Docs4Real – Nuovi sguardi sul territorio is a new format born from the collaboration between Bellaria Film Festival – BFF Industry and Biografilm – Bio to B – Industry Days | Doc, with the aim of supporting the growth of new authorial voices in real cinema in Emilia-Romagna. The project pays special attention to young authors and emerging professionals, offering a programme that combines training and mentoring, networking opportunities, and moments of exchange with established professionals, within a fully professional context.
The programme is aimed at authors, directors and associations under 35 with a strong connection to the Emilia-Romagna territory and a desire to give voice to the stories that cross and animate it.
The first edition of Docs4Real – Nuovi sguardi sul territorio was created to promote and support the development of skills and access to the audiovisual cultural industry for young talents, by building a bridge between market practices and the presentation of real cinema projects.
Four projects will be selected, meeting the following requirements:
author/director or applicant under 35;
residence, domicile or other strong connection with Emilia-Romagna;
projects not yet supported by a production company.
Director: Samuele Giorgetti
Affiliated association or organization: Elenfant Film
Synopsis: In Bellaria, a small town on the Romagna Riviera, Giovanni and Simone move through a suspended moment in time. They are brought together by a shared passion for hip hop culture and a nonconformist spirit that quickly draws them close. Giovanni lives there year-round, works in his mother’s bar, and sees tourism as an inevitable presence; Simone is just passing through, drawn by the sea and unsettled by the idea of an imminent absence.As they share their final moments before parting, the town’s elderly seem to have already seen and lived that same story. Old legends resurface, bringing to life the places depicted in Bellaria’s vintage postcards. A constant chase unfolds within the crowd: the two boys are pulled toward opposite poles, yet continue to want to stay together. A railway crossing ultimately disrupts the linearity of the narrative: winter images in the fog, visions of simulated amusement parks, and virtual connections break in. Memories are called into question by reality.
Directors: Lorenzo Fanti, Marta Bedeschi
Synopsis: In the Apennines of Emilia-Romagna, a silent war has been unfolding for years—one of blood and vengeance—between humans and wolves. Roberto Are is thirty, a veterinarian who lives in an isolated farmhouse in the woods with his partner, a flock of sheep, and three Maremma sheepdogs. He has consciously chosen this life and learned to share it with a wild animal that many fear but few truly understand.The documentary follows the rhythm of his days: caring for the animals, tending the centuries-old chestnut grove behind his home, and the nights spent hunting wild boar. It is a life shaped by nature, built with patience and deep knowledge of the land. Roberto speaks of the wolf without resentment: he respects it and lives alongside it as one would with any other rule of the forest.The Shepherd tells the story of a man who sees himself as part of nature—he protects and cares for it because he belongs to it, just like the wolf. A fragile balance, built day by day, that the forest tests every night.
Directors: Marco Trotta, Paolo Guardascione
Synopsis: Marco is 32 and realizes he has reached the same age his father was when he began gambling. He decides to confront his father’s absence in his life and, after a long time, sets out to trace his steps. In doing so, he immerses himself in a new world—the world of the “superheroes” of gambling. Marco is me, and this is the story of me and my father. It is a story in which gambling addiction is seen as a superpower, through the eyes of a young boy who grows up watching his father change under the weight of this illness. It is the story of where I grew up, where my father began to gamble, and of a journey I undertake to understand this condition. Along the way, it becomes the story of many other superheroes—or former superheroes—across Italy: the many shades of this “superpower,” the support groups for gamblers and their families, and the public addiction services (SerD), before ultimately returning to the starting point—my father. He is an absence, yet also a tangible presence throughout this journey—an evoked presence. And for the first time, I truly speak to him. I finally tell him—tell myself—why I began this journey.
For information: docs4real.nuovisguardi@gmail.com
