The first prize of the 2026 Trieste Science+Fiction Festival goes to Markus Lehmusruusu’s opening film, a dystopia in which nature has disappeared by choice.
The curtain has only just risen on the 2026 Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, and the first winner has already been named. The Squirrel, the film by Finnish director Markus Lehmusruusu that opened the festival, has received the INAF Event Horizon Award, the prize of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. It was presented by Stefano Cristiani, astrophysicist at INAF – Astronomical Observatory of Trieste and president of the jury, to lead actress Mimosa Willamo and producer Misha Jaari.
No war, no disaster: the future portrayed in The Squirrel is the outcome of a collective decision. In search of safety, humanity has handed technology control over everything, from bodies and the environment to emotions themselves. The price is a spotless, sterile world, emptied of animals, where every day looks like the one before. Until the protagonist comes across a real, living squirrel, and that unexpected encounter is enough to crack the perfect order he lives in, sparking a new curiosity for what cannot be predicted.
The INAF Event Horizon Award being presented to The Squirrel at the 2026 Trieste Science+Fiction Festival.
Photo: © Trieste Science+Fiction Festival
According to the jury, this is exactly where the film speaks the language of science. Research begins when something escapes our expectations: without the unexpected there are no questions, and without questions there are no discoveries. The award recognises the film’s ability to combine gentle irony with visual rigour, and to address issues at the heart of contemporary research: biodiversity loss, the evolutionary kinship that binds us to all other living beings, and the risks of technological progress that measures its success only in terms of safety and comfort.
“Surviving is not the same as living.”
from the citation of the 2026 INAF Event Horizon Award
INAF established the Event Horizon Award in 2023, marking the 60th anniversary of Trieste’s first international science fiction film festival. The prize goes to the work that best explores themes linked to science and the human condition, and it reflects the Institute’s ongoing bond with a festival where science and imagination meet and challenge each other.
Learn more: Trieste Science+Fiction Festival
