researchers and nearly 170 exhibitions and artistic installations, Utopiales programming has coexisted the worlds of science and science fiction. Utopiales has made a name for itself among similar events, being a major event of its kind in Europe and across the Atlantic. A festival you don’t want to miss !
EXPLORE, UNDERSTAND, EXCHANGE, DISCUSS AND DREAM…
The Utopiales SF Festival bring together scientists, researchers, writers, screenwriters, designers, filmmakers and all those who, day after day, fashion fabulous worlds from fragments of reality, to offer, beyond the promise of evasion, a new thought experiment that helps us reflect on the transformation of our world, making invitations to cultivate our curiosity and our imagination to strengthen our openness to the world and enable us to become fully involved in its future evolution.” – The Utopiales Team (Roland Lehoucq, Jeanne-A Debats, Guillaume Lebigot, Marie Masson, Gilles Francescano, Frédéric Temps, Adelaide Legrand, Florent de Grissac).
The Utopiales festival invites to get actively involved in the future changes of the world by getting to know the new technologies that will shape tomorrow’s society.“
As each year, the Utopiales award three Literary Prizes:
The Utopiales Prize rewards each year a novel or a collection of short stories published or translated into French during the literary season preceding the festival, and belonging to the genre of literatures of the imaginary. It is endowed with 2000 euros and handed every year by a jury of readers.
Nominations:
La trilogie Trademark T.1 Bonheur TM – Jean Baret (France)
Colonies – Laurent Genefort (France)
Dans la toile du temps/Children of Time – Adrian Tchaikovsky (UK), translated by Henry-Luc Planchat
Helstrid – Christian Léourier (France)
Les derniers jours du Nouveau-Paris/ The Last Days of New Paris – China Miéville (UK), translated by Nathalie Mège
The Utopiales Youth Prize rewards each year a novel or a collection of short stories published or translated into French during the pre-festival literary season, belonging to the genre of literatures of the imaginary and intended for an YA readership. It is awarded by a jury of readers aged between 13 and 16 and endowed with 2000 euros.
Nominations:
In real life T.1 Déconnexion – Maiwenn Alix (France)
La Voie Verne – Jacques Martel (France)
Le Cirque interdit – Célia Flaux (France)
Marqués/Ink – Alice Broadway (UK), translated by Emmanuel Chastellière
Rêves scientifiques – 8 nouvelles de science-fiction – Jean-Noël Blanc, Jeanne Benameur, Patrice Favaro, Gudule, Johan Héliot et Colin Thibert (France)
The Utopiales Comics Prize, in partnership with the Nantes City Library, rewards each year a cartoon published during the literary season preceding the festival. The prize (2000 euros), is awarded by the club of readers of SF comics from Nantes City Library.
The 2010 Utopiales’ poster illustration was created by Mathieu Bablet.
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