
Program
Friday February 21 | Synopsis | Director / Country |
![]() | A couple and a real estate agent visit a parking space. In 2050, parking lots are now rented out as apartments, because the temperature is much lower than outside, where it’s constantly over 50 degrees. But the man in the couple is thinking of buying for his mother, who is in a nursing home without air conditioning, and the woman is thinking of buying for herself. The real estate agent, on the other hand, is thinking of just one thing: making money. | ![]() Matias DE SA MOREIRA & Cyril PINERO France |
![]() | A young man must return the teenager he fostered over the summer, unleashing buried rage that forces him to confront his true nature. | ![]() John Giordano Italy |
![]() | Shortly before the end of the summer holidays, a country boy spends his savings on his dream of a city hairstyle – with surprising results. A story about bidding farewell to childhood and the poetic end of a summer. | ![]() Lam Can-zhao China, Switzerland |
![]() | It is the end of the 19th century; Rosa, a peasant woman from the Bergamo valleys, is afflicted by an illness that is slowly extinguishing her. Berto, Rosa’s boyfriend since they were children, does not accept his companion’s untimely death. One cold night, he loads his beloved on his shoulders and begins a long, exhausting journey to the top of the mountain. In a remote, dark cave, the legends of the place conceal a disturbing reality. For Berto it could be the last desperate chance to save his beloved Rosa. | ![]() Tommaso Ferrero Italy |
![]() | Anna lives her days in solitude and isolation, taking care of the many plants that populate the garden of her country house. The slow and monotonous rhythm of her existence is broken when she finds a strange seed, from which the most beautiful plant of all will be born | ![]() Gabriele Lenzi Italy |
![]() | As a couple rushes to catch a life-changing flight, a routine traffic stop by the police takes a sudden, unexpected turn, leading to a gripping and surprising outcome. | ![]() Sina Hassanzadeh Iran |
![]() | A thief flees on foot from a robbery gone wrong. The escape for the man will become an opportunity to process the emotional bond with his father, rebuilding a relationship that time and resentment have soured. | ![]() Giordano Toreti Italy |
![]() | In this romantic comedy that resembles a fairy tale, the routine of an unlucky Greek fisherman is disrupted by the arrival of a tourist, whom the boy falls platonically in love with after a brief encounter. Thus begins a long and clumsy pursuit in search of the right moment to confess his feelings, risking the chance to seize that love and break the cycle of a monotonous life. In this romantic comedy that resembles a fairy tale, the routine of an unlucky Greek fisherman is disrupted by the arrival of a tourist, whom the boy falls platonically in love with after a brief encounter. Thus begins a long and clumsy pursuit in search of the right moment to confess his feelings, risking the chance to seize that love and break the cycle of a monotonous life. | ![]() Giorgio Cantarini, Marial Bajma Riva Italy |
![]() | Early 90’s. Troubled by unsettling news she received earlier that morning, a woman returns home carrying the need to talk to someone. A red phone is her only way of reaching out to her references. An inexorable condition of incommunicability hides behind the physical distance. | ![]() Niccolò Biressi Italy |
![]() | In a stormy midnight, parents being asleep and not paying attention to their baby’s cries, attracts the attention of the baby’s grandmother who is sleeping in another room. | ![]() Alireza Vatanara Iran |
![]() | A woman is completely alone, from what seems like an interminable time. His only company is a Voice… | ![]() Andrea Andolina Italy |
![]() | A young man tells his childhood memories through his destroyed old house. We listen to the memories of the young man in the black and white images of this ruined adobe house. As the sun begins to set, the images become more colorful, and children accompany the silence and the image. We witness the feelings of a young man who cannot break away from his roots, connecting him to that old house. | ![]() Umut YILMAZER Turkey |
Saturday, 22 february | Synopsis | Director/Country |
![]() | Many child laborers are forced into this work unwillingly and, due to the lack of support, engage in these activities in harmful ways. The story follows a young girl who seems to have cancer and begs at intersections. Later, we discover that there is a gang house that trains child laborers to beg in different ways. The girl’s brother is the leader of this gang, and they shave the eyebrows of these young girls, put headscarves on them, and send them out on the streets to pretend they have cancer and beg for money. He even did this to his own sister. | ![]() Shaqayeq Jadidi Iran |
![]() | Paulo is a 20-year-old boy whose character is forged by sensitivity and strength. For some time, he wakes up during the night with severe chest pains without being able to breathe, in the grip of terrible anxiety attacks. One night, in the torment of shortness of breath and sweat, a force urges him to open the door of his bedroom, from which he had not left for some time, thus seeing himself catapulted into an imaginary world. It will be in this dreamlike dimension that he will meet Margherita, an emotion that his body and mind know very well, who is also waiting for him there, behind that door, from which the light and air that paralyzed him in his room will enter. | ![]() Giuseppe Carrieri, Gonçalo Claro Da Fonseca Italy |
![]() | In the mid-1920s, the journalist Santi Paladino found a strange book from the 1500s in his father’s library containing parts of Shakespearean texts written in Italian. In the meantime we watch the author John Florio writing that text and taking it to Italy, his father Michelangelo’s birthplace, to leave an evidence for posterity on the real origin of those texts mistakenly attributed to the English actor | ![]() Joshua Ianniello Italy |
![]() | A paintor needs extra hands | ![]() Sandra PIQUEMAL France |
![]() | Through the lens of a journalistic interview conducted with Giada, we meet Giacomo, a young man on the verge of graduation, or so it seems. Unknown to his friends and family, he has not attended classes for a while, with only his dear friend Giada aware of the situation. Giacomo is consumed by shame and the feeling of living a life he never chose. The story unfolds throughout a fateful evening, beginning with the celebration of his older brother’s perfect graduation. As the night progresses, Giacomo’s inner turmoil intensifies, culminating in a pivotal moment on the overpass, where he seeks release from his perceived existential prison. This grave mistake forever alters Giacomo’s life, leaving him to confront the harsh realities of his existence and the profound consequences of his actions. | ![]() Pietro Cornini Italy |
![]() | Laura and Marco, a couple who experienced the tragic loss of a child during childbirth, decide to go through the grieving process together. Once they reach the point where they feel ready to share their love with a new family member, they come across Giorgio. This child, abandoned as a newborn at a ‘Cradle for Life’, has been living in a family home ever since. | ![]() Gabriele Campanella Italy |
![]() | Between oscillation and cohabitation, the exploration of a body on the borders of shadow and light. LIMINAL. Intermediate space between two states, transitional, intentional, indeterminate and dichotomous. | ![]() Elias Djemil Canada |
![]() | Luca has been speaking out of sync for many years. One day, he invites a girl to lunch and doesn’t know how to behave to hide his absurd handicap. | ![]() Alessandro Marinaro Italy |
![]() | In the mid-1920s, the journalist Santi Paladino found a strange book from the 1500s in his father’s library containing parts of Shakespearean texts written in Italian. In the meantime we watch the author John Florio writing that text and taking it to Italy, his father Michelangelo’s birthplace, to leave an evidence for posterity on the real origin of those texts mistakenly attributed to the English actor | ![]() Sandro Torella Italy |
![]() | A short documentary about the photojournalist Mahfouz Abu Turk, his memories and his archives. With his camera, Abu Turk was one of the few to document first-hand the events in the city of Jerusalem and the West Bank from the first Intifada in 1987 until the end of the nineties, putting his body on the frontline. | ![]() Hayat Labban Palestine |
![]() | In a world where every click, swipe, and search is harvested, Bill, a paranoid middle-aged man, becomes increasingly alarmed by the intrusive reach of technology. As devices seem to predict his every move, Bill’s paranoia grows, and he devises a plan to disconnect from the digital grid entirely. In his disconnected silence, he finds fleeting peace, but the outside world still hums with data and surveillance, raising unsettling questions about the price of convenience in the age of connectivity. | ![]() Yusuf Begg Canada |
![]() | Lorella and Daniele have organized a sea-themed dinner party in their elegant home in Catania, Sicily. When their daughter Amanda returns, the conversation among the adults quickly shifts to her. Lorella notices Amanda posting a provocative video online and is taken aback. However, to avoid seeming out of touch like boomers, the parents go along with Amanda’s explanation that it’s just a game. Although they are helicopter parents, they try to act like her friends, adopting youthful and casual behaviors. Feeling stifled by her parents’ expectations and annoyed by the adults’ attempts to act young, Amanda perceives it all as an invasion of her space. She decides to use her true youthful charm to put them back in their place. As a small act of revenge, she performs a seductive dance aimed at her father’s friend Marco, exposing the adults’ naivety and unsettling the evening. | ![]() Giuseppe De Lauri Italy |
![]() | After a bank robbery, three burglars: Belga, Cieca and Fiammifero, are chased by the police. Fiammifero throws the loot from the moving car. Nick, a 17-year-old boy, is cycling home after school. He stumbles upon the bag containing the loot. Intrigued, he opens it and discovers that it contains a pile of money. Night. The three robbers have managed to leave the policemen behind and, back in the woods, they search frantically the bag They don’t know it yet but for them the time has come for a showdown. | ![]() Tommaso Gorani Italy |
![]() | It portrays a lonely man who used to be a hunter and is now looking for the fulfillment of his dreams | ![]() Khatereh Foroutan Iran |
Awards
For each section there will be the following awards
– Best film award
– Best screenplay award
– Best photography award
– Public award (votation during screening)
– Special award Pluriart for best Italian film