A privileged corner and an opportunity to explore a variety of cinematic works that span different genres, cultures, and languages, creating a mosaic of contemporary film production. These are journeys through powerful stories, evocative images, and innovative narratives that have garnered awards and recognition on a global scale. Prepare to be transported into new worlds, to engage with diverse perspectives, and to experience cinema in its purest and most passionate form. We invite you to be surprised and to celebrate the magic of international and national cinema with us.
Italian Premiere
(Fiction / France / 2023 / 138’)
Born into a wealthy family, Henri Grouès was at once a Resistance fighter, an MP and an advocate for the homeless. His commitment to the afflicted earned him international fame; the creation of Emmaus made him an icon. Yet every day he doubted his actions. His frailties, his sufferings, his incredible personal life remained unknown to the general public. Revolutionary and iconoclastic, often criticized, sometimes betrayed, Henri Grouès had a thousand lives, fought a thousand battles, and left his mark on history under the name Abbé Pierre. A memoir of a monumental figure in French history, but also a personal portrait that investigates his most hidden aspects.
Italian Premiere
(Doc / Denmark / 2023 / 89’)
The inhabitants of the small island of Mandø, off the Danish Wadden Sea, face the consequences of climate change, which poses a serious threat to the island of just eight square kilometers. However, its last farmer, Gregers, rejects the idea of starting a new life elsewhere. His family has lived on Mandø for eight generations, and Gregers hopes to find a wife to manage the farm with. A hypnotic portrait of a small community perpetually on the brink of catastrophe. The microcosm of Mandø is captured in the often funny situations that punctuate the daily lives of its inhabitants and outlines an individual destiny that, in reality, affects us all.
World Premiere
(Doc / Italy / 2024 / 40’)
The documentary tells the stories of Gabriele, Lola and the Bravi couple, whose lives are marked by a serious crime: they are either victims of it or have lost a loved one. Through a narrative construction in concentric circles that starts from the present of our protagonists to get to the heart of their human story, the film tells what happens after the storm, after the crime that changed the course of their lives forever. And it is precisely at the moment when fate forced Gabriele, Lola and the Bravi couple to struggle for a rebirth that the Emilia-Romagna Foundation for Victims of Crime entered their lives.
(Fiction / Finland, Italy / 2023 / 98’)
Risto Kivi, a gambling addict, and Arto Niska, born with 85% less brain than the average person, are two very peculiar hearse drivers. They are actually in charge of recovering the bodies of people who have died in the most absurd circumstances. Everything in their lives has gone wrong for completely opposite reasons. Together, Arto, the brainless man, and Risto, the heartless man, clumsily try to find a solution to their existences; a quest on which they will have to gamble their very lives.
World Premiere
(Doc / Italy, France / 2024 / 112’)
Considered a bad role model in Italy, recognized as a master of political philosophy in the world, we see Toni Negri in his last intense interview. Ninety years old and ill, in his home in Paris, he holds all the threads that bind him to his many lives. In the 1970s he was held responsible for the violent degeneration of tens of thousands of young people. A witness to a dense historical moment charged with ferment, contradictions and drama, his critique of capitalism has permeated contemporary academic discourse. Toni Negri settled in France and pursued his thought to the point of laying the foundations for the future of European political philosophy with his text Empire, written with Michael Hardt. The film shows the final chapter in the life of a great scholar of the latter 20th century.
Italian Premiere
(Fiction / France / 2024 / 105’)
April 2020. Filmmaker Etienne and his brother Paul, a music critic, spend the lockdown in their parents' country house together with their respective partners, Morgane and Carole. Every corner of the house, every object, awakens in the two brothers images of their childhood and of people who are no longer there. As the world around them becomes increasingly uncertain, Etienne and Paul reflect on what binds them together. A diary in the context of the global pandemic in which sentimental venting and uncertainty are woven into a visionary poetic tale. Olivier Assayas composes an intimate elegy on family ties that does not leave out the absurd humor of the everyday.
Italian Premiere, Second Film
(Doc / USA, Taiwan / 2023 / 85’)
The film portrays Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's president from 2016 to 2024 and the first woman to serve in this role. Vanessa Hope offers an unprecedentedly intimate and urgent account of the responsibilities of the head of a precariously balanced state caught between the opposing forces of the United States and China. At the same time, she traces the country's difficult history, the recent democratization process and traces the fears and horizons of a people. An unprecedented portrait of a head of state, a document on a country caught between conflicting pushes, a manifesto for the self-determination of a people between the difficult maintenance of democracy and the shadow of an uncertain future.
(Doc / Netherlands / 2023 / 78’)
The account of three stories that emerged from the former KGB archive in Kyiv, made public in 2017, when Ukrainians first gained access to their Soviet-era personal files, getting answers to questions that had haunted them for decades. A Ukrainian dissident, a Dutch spy and a French tourist betrayed fifty years ago by her lover, put together the pieces of their past. The film takes us back to the time when the paranoia of the Soviet regime penetrated deeply into personal lives, fraying the social fabric of a nation. The film stimulates reflection on the importance of transparency and protection of rights in any society.
(Fiction (animation) / Italy, France / 2023 / 73’)
No, Linda didn’t take her mom’s ring! She didn’t deserve to be punished! How unfair! Paulette realizes that she has wrongly accused her daughter, and will do anything to make it up to her. Even making chicken with peppers, despite not knowing how to cook. But how are you supposed to buy a chicken during a general strike? From henhouse to watermelon truck, trigger-happy police to allergic trucker, grandma to floodwaters, Paulette and her daughter embark on a quest to find the chicken, helped on the way by “Linda’s gang” and, eventually, the entire neighborhood. Featuring an expressive and original visual style, Chiara Malta's animated film debut is an ode to freedom and revolution, from the perspective of childhood.
World Premiere
(Doc / Fiction / Italy / 2024 / 55’)
In one class, a stupid prank has more serious consequences than expected. The Italian teacher is not interested in finding the culprits to punish them, but she turns the perspective upside down. She assigns an essay, “What is the most beautiful part of you?” Thus begins a journey through misunderstandings, appearances, sensitivity and beauty. The students from the Salvemini Technical Institute in Casalecchio di Reno (Bologna) enact a story that really happened. The game of playing a schoolmate allows them to put themselves in the other's shoes and come to terms with their emotions. The enhancement of one's positive characteristics proves to be a much more effective educational expedient than any punitive or repressive measure.
(Fiction / Italy / 2023 / 92’)
It’s one of many anonymous quarantine nights, when Irene's phone rings. It is Pietro, her ex. Irene has not heard from him for months, since their affair ended, she hesitates, but finally answers. Pietro is beside himself and his confused words hint at a desperate act. Irene is forced to set out across a ghostly city, never hanging up, hoping to reach him in time. A film built around only two characters and a single face present on the screen. An on-the-road thriller and psychological drama that drags you into the maelstrom of a nightmarish night, also thanks to an extraordinary leading actress.
Second Film
(Fiction / France, Belgium / 2023 / 130’)
In the near future, mysterious mutations turn humans into animal hybrids. Émile is only 16 years old and would like a normal life: school, evenings with friends, first loves. But his mother is affected by the transformation; his father François, in an attempt to save her, drags Émile on a journey that will change both their lives forever. Astonishing visual effects serve an adventure between science fiction and drama. The story of the relationship between father and son and the inevitable changes between them.
World Premiere
(Doc / Italy / 2024 / 52’)
In the summer of 1974, Elsa Morante's novel La Storia sparked a long debate that divided public opinion. For Natalia Ginzburg “the finest novel of this century,” the story of ordinary people during World War II and the years immediately following touched raw nerves for the society and culture of the time, and its impact went far beyond the literary scene alone. Director Silvia Luzi portrays an extraordinary writer and allows us to rediscover one of the masterpieces of 20th-century literature. A new look at a particularly fierce era in Italian history, which is also important for understanding our times.
Italian Premiere, First Film
(Doc / Germany, Jordan / 2024 / 92’)
Tell Them About Us is a coming of age story following six teenage girls adjusting to their new life in Eberswalde, an East German provincial city. Over the period of five years, we witness them steer through friendships, school, finding a career and even marriage. The girls grapple with the pressures and conflicts of being immigrants and refugees while simultaneously navigating their roles as young women within their families and communities. Next to following them in their daily life, the director organizes writing, music and acting workshops where the girls reflect upon their circumstances and future goals and dreams. Afterwhich, they write scenes in order to stage in front of the camera. These scenes are turned into dream sequences where the girls envision themselves in the future as a way to work through painful experiences and playfully translate them into future perspectives.
Italian Premiere
(Doc / UK, Germany, Italy, USA / 2024 / 77’)
A poetic documentary directed by Abel Ferrara, about the experience of war in people’s lives, searching for meaning in suffering. Patti Smith, reading and singing the works of Artaud, Daumal and Rimbaud along with the words of the soldiers and people who live in the battle zones of Ukraine. A deep emotional look at the eternal quest for freedom against violence.
(Fiction / Poland, Sweden / 2023 / 132’)
45 years of the life of Aniela Wesoły, who lived more than half of her life in the wrong body. Aniela struggles to assert her identity as a trans woman. Her journey takes place against the landscape of a country, Poland, sharply divided between impulses for change and the immobility of still strongly traditional social structures. The film is an epic and melodramatic tale of awareness-raising in a country paralyzed by polarization. The result of years of work, it collects numerous testimonies of trans people and invites reflection on the contrast between modernity and tradition, between individual freedom and social stigma.
