Rome Film Festival 2026: Full Program for the 21st Edition

The Rome Film Festival unveiled this morning in Rome its twenty-first edition, the third under the direction of Paola Malanga.
The Official Selection for the 2026 Rome Film Festival will be organized into the following sections:
▪ Progressive Cinema Competition – Visions for the World of Tomorrow
An international competition with no distinction between fiction films, documentaries, and animated features.
▪ Freestyle
A non-competitive section featuring titles of free format and style.
▪ Grand Public
A non-competitive section dedicated to cinema for the general audience.
▪ Special Screenings
A non-competitive section.
▪ Best of 2026
A non-competitive section comprising films from other international festivals, considered among the best of the season.
▪ History of Cinema
A non-competitive section dedicated to renowned films in restored versions

This is the full program for the Rome Film Festival 2026.

PROGRESSIVE CINEMA COMPETITION – VISIONS FOR THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

BRIANZA
by Simone Catania, Italy, Switzerland, 2026, 118’
Cast: Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Marina Rocco, Giovanni Calcagno
In 2009: as the economic crisis tightens its grip on Italy, Giorgio Farina (Fausto Russo Alesi), heir to a prestigious armory in Brianza, risks losing everything after investing a fortune in opening a luxury boutique in Switzerland. Burdened by debts and obsessed with preserving his apparent respectability, Giorgio becomes entangled with Alberto Fumagalli (Paolo Pierobon), an eccentric businessman who proposes an embezzlement scheme. Their encounter gives rise to an unlikely alliance: Fumagalli drags Giorgio into an environment where rules seem to mean something different and where every problem can become an opportunity. What appears to be an easy escape route, however, spirals into a web of secrets and dangers that threaten his family, his honor, and everything he has always tried to protect. Inspired by a real-life crime.

CENIZA EN LA BOCA (ASHES)
by Diego Luna, Mexico, Spain, 2026, 98’
Cast: Anna Diaz, Adriana Paz, Luisa Huertas, Guillermo Ríos, Sergio Bautista, Benny Emmanuel, Teresa Lozano, Adriana Jacomé
From Mexico to Madrid, from Madrid to Barcelona, and back to Mexico again: a continuous, tireless migration in search of a life perhaps impossible to attain. This is the story of Lucila, a young Mexican woman whose mother emigrated to Spain when she and her brother were young, giving them a better life than what a Mexico where children disappear could offer. A film about uprooting and the determined will to find a place of one’s own, where Lucila does everything herself—from caregiver to waitress, from rider to babysitter—so as to endure the disheartening assertion of her brother Diego: “Here or there, it’s the same. It’s always about surviving.” Heartfelt and lucid, it is the fourth film directed by Diego Luna, co-written with Alba Castillo and Diego Rabasa, adapted from Brenda Navarro’s novel of the same name.

CLOSURE
by Michał Marczak, Poland, France, 2026, 106’ | Documentary |
Filmmaker Michał Marczak assists a man, Daniel, in searching for his teenage son, who fears he may have disappeared into the Vistula River, Poland’s largest river. The search calls for underwater-capable cameras or drones for aerial shots. Daniel’s story intersects with those of other parents, at a crossroads between uncovering a tragic truth and prolonging a wait that, while unbearable, keeps hope alive. Marczak’s film is an anti-reality shot in a cinematic style with a singular sound design: a documentary that transcends the conventions of the genre. An immersive and emotionally devastating experience, an ongoing narrative that never quite knows whether it will reach a conclusion, or a catharsis.

CONGO BOY
by Rafiki Fariala, Central African Republic, France, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, 2026, 91’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset, Christy Djomanda Louba, Pétruche Mbomba, Rosiana Kotozia, Gloria Ambacko, Dieufera Sana, Carlos Suffisant Djihoro, David Ningando, Hubert Ngbolo, Zara Lucie Dobo, Bossoro-Kiabale, Berthe Ngbolo, Miguel Mbiguimale, Blessing Diaba, Ludmila Fada, Eudes Gadzo “Veyzo”, Archippe Marvine, Japhet Koundjia “KMJ”
Robert is seventeen years old and dreams of making his mark in the rap music scene. Fleeing with his family from the Congo amid civil war, he lives in Bangui, Central African Republic. When his parents are arrested and jailed, Robert must fend for himself and his siblings. Between school commitments and occasional jobs, he never abandons his musical calling. Rafiki Fariala (musician, singer, and slam-poet known as Rafiki-RH20) builds Congo Boy on his own story as a young refugee and aspiring musician, employing a simple, rhythmic, engaging, and highly effective style. Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset excels in the role of the young protagonist.

DUA
by Blerta Basholli, Kosovo, Switzerland, France, 2026, 101’
Cast: Pinea Matoshi, Vlera Bilalli, Kaona Matoshi, Yllka Gashi, Kushtrim Hoxha, Andi Bajgora
Pristina, late 1990s. As tensions between Albanians and Serbs intensify and war seems imminent, thirteen-year-old Dua seeks a place among her peers and must confront a changing body. Her meeting with Maki, a more self-assured and combative girl who introduces her to judo, provides her with an initial form of empowerment, while family discussions consider leaving the country and her brother contemplates taking up arms. After Hive, Blerta Basholli returns to tell the story of Kosovo, this time through the perspective of a teenage girl, intertwining self-discovery with the upheaval of history. The camera stays close to Dua, capturing her hesitations, fears, and sudden ecstasies without tonally separating coming-of-age from the political violence shaping her life. The film will represent Kosovo at the 2027 Academy Awards.

EUROTRASH
by Frauke Finsterwalder, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, 2026, 100’
Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Alexander Fehling, Pascal Ulli, Jennifer Mariah Ehnert, Stefan Kurt, Helmut Mooshammer, Ingo Ospelt, Luna Wedler, Philippe Graber
Philip (Alexander Fehling) hates Zurich and has a fraught relationship with his mother (Barbara Sukowa), who is addicted to alcohol and psychotropic drugs. In a self-imposed journey across Switzerland, he accompanies her, both as a way for her to spend money aimlessly and as a means to misuse the profits of her investments in the arms industry. Mother and son confront their profound inability to communicate and come to terms with the ghosts that have always divided and driven them apart. Elevated by a powerful performance from Barbara Sukowa, Eurotrash is a journey through the landscapes and secrets of a Europe that dreams of escaping itself; but above all it is the tragicomic story of a bourgeois family, its demons, inherited shame and guilt from the past, and the need to move beyond them. Based on the autobiographical novel of Christian Kracht, one of the new voices in contemporary German literature.

GÆSTEN (THE GUEST)
by Mads Mengel, Denmark, 2026, 100’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Simon Bennebjerg, Trine Dyrholm, Josephine Park, Peter Gantzler, Petrine Agger, Mette Klakstein Wiberg, Kristine Kujath Thorp
Karl (Simon Bennebjerg) and Emilie (Mette Klakstein Wiberg) have invited friends and family to a luxury beachfront hotel for the baptism of their newborn baby. The main problem seems to be choosing between asparagus or salmon for the appetizer, until a woman appears whom we saw driving nervously in the opening shots: Vibeke (Trine Dyrholm), the mother of Karl and his sister Rikke, who has invited herself to the event without Karl’s knowledge. An eccentric, overbearing, strange, disturbed mother from whom Karl has kept his distance for years. Trine Dyrholm (a star of Thomas Vinterberg and Susanne Bier, as well as the Nico in Susanna Nicchiarelli’s film) drags the grotesque and dark family drama with formidable clarity and wit in this feature debut of Danish director Mads Mengel.

HAPPY DAYS
by Susanna Nicchiarelli, Italy, Belgium, 2026, 90’
Cast: Carlotta Gamba, Riccardo Scamarcio, Bruno Orlando, Anna Bellato, Leonardo Maddalena, Aurora Di Modugno, Sara Mafodda
Claudia (Carlotta Gamba), twenty years old, is a girl like many others, living among past and future loves, latent passions, and significant challenges. But Claudia has something special: at moments of excitement or anger, she transforms into a strange creature with white wings, fangs, and feline paws. Following Claudia’s battles and adventures, and the creature she becomes, Happy Days, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Zuzu, tells a story of growth, transformation, and the construction of an identity.

I LOVE BOOSTERS
by Boots Riley, United States, 2026, 113’
Cast: Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Demi Moore
With bright yellow, pink, and purple hair and bold, flashy outfits, the young shoplifters who steal designer clothes from Bay Area department stores to resell them become the center of a political comedy that dissects the immorality of the fashion industry. Known as “boosting” in English, they call themselves the “Velvet Gang” and target primarily the Metro chain, which sells monotone collections designed by a stern stylist portrayed by Demi Moore. Boots Riley, the director of Sorry to Bother You, returns with a lively and political comedy that uses surreal time-travel and space travel (to China, where the clothes are sewn for the very expensive Metro lines) to critique fashion’s ethics and conventions. It playfully revisits the sharp satirical tone of The Devil Wears Prada.

I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING
by Clio Barnard, United Kingdom, 2026, 109’
Cast: Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole, Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack, Lola Petticrew
In a Birmingham where the towering public housing blocks crumble into a cloud of infernal dust to make way for new development, five thirty-something friends gather for a birthday among urban change. Their lives pull them in different directions—from online investors who have found success and moved into a chic London home to delivery riders—yet they share a lively, dynamic social world. Music, light, and shadows frame a portrait of a resilient working-class community that remains vital and connected. Clio Barnard’s sixth film continues to chart contemporary British working-class life without sentimentality or cliché, throwing the crew’s pub-night rituals and often confusing lives into the melee. Adapted from Keiran Goddard’s novel of the same name, the film is a humane work that chronicles both illusions and disappointments of the new century.

THE LIFE AND DEATHS OF WILSON SHEDD
by Tim Blake Nelson, United States, 2026, 121’
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Scoot McNairy, Missi Pyle, Devyn Tyler, Elizabeth Marvel, Tim Blake Nelson, Grant Harvey, William Jackson Harper, Wunmi Mosaku
Karen (Amanda Seyfried) teaches creative writing in an Oklahoma maximum-security prison. Wilson Shedd (Scoot McNairy) is certainly the best of her “students,” capable of telling, with great force, the story of his life marked by violence. Gradually, Karen, a survivor of abuse by her husband, becomes entangled in his life. Beyond plot details, the film features a non-linear structure that yields more than a few surprises. The screenplay, written by Tim Blake Nelson (an actor who has worked with Malick, the Coen brothers, Spielberg, among others) presents a sweeping, polyphonic portrait of an underclass America, both white and Black, that seems to struggle to find redemption. Ultimately, it becomes a meditation on justice and punitive power, equipping this film with a place among the great classics of the genre.

MUSTANG
by Kasia Smutniak, Italy, 2026, 105’ | Documentary |
In 2003 Kasia and Pietro meet, backpack on, with a small camera, heading to Mustang. That place, suspended in time where there is no road, becomes a part of them; they exchange a promise to return someday and help protect that culture. But events take an abrupt turn and they never return together. Years later, their daughter Sophie re discovers footage from that initial journey and the experiences her mother had with her as a child. A meeting with a remarkable woman, Kunzom, leads to the realization of the promise to build a school that would allow children in that region to continue their studies without leaving their families. Through Sophie’s voice, the film traces over twenty years of life between memory and shared history, across time and generations, in search of what remains when everything else transforms in Mustang’s Samsara.

SANTS
by Mikel Gurrea, Spain, Italy, 2026, 104’
Cast: Victoria Luengo, Ariadna Gil, Eulàlia Ramon
Torches at night, sudden will-o’-the-wisps, fireflies, stars in an imaginary, mobile constellation: lights on the miners’ helmets belonging to a group of thieves. Lali, returning to Barcelona after years of wandering to care for her terminally ill mother, is one of them: they steal sacred statues, Madonnas, and religious images from churches, chapels, streets, and palaces. They resell them to specialized receivers who maintain a precise ranking for every statue. Written and directed by Mikel Gurrea (debut feature in 2022 with Suro), blending heartfelt family melodrama and thriller, it is a film that recovers a sense of Spanish black surrealism, featuring unpredictable moments and visually striking scenes set in a vivid urban world. The lead is Victoria Luengo, known from Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s El ser querido and Pedro Almodóvar’s Amarga Navidad.

SKEJTANJETO NE E ZA DEVOJČINJA (SKATEBOARDING IS NOT FOR GIRLS)
by Dina Duma, North Macedonia, Belgium, Slovenia, Croatia, 2026, 82’
Cast: Efkjar Abaz, Simonida Selimovič, Džefrina Jašari, Ganimet Abdula
A girl skateboards as the split-screen shows a city passing by: Adela is eleven and lives in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, with her mother and her elder sister Zara. Their father left long ago, emigrated to Switzerland, where he built a life far from the family. The world moves on, Adela and Zara live in modern times, but surviving by doing cleaning jobs is hard and a favorable marriage for Zara would help. Dina Duma’s (Sisterhood, Oscar-nominated in 2021) second feature captures the unstoppable vitality of girls in a country and culture still tied to patriarchal traditions such as the “bride market.” With a sequence blending a skateboarding contest and a marriage ritual, it presents an effective tragicomic tale about the condition of contemporary women, produced by Sisters and Brother Mitevski, co-written by Teona Strugar Mitevska, with Labina among the cast.

THIT-THEE KHU (FRUIT GATHERING)
by Aung Phyoe, Myanmar, Czech Republic, France, 2026, 97’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Nandar Myat Aung, Nandar Myint Lwin, Thida Soe Khant, Tin Tin Ei, Min Nyo
Shy San Kyi lives in poverty, working in a Yangon textile factory. The arrival of the young Theint Theint Oo slowly breaks her monotony: a deep bond forms between the two, but their love will clash with a society that rejects love between women. The Burmese director Aung Phyoe’s feature debut moves from the social realism of women’s work, precarity, political oppression, and family conventions to a more intimate register, focusing on the smallest, most surprising details. Love becomes a demand for freedom, especially powerful in a country where private desire and public control are hard to separate. The emotion here does not escape the world but perhaps offers the first possible way to imagine another one.

UĻA (ULYA)
by Viesturs Kairišs, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, 2026, 102’
Cast: Kārlis Arnolds Avots, Chulpan Khamatova, Aleksas Kazanavičius, Arturs Krūzkops, Kaspars Dumburs, Alise Dzene, Dārta Cīrule, Madara Viļčuka, Shamil Khamatov
In 1964, in the Soviet Union’s Latvia, Ulya, a nearly two-meter-tall adolescent girl, grows up in an isolated rural village. Her extraordinary height weighs on her family, who wonder whether there is a place for her in the world. When her class photo reaches basketball scouts, Ulya is taken to Riga to join the famous TTT team. Struggling with her height and her identity, she trains hard but realizes that basketball cannot fulfill her dream of a normal life. She runs away, then returns home, and discovers that both village life and basketball regard her only for her height. Accepting herself, she faces a choice: hide or strive to become the best basketball player in the world. The origins of the legendary Soviet basketball star Ulyana Semyonova are explored in a stunning black-and-white film by the director and the lead actor of January (here also co-writers), both winners of Rome’s 2022 competition. The film will represent Latvia at the 2027 Academy Awards.

VOILÀ, C’EST FINI
by Gustave Kervern, France, 2026, 101’
Cast: Loïc Mandere, Suzanne Lindon, Léa Drucker, Mathieu Amalric, Martine Hennequin-Charrié, Menwar, Edeen Bhugeloo, Carlita Latour, Victor Kervern
Islands of Mauritius: a resort employee (Loïc Mandere) falls in love with a French woman with anorexia (Suzanne Lindon, daughter of Vincent), observed by the apathetic parents (Léa Drucker, Mathieu Amalric), who dream of a new life. This is Kervern’s first solo job after years of collaboration with Benoît Delépine; he tells present-day contemporaneity from the perspective of a world distant from the inhabitants’ “real” life, where the real lives of the islanders unfold next to the artificial lives of tourists. The film retains the pungent, paradoxical humor of his earlier works but never aims for direct provocation: it allows images to speak and makes extraordinary use of a contrasting soundtrack that moves from Peaches to Suicide.

YESTERDAY THE EYE DIDN’T SLEEP
by Rakan Mayasi, Belgium, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, 2026, 100’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Rim Al Mawlah, Jawaher Al Mawlah, Yasser Al Mawlah
In the hushed fog of the Bekaa Valley, on the border between Lebanon and Syria, someone sets fire to a truck; with it, a potentially explosive spark spreads through a Bedouin community bound by tight ties. Gamra has vanished: perhaps hiding, perhaps on the run, and her cousin Yaser sets out to find her. The deeper he goes, the more he encounters ghosts, old grudges, and the cruel logic of revenge. At home, his sisters, Jawaher and Rim, are chosen to restore order. They are not asked for their opinion; they are offered. One is calm, the other defiant, but both know how quickly girls can be traded for peace. Time passes. Wood is cut. Wool is washed. The gaze lowers. Yet beneath the surface, everything has changed: a secret song, a troubling farewell, a lipstick stain in the dark. This is the Palestinian director Rakan Mayasi’s first feature film, born in Berlin, raised in Amman, and currently residing between Beirut and Brussels.

FREESTYLE

FILMS

7 ANNIVERSARIES
by Sabrina Iannucci, Italy, Portugal, 2026, 91’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Benedetta Porcaroli, Lorenzo Zurzolo, Bruno Orlando, Luca Maria Vannuccini, Gaja Masciale, Francesca Alice Antonini, Celeste Savino, Pia Lanciotti
Happy anniversary: the seventh, the fated one. It hurls us backward to love’s beginnings when, by chance, the delivery of a hamburger triggers the story of Emma, a successful voice actress, and Teo, a creative who currently works as a courier. They like each other, fall in love, and to conquer her fears and uncertainties, he proposes a pact: in exactly seven years they will part. But life becomes complicated, and time flies. Starring Benedetta Porcaroli and Lorenzo Zurzolo, set between Cuneo and Lisbon, a bittersweet, funny, sharp romantic comedy that vividly portrays the chemistry of feelings and the melancholy of parting with warmth and affection.

BLOQUES ERRÁTICOS (ERRATICS)
by Thomas Woodroffe, Chile, France, Argentina, 2026, 92’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Denis Lavant, Francesca Bozzano, Dominique Legoupil, Reinaldo Caro, Daniel Muñoz, Dominga Sotomayor, Felipe Gálvez
Thomas Woodroffe crafts his first feature, loosely inspired by a historical event: the 1920s expedition by geographer Paul Castelnau and operator Lucien Le Saint into Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, where they filmed Kawésqar and Yaghan peoples. Freed after a hundred years imprisoned within a glacier, the ghostly presence of filmmaker Lucien Castelnau wanders in a hyper-technological Patagonia of the future. Unable to find peace because a film he made a century earlier remains unseen, he sets out to find someone who can finally rescue him from oblivion. Masterfully performed by Denis Lavant, the film reflects on the role of images and their power to immortale people, places, and cultures.

CAMBOGIA
by Valerio Lundini, Italy, 2026, 100’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Valerio Lundini, Benedetta Porcaroli, Gabriel Montesi, Giorgio Montanini, Andrea Di Maria, Sonia Bergamasco
Shots, explosions, and criminal feuds: we are on the set of Cambodia, a famous crime series. But when the director calls cut, something goes wrong and actor Valerio De Nicolais (Valerio Lundini) suddenly finds himself trapped inside the violent, dangerous world of the series, where the props pistols shoot for real. Meanwhile, in the real world, Tramezzino, the ramshackle henchman played by De Nicolais in the series, steps in to take his place. For incredible reasons, the two end up living the life of the other, one dealing with parties, privileges, and fame’s advantages, the other forced to survive in a criminal universe that seems already to have decided his fate. But if the story is already written, perhaps there is still a way to change it. To stay alive, they will need the courage to do so.

CARO MONDO CRUDELE
by Niccolò Falsetti, Italy, 2026, 105’
Cast: Aurora Malianni, Tara Trocchia, Francesco Turbanti, Petra Valentini, Leonardo Baldoni, Elena Fioravanti, Giulio Iapichino, Samuele Sabatini, Guglielmo Tanganelli, Sergio Pierattini, Francesco Mancini, Teresa Tanini
Albinia, 1999. Giovanna is a somewhat awkward twelve-year-old girl. She lives with her mother Sabrina, while her father died years earlier, and she leans on him in difficult moments, imagining him as the hero of a Japanese cartoon. In this provincial microcosm governed by solid, unwritten rules, Giovanna has a single ally: Mirko, bound to her for life by a blood oath. But when Mirko disappears and explanations from adults become vaguer, Giovanna decides to find him at all costs. Accompanying her are the academically successful Ludovica, nicknamed the Hammer, and her gang of bullies: unexpected companions with whom Giovanna forms an improbable friendship and with whom she faces an unimaginable truth. Second feature from the director of Margini, featuring Zerocalcare who brings the young protagonist’s imagination to life.

CLEMENTINE ORANGE
by Lisa Forslund, Sweden, 2026, 70’ | Debut Feature | World Premiere |
Cast: Gizem Kling Erdogan, Erik Enge, Dilan Apak, David Book, Michel van Berkum, Zardasht Rad
Angelica has an epistolary relationship with John, a muscular and imposing inmate with whom they have exchanged photos and whom she finds very attractive. They have grown fond of each other and, when John secures a twenty-four-hour day-release, they decide to meet and spend the day together. But John has not been entirely honest with her and something does not match Angelica’s expectations. A small near-romantic story where Angelica and John end up talking, getting to know each other, and understanding one another despite initial misunderstandings, suspended between disappointment and illusion, between comedy and melancholy. Set in Stockholm, the feature debut of actress-director Lisa Forslund plays with an exemplary script that blends anxiety, nerves, tenderness, and the strong emotion of the two young leads.

CLUB KID
by Jordan Firstman, United States, 2026, 122’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Jordan Firstman, Reggie Absolom, Diego Calva, Cara Delevingne, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Colleen Camp, Vicki Pepperdine, Nigil Whyte, Eldar Isgandarov, Saturn Risin9, Miss Benny, Alaska Riley
For Peter Green (Jordan Firstman), a promoter of sensational nights in New York’s queer club scene, the party never ends. Each night blends into the next, while responsibilities are systematically dumped onto others. But his life is challenged when he discovers he has a ten-year-old son (Reggie Absolom) who was unknown to him, who is suddenly placed under his care. From the energy of New York nightlife to a contemporary, sharp sense of humor, Jordan Firstman makes his spectacular directorial debut with a film that is unapologetically pop, combining irony, sweetness, and an underground spirit into a surprisingly tender story about fatherhood, friendship, and the possibility of reinventing oneself when it seems too late.

THE IDIOT(S)
by Małgorzata Szumowska, Michał Englert, Poland, Germany, 2026, 118’
Cast: Aimee Lou Wood, Johnny Flynn, Vicky Krieps, Christian Friedel
Anna Dostoevskaija (Aimee Lou Wood) lives in the shadow of a genius (John Flynn) but does not let herself be dominated; rather, she keeps at bay debt, helps with daily survival, supports (and stenographs) her husband’s work, and later, in Russia in the 1870s, becomes the editor of his works. Based on Andrew D. Kaufman’s book “The Wife of the Gambler,” The Idiot(s) tells the story of the Dostoevskis as they spend time in Germany, Baden-Baden, where he tries to write The Idiot and squanders their savings at roulette. Around them, the rival, the successful writer Ivan Turgenev (Christian Friedel), with his companion and the cosmopolitan society of the era. Szumowska and Englert deliver a quirky character comedy that sometimes veers into tragedy, a grotesque and surreal tale that nonetheless reveals the tormented humanity of the characters, more contemporary—especially in dialogue—than the period might suggest.

INTERNO FAMILIARE
by Paolo Coletta, Italy, France, 2026, 85’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Marianna Fontana, Mariangela D’Abbraccio, Giovanna Sannino, Peppa Talamo, Ludovica Schiano di Zenise, Stanislao Capissi, Daniele Di Pietro, Giuseppe De Simone, Viviana Cangiano, Serena Pisa
In a suspended Naples of the past, on Christmas Eve, Anastasia Finizio (Marianna Fontana) is an independent, elegant young woman who owns a shop but also bears the weight of a family entirely dependent on her. Her mother, brothers, and an old aunt live in the large Monte di Dio apartment where Anastasia has sacrificed a great deal of her own freedom without realizing it. At midnight mass, Dora, her best friend, announces the return of Antonio Laurano, the man who years earlier had sparked in her the hope for another life. During Christmas lunch, reality, memory, desire, and dream begin to blur. Antonio becomes both a loving man and a figure of possible transformation. Based on the short story of Anna Maria Ortese, this is a musical film where words and song chase one another without pause and daily life continually opens to imagination.

LADY
by Olive Nwosu, United Kingdom, Nigeria, 2026, 93’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah, Amanda Oruh, Tinuade Jemiseye, Binta Ayo Mogaji, Seun Kuti, Bucci Franklin
Two girls look at the world upside down. This is how the story of Lady begins, a young woman who works in a male-dominated job: a taxi driver in Lagos, a chaotic, crowded Nigerian metropolis of over twenty million people, where tensions run high and prices keep rising. Lady wants to save enough to return to the city of her dreams: Freetown, the Sierra Leonean city where her mother was born. One day her childhood friend Pinky returns, now a sex worker, and offers her a job: become the driver for Pinky’s boss and drive the night-time girls around. Pinky agrees. An energetic, colorful, and poignant debut by Olive Nwosu, who lives in London but grew up in Lagos, telling a story that is a celebration of freedom, not only for women.

MECENATEN (THE PATRON)
by Julia Thelin, Sweden, 2026, 100’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Carla Sehn, Maxwell Cunningham, Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, Ulf Stenberg
A cleaning lady brings two Fine Arts academy students to her mistresses’ seemingly empty villa, impersonating her employer and offering the two young aspiring artists promises she cannot possibly keep. Over a long night, the game becomes increasingly perilous, taking on a sexual dimension: and without the viewer ever knowing what the ultimate outcome will be. Between Polanski, Haneke, and Ruben Östlund, the young Swedish director crafts a unique room-in-a-house drama, showing how art plays a central role in class imagination and how it serves as a tool of power and manipulation.

MISSION
by Paul Wright, United Kingdom, 2026, 87’
Cast: George MacKay, Rosy McEwen
“I can’t connect with anyone or anything.” These are the words of Dylan, a thirty-something who works in a Glasgow restaurant and cannot find meaning in his life. He drifts through the city, the zoo, the woods, and when he loses his job he decides to live one week as if it were his last, to understand what it feels like to be alive. Ten years after his first feature (The Survivor), producer Paul Wright returns to directing with another tale of loneliness and neurosis portrayed by George MacKay (Sons of Pablo Trapero, The Beast by Bertrand Bonello, 1917 by Sam Mendes). A story that lives inside and outside Dylan’s head, glimpsed in flashbacks from his past and in his present struggles. He does everything: fights, chaos, street brawls, pubs, clubs, drunken escapades, a knife, a gun, a Russian roulette. A film that is a rollercoaster, like Dylan’s mind.

RIVERRUN
by Philippe Parreno, United States, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, 2026, 96’ | Debut Feature | World Premiere |
Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Zoe Saldana, Vicky Krieps
Lucy (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a musician, is slowly losing control over her body and her voice; her psychiatrist, Dr. Cruz (Zoe Saldana), sends her to a clinic in Spain, where Lucy meets the enigmatic Tony (Vicky Krieps). What starts as a clinical treatment gradually becomes an intense journey of self-discovery and transformation, awakening powerful, unseen forces. The first feature-length fiction from renowned French visual artist and documentarian Philippe Parreno, who also wrote the screenplay. Ángela Molina appears as a nurse at the clinic.

THE STATE OF US
by Jake Harvey, Ollie Gardner, United Kingdom, 2026, 90’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Samuel Bottomley, Callum Scott Howells, Safia Oakley-Green, Frances Barber, Seamus O’Hara, Sunetra Sarker
A restless twenty-year-old, Frankie, roams a hospital at night. He slips inside: a hospice where terminally ill patients spend their final days. One patient is Taylor, Frankie’s oldest friend, whom he drags out for one last unforgettable night of drinking, partying, and romance—the night ends with fireworks. Witty and heartfelt, the film is a bittersweet meditation on friendship, illness, and death, as the casual realism of Alan Clarke meets the madness of Trainspotting. This is Ollie Gardner and Jake Harvey’s directorial debut, not yet thirty.

TANGLES
by Leah Nelson, Canada, United States, 2026, 102’ | Animation | Debut Feature |
Voices by: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Abbi Jacobson, Bryan Cranston, Beanie Feldstein, Seth Rogen, Samira Wiley, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, Bowen Yang, Pamela Adlon, Fern Grandin
Sarah leaves her busy life as an activist and artist in 1990s San Francisco to return to her small, conservative hometown when her mother begins to show signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s. Forced to grow up quickly, she balances a new relationship, long-held professional ambitions, and a quirky family that follows her all the way to Mexico and back, in a final, desperate attempt to persuade them to take the situation seriously. Facing a disorienting reality she cannot control, Sarah must reclaim her balance by accepting her mother’s decline and the imperfect beauty of her family, becoming the daughter they need. An animated, black-and-white adaptation of Sarah Leavitt’s autobiographical graphic novel, created by Leavitt with writer Trev Renney and director Leah Nelson.

EL TREN FLUVIAL (THE RIVER TRAIN)
by Lorenzo Ferro, Lucas A. Vignale, Argentina, 2026, 75’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Milo Barría, Lucrecia Pazos, Mailén Barría, Mariano Barría, Rita Pauls, Fabián Casas, Pehuén Pedre, Diego Puente
A nine-year-old boy and his father: he commands, the boy responds and obeys. Then the boy, Milo, takes the stage and dances, alongside other children who dance beside him with energy. Malambo is the Argentine folk dance in which gauchos, all in black with a whip at the belt and boots, challenge each other. Milo trains relentlessly for it and also keeps the house in order. But Milo also dreams of escaping and buys a ticket on a train to Buenos Aires, a fantastical train that flows like a river toward new encounters, images, and places. The vast Pampas and cityscapes replace the sea of The 400 Blows: a story about the desire for freedom and growth, balancing realism with a script written and directed by two emerging Argentine directors under thirty, Lorenzo Ferro and Lucas A. Vignale. Last June, Lucas A. Vignale was involved in a helicopter accident near Rio de Janeiro.

ARTS

IL CASO MODIGLIANI
by Luca Rea, Italy, 2026, 75’ | Documentary |
Summer of 1984, Livorno. Three heads emerge from the water, celebrated as authentic Modigliani sculptures; only they are forgeries. This is the astonishing story of a hoax that spiraled out of control. The tale of a fraud. The tale of a death under circumstances never clarified. One of the greatest art scandals of all time. One of the most intricate mysteries in art history, and at the same time a crystal-clear example of how a beautiful lie can overshadow and outlive the truth.

L’IMAGINIFICO. GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO
by Mauro Bartoli, Italy, 2026, 70’ | Documentary |
“The palace is empty. The river has no music.” With these words in January 1921, Gabriele d’Annunzio bids farewell to life’s city and opens the final chapter of his existence. He retreats to Gardone Riviera in the Vittoriale degli Italiani, where he spends the last seventeen years transforming his home into a work of art and a place to preserve his memory. With the narration of Adriano Giannini, the film takes us into a house-world where every room and object reflects the personality and obsessions of its creator. The Vate’s words, drawn from his writings and letters, weave with scholars’ and artists’ contributions, offering new ways to interpret his figure and his cultural legacy.

INGEBORG BACHMANN – JEMAND, DER EINMAL ICH WAR (INGEBORG BACHMANN – SOMEONE WHO WAS ONCE ME)
by Regina Schilling, Germany, Austria, 2026, 98’ | Documentary |
In the centenary of Ingeborg Bachmann’s birth, Regina Schilling offers an original portrait of the great Austrian writer, interpreted by the magnificent Sandra Hüller. Through a mix of acted scenes, archival material, interviews, and texts, the film imagines a day in Rome—the city where Bachmann lived for a long time—and, through her words, traverses the major seasons of her life and work. The result is a lucid and unsettled figure who questions love, identity, gender relations, and power dynamics with surprising modernity. Rather than a traditional biography, the documentary is a journey inside her work and thought, balancing personal fragility with radical intellectual freedom.

LA LINEA DELL’ORIZZONTE
by Federico Frascherelli, Italy, 2026, 67’ | Documentary |
Tullio Pericoli sketches on a transparent surface: initially indecipherable marks gradually take the form of a landscape—perhaps the Marche region. It is the mark of a bond with a land and with a painting tradition that runs from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Pericoli has always been drawn to portraiture, to landscapes that are human faces, where drawing reveals “what the owner of the face does not know.” Made patiently over a long period, La linea dell’orizzonte is not only the portrait of a very reserved artist who rarely allowed filming; it is also the autobiographical account of a young dreamer who arrived in Milan in the 1960s and evokes a sometimes harsh but irretrievably lost world.

LUCIA DI LUCIANO
by Fabio Cherstich, Italy, 2026, 60’ | Documentary |
An intimate conversation between the artist Lucia di Luciano and director Fabio Cherstich, in which paintings become the starting point for a voyage through memory, artistic research, and a life devoted entirely to abstraction. After the artist’s death in January 2026, the film emerges as one of the most complete cinematic testimonies of her voice, her thought, and her extraordinary artistic heritage.

THE OLIGARCH AND THE ART DEALER
by Andreas Dalsgaard, Denmark, France, United States, Netherlands, Switzerland, 2026, 118’ | Documentary |
Andreas Dalsgaard presents a documentary with thriller-pacing that delves into one of contemporary art’s loudest scandals. Presented at Sundance and other major festivals, the film reconstructs the relationship between Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier and Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev: a partnership built on the purchase of masterpieces—from Leonardo to Rothko—ultimately unraveling in a multi-billion-dollar legal battle. Between freeports, auctions, private collections, and gray areas of global finance, the tale unveils a rift in the ultra-wealthy world where art becomes a safe haven, currency, and weapon of power. A tense, lucid investigation in which every truth seems to come at a price.

I PESCI NON CHIUDONO GLI OCCHI
by Audrey Gordon, Italy, France, 2026, 65’ | Documentary |
“Fish don’t close their eyes” is a 2011 Erri De Luca novel whose title—poetically—unfolds only at the end. It tells a memoir set on Ischia’s beaches in the 1960s, where a Naples-born boy on holiday and a girl from the North discover affinity, growth, and their first loves, encountering the early brutalities of the world before them. The French director brings Erri De Luca to those places now. The film interweaves a past narrative with documentary materials and a moving, intimate autobiographical reflection on his parents’ love for the United States, awakening to social injustices, estrangement from family, and immersion in 1970s politics, culminating in a reflection on his own lineage and the influence of literature.

PINOCCHIO, IL BAMBINO DEL MONDO
by Paolo Borraccetti, Italy, France, 2026, 90’ | Documentary |
He enchanted children with Disney, challenged censorship in Iranian editions, sat among Chinese schoolchildren, danced within Soviet cartoons; wherever he went, Pinocchio found a home and a voice. On the occasion of Carlo Collodi’s 200th birth, this documentary reveals how a story sparked on a magazine page captured the global imagination across cultures, ideologies, artistic languages, and generations. Filmed at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where the marionette comes to life and guides the narrative, Pinocchio, the Boy of the World, uses precious and largely unseen archival material, rare editions, historical footage, and works from diverse sources, with contributions from Francesca Comencini, Guillermo del Toro, philosopher Caroline Anthérieu-Yagbasan, and Iranian painter Narges Ghorbani.

SIRI HUSTVEDT – DANCE AROUND THE SELF
by Sabine Lidl, Germany, Switzerland, 2026, 110’ | Documentary |
A writer, essayist, and one of the most original intellectuals in contemporary culture, Siri Hustvedt speaks to the camera in this portrait by Sabine Lidl. From Minnesota to New York, where she finds her literary voice, the film retraces her education, feminist perspectives, and a research that weaves together art, psychology, identity, and the power of words. Central to the film is also Hustvedt’s long personal and intellectual partnership with Paul Auster, her husband and creative interlocutor. While they reflect on love, literature, and identity, the writer’s illness intrudes into their everyday life and the film. Following Hustvedt for several years, Lidl constructs an intimate, vital portrait that gradually expands into a meditation on art, memory, and loss.

SPACCANAPOLI TIMES
by Nadia Baldi, Italy, 2026, 120’
Cast: Ruggero Cappuccio, Giovanni Esposito, Gea Martire, Franca Abategiovanni, Estelle Maria Presciutti, Claudio Di Palma, Emanuele Zappariello
In a Naples suspended between reality and dream, four siblings reunite at the family home after years apart. The poet Giuseppe Acquaviva (Ruggero Cappuccio), who lives in a strange cave overlooking the sea of Naples, summons his sisters and brother to a mysterious appointment. Each is lost in his or her own time, memories, and neuroses. Through surreal dialogues, photographs falling from the ceiling, a mysterious girl who escapes like memory, and homing pigeons delivering secret messages, the film explores family ties, the burden of the past, and unhappiness as a creative force. Based on Ruggero Cappuccio’s homonymous theatrical work and shot in the house where Roberto De Simone once lived, the film is a disruptive comic machine where humor becomes a magnifying glass for reading the reality of life’s struggles.

L’ULTIMO ABBRACCIO “CHI COME ME”
by Michele Mally, Italy, 2026, 75’ | Documentary |
A coming-of-age show that became a cult phenomenon, with three hundred performances and constant sold-outs. The public defined it as “much more than a show,” “a life experience,” and “an emotional and insightful journey”; Chi come me revealed a rare ability to extend beyond the stage and become a case that unites generations and lives beyond the theater. Directed by Andrée Ruth Shammah on a text by Israeli playwright Roy Chen and based on a real experience, Chi come me takes us inside a mental health center. Five isolated and fragile teenagers, yet united by a pressing need to live, discover through theater lessons a doorway to themselves. Their stories touch a nerve in our society and reveal the reasons for empathy and emotion that the documentary explores starting from the last performance at the Franco Parenti Theater in Milan.

WALKING WITH ANIMATORS
by Gilles Penso, Alexandre Poncet, France, 2026, 104’ | Documentary |
Walking with Animators is, above all, a labor of love for animation and those who create it. Directed by Alexandre Poncet and Gilles Penso, it is an imposing work built over nearly eight years, featuring more than seventy interviews with legendary figures in the industry. Its value also lies in the moment it arrives: as artificial intelligence begins to transform the sector, the film pays tribute to manual craft, patient work, and the thinking behind every single frame. More than a history of animation, it is a tribute to the artists, their craft, and the dedication needed to give life to images.

SERIES

177 DAYS. THE ABDUCTION OF FAROUK
by Carlo Carlei, Italy, 2026, episodes 1-2, 107’ | Series |
Cast: Marco Bocci, Antonia Desplat, Rosa Diletta Rossi, Domenico Diele, Mauro Addis, Andrea Tedde, Giacomo Fadda, Rose Aste, Enrico Inserra, Filippo Papa, Anna Chiara Fattore, Martina Tore, Giulia Bellanzoni, Leonardo Capuano, Alessandro Gazale, Fabrizio Sabatucci
The story of the kidnapping of little Farouk Kassam, which took place in Costa Smeralda on January 15, 1992. A foreign family living on the island: father (Marco Bocci), mother (Antonia Desplat), and two children. It would seem paradisiacal, until violence suddenly intrudes and forever changes these people’s lives: the seven-year-old Farouk is abducted from his home by a gang of criminals in front of his grieving parents and little sister. Thus begins a nightmare lasting 177 days, which holds Italy breathless. A historic event that would rock the state itself. Men and women facing a shocking event discover resources, limits, emotions, and instincts they did not know they possessed. And it reveals the closest ties and the strongest certainties.

ALL’S FAIR
USA, 2026, episode 1 of Season 2, 45’ | Series | World Premiere |
Cast: Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Teyana Taylor, Matthew Noszka, Cauã Reymond, Sarah Paulson, Glenn Close
The lawyers at the Grant, Ronson & Greene firm return for a new season of scandals, secrets, and tall heels. While new alliances form, friendships are tested, and a shocking revelation threatens the very existence of the firm.

CAGNÀZ
by Alessandro Roia, Italy, 2026, episodes 1-2, 105’ | Series |
Cast: Guido Caprino, Eugenio Franceschini, Dora Romano, Sergio Romano, Astrid Meloni, Amedeo Gullà, Dharma Mangia Woods, Chiara Martegiani, Giordano De Plano, Roberta Mattei, Denis Fasolo, Chiara Baschetti, Eva Robin’s
Inspector Marco Cagnani (Guido Caprino), nicknamed Cagnaz (roughly “tough dog” in Romagnol dialect), is a laid-back but brilliant cop who lives by his own rules. From his boat-home, he uncovers secrets of the Romagna Riviera’s crime. His partner Ossani (Eugenio Franceschini) is rigorous and initially wary, forming an unlikely but effective duo. Using intuition and irreverent methods, the two officers solve cases by putting their differences aside. It becomes clear that behind Cagnaz’s carefree facade lies a painful past and an obsession: to pin down the ruthless Zia, a merciless Calabrian boss. Between crime and irony, the climactic confrontation is inevitable.

CHIAROSCURO
by Jan Maria Michelini, Italy, 2026, episodes 1-2, 94’ | Series |
Cast: Pierpaolo Spollon, Andrea Lattanzi, Matilde Gioli, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Aurora Giovinazzo, Federico Tocci, Paz Vega, Alessandro Preziosi
Cosmo Speranza (Pierpaolo Spollon) is the top art advisor on the market. He can spot a fake a mile away. This skill proves useful when he ends up collaborating with Rome’s Mobile Squad and Inspector Angelo Tiberi (Andrea Lattanzi). The two are forced to work side by side, discovering that they make an improbable but effective investigative duo. Because, just as a painting can be forged, so can a crime scene. No one but Cosmo can trace the clues that bring down the intricate facade built by the killer. The investigation forces him to confront his past: when a crime-scene reveals a painting of his childhood home, Cosmo realizes the killer is speaking to him, prompting him to reopen the inquiry into his father’s suicide. A journey through past and present, where truth and fiction seem indistinguishable.

LA FAMIGLIA PANINI – L’AVVENTURA DELLE FIGURINE
by Letizia Lamartire, Italy, 2026, episodes 1-2 + preview episode 4, 105’ | Series |
Cast: Serena Rossi, Simone Liberati, Federico Cesari, Benedetta Cimatti, Luca Di Sessa, Samuele Teneggi, Cecilia Bertozzi, Isabella Mottinelli, Elisa Nardini, Adalgisa Manfrida, Edoardo Pesce, Barbora Bobulova
The Panini family—mother, father, and eight children—leave the countryside for the city with little money but big hopes. At the heart of the family is Olga (Serena Rossi), a visionary mother who dreams of a better life and repeats the motto “Let’s go see!” to push the family forward. In a post-war Modena, Olga leads the family to a bold bet: buy a newsstand that becomes a window to the world and to Italians’ desires. There, the Paninis learn that dreams become large when they are accessible to everyone, and they decide to invest in something humble but democratic like figurines. After setbacks and sacrifices, but always united, they turn a simple idea into a worldwide phenomenon: 1970 and the World Cup in Mexico cement the figurine myth and the extraordinary achievement of an apparently ordinary family.

LIVATINO – IL GIUDICE E I SUOI ASSASSINI
by Michele Placido, Italy, 2026, episodes 1-2, 109’ | Series |
Cast: Giuseppe De Domenico, Leonardo Maltese, Nino Frassica, Michela De Rossi, Ninni Bruschetta, Brenno Placido, Francesco Benigno, Vito Lopriore, Matilde Piana, Roberta Procida, Gabriele Cicirello, Francesco Giulio Cerilli, Salvatore Madonia, Francesco Cassibba, Vincenzo Ficarra
In the 1980s, in the Agrigento area, the fates of the magistrate Rosario Livatino (Giuseppe De Domenico) and a group of young men from the Stiddari clan intersect. Livatino fights Mafioso power by striking at patrimony, economic interests, and territorial footholds, while the Stiddari advance through the province, expanding their influence and support. In a narrative hinge that confronts law and violence, justice and oppression, the two paths converge by September 21, 1990, when a Stidda commando kills the magistrate. His testimony of justice and faith makes him a symbol in the fight against the mafia and the first magistrate to be beatified by the Catholic Church.

MARVEL VISION QUEST
by Christopher J. Byrne, Gandja Monteiro, Vincenzo Natali, Terry Matalas, United States, 2026, episodes 1-2 + preview episode 3, 100’ | Series |
Cast: Paul Bettany, James Spader, Ruaridh Mollica, Todd Stashwick, T’Nia Miller, Lauren Morais, Orla Brady, Diane Morgan, Polly Frame, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, Emily Hampshire, James D’Arcy
Vision (Paul Bettany), rebooted and escaped from those who wanted to weaponize him, now lives in hiding. In search of a new meaning to his existence, he consults the AI personalities embedded in his programming, including F.R.I.D.A.Y., E.D.I.T.H., J.A.R.V.I.S., and the infamous Ultron (James Spader). His cloaked life is upended when a bounty on his head forces him to flee with Thomas Shepard (Ruaridh Mollica), a mysterious boy who might be his reincarnated son. While evading capture, Vision must confront his own nature, resist Ultron’s influence, and shed light on the enigma surrounding his young companion if he hopes to survive.

MEANI/ME (MELANIA REA)
(Note: Already covered above as a separate entry; included here for coherence in the long list.)

MEMORIAE
by Cosimo Alemà, Isabella Aguilar, Italy, 2026, episodes 1-4, 100’ | Series |
Cast: Dario Aita, Gaia Messerklinger, Anna Godina, Paola Sambo, Roberto Citran
When a seemingly harmless landslide strikes the small mountain village of Vallata, some residents begin to suffer from a mysterious amnesia: six years of life vanish. Relationships, children, life-defining choices: all forgotten. The town is isolated and outsiders know nothing of what is happening, but Matteo (Dario Aita), a war reporter from Vallata, manages to circumvent the surveillance to uncover the truth; he teams with Alma (Gaia Messerklinger), an oncologist who is visiting the area and becomes stranded there. It soon becomes clear that the amnesia is only the tip of the iceberg: those who lose their memory begin to have visions that grow more vivid with each day. What terrible truth lies behind this phenomenon? Is it a disease, a curse, or a long-suppressed past waiting to resurface?

IL MILANESE
by Simone Spada, Italy, 2026, episodes 1-2, 102’ | Series |
Cast: Alessandro Tedeschi, Vittoria Puccini, Alberto Astorri, Francesco Acquaroli
Raffaele Vasile, known as “Il Milanese” (Alessandro Tedeschi), has always lived life to the fullest: spectacular bank robberies, money, beautiful women. Yet he is captured and sentenced to twenty-seven years in prison. The only chance to ease his sentence is the Program—a restorative justice path devised by Veronica (Vittoria Puccini), a prison psychologist, focused on “mediations”: meeting the victims of his crimes, hearing their version, and finally facing and accepting the consequences of his actions. Raffaele initially wants to use the program merely to secure a parole and escape, but during the course, with Veronica’s help, he is compelled to confront his deepest wounds, long hidden behind his charming thief persona. Once he begins to see his true self, he cannot escape.

RADICI
by Nicola Ravera Rafele, Italy, 2026, episodes 1-4, 100’ | Documentary | Series |
Settembre 2024: Daniele De Rossi, a legend of Italian soccer, is fired as Roma’s coach. Instead of seeking another team, he buys the small amateur club where he grew up and that is about to go under, in Ostia. Thus begins a two-year journey, a tale where the past, memories, and roots provide the backdrop to a remarkable sports achievement. Under De Rossi’s leadership and the help of his collaborators, Ostiamare begins a climb into Serie C—the professional level of football. A prospect that just months earlier, with locker rooms without hot water and a challenging league position, seemed unimaginable. Just when everything seems to go well, De Rossi returns to coach, this time in Genoa, and the owner’s sudden absence threatens Ostiamare’s stability.

GRAND PUBLIC

LA BATAILLE DE GAULLE: THE IRON AGE
by Antonin Baudry, France, 2026, 160’
Cast: Simon Abkarian, Simon Russell Beale, Florian Lesieur, Benoit Magimel, Loïc Corbery, Anamaria Vartolomei, Niels Schneider, Karim Leklou, Tom Mison, Kacey Mottet-Klein, Grégoire Colin, Pablo Cobo, Campbell Scott, Mathieu Kassovitz, Félix Kysyl
June 1940. France collapses and signs the armistice. In the middle of chaos, one man refuses to surrender. Alone against all, this unknown general flees to London to salvage what remains of a dream: freedom. Without an army, without support, without hope. But with a crazy belief: France, his France, has not laid down its arms. He makes one last bet: to persuade the world that the Battle of France is neither finished nor lost. Reality is obstinate and resists him. Yet gradually resistance figures gather around him in England, in France, and in Africa—students, soldiers, and others who believe in the possibility of a French revival. Their faith, courage, and anger for liberty challenge a history that seemed written in advance.

CHANGER L’EAU DES FLEURS
by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France, Italy, 2026, 132’
Cast: Leïla Bekhti, Matthias Schoenaerts, Melvil Poupaud, Anouk Grinberg, Natacha Lindinger, Clotilde Mollet, Philippe Uchan, Philippe Rebbot, Arnaud Maillard, Émilie Gavois-Kahn, Bruno Lochet, Élodie Batard Gaultier, Laure Sagols, Sarah Bauer, Émilie Hubert, Sergio Castellitto, Alban Lenoir, Claire Nadeau
Violette Toussaint (Leïla Bekhti) is the custodian of a small cemetery in Burgundy. In her home, passersby and regular visitors leave behind a secret and take with them a little warmth. Together with a small team of burials workers, she forms a somewhat unusual family. But what events led Violette into this world where tragedy and comedy intertwine? Adapted from the best-selling novel of Valérie Perrin, this is the new film from the director of The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie.

THE DEBUT
by Jesse Eisenberg, United States, 2026, 105’
Cast: Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti, Halle Bailey, Jesse Eisenberg, Cara Buono, Craig Bierko, Eldar Isgandarov, Bernadette Peters
When Mona Friedman (Julianne Moore), a shy, modest woman with an ordinary life, is cast in a role in an amateur theater company, she cannot foresee the impact this unexpected event will have on her life. Challenged by the determined director to deliver her best, she becomes a passionate actress, willing to do anything to protect the artistic integrity of her role, and in the process finds the strength to reclaim her life. A wonderful Julianne Moore leads a sparkling and moving comedy about rebirth and self-discovery through the magic of art and theater, written and directed by actor Jesse Eisenberg, in his third directing effort after When You Finish Saving the World and A Real Pain.

DESIDERIO
by Michela Cescon, Italy, 2026, 110’
Cast: Enrico Borello, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Davide Iachini, Francesca Alice Antonini, Marilena Anniballi, Marco Tè, Matteo Berardinelli, Imma Villa
At the end of the 1980s, in a timeless Rome, Matteo (Enrico Borello) is a student who meets Livia (Romana Maggiora Vergano). He dreams of becoming a screenwriter, she is still undecided about the future. An instant attraction arises that reveals social differences and the insecurities of their age. When Livia moves to London to pursue her path, that feeling never lived seems like a teenage dream. Years later Matteo has become a journalist, chosen a stable family life, married Anna, and has two children. He unexpectedly meets Livia again: she keeps a secret, and her presence in Rome is not a coincidence. Distance and time have not dulled their bond: now it resurfaces as a love that demands courage and responsibility, triggering consequences that test them. And perhaps, beyond the choices they make and events that happen in their lives, they will have no choice. Loosely inspired by Giorgio Montefoschi’s novel of the same name.

È ANDATA COSÌ
by Gianni Zanasi, Italy, Spain, Albania, 2026, 120’
Cast: Michele Riondino, Valerio Mastandrea, Valentina Lodovini, Leonardo Lidi, Pier Luigi Pasino, Michelangelo Dalisi, Andréa Furet, Marco Fiore, Alma Teresa Giardina, Emanuele Maria Di Stefano
Cecilia (Valentina Lodovini) is reluctantly forced to live in a remote rural house with the three most important men in her life (Michele Riondino, Valerio Mastandrea, Leonardo Lidi). Between social workers, runaway cats, a loan shark who waits beneath her home, and roaming “ghosts,” Cecilia unexpectedly finds everything that seemed lost. The film’s lightness lies in the possibility to say “That’s how it happened.”

ELSINORE
by Simon Stone, United Kingdom, 2026, 111’
Cast: Andrew Scott, Olivia Colman, Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Luke Thompson
London, 1989. Ian Charleson (Andrew Scott), a talented and charismatic Scottish actor (who played Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire), is unsatisfied with the roles offered to him when the opportunity of a lifetime arises: to play Hamlet at the National Theatre, stepping in for Daniel Day-Lewis who abruptly left the stage. But Charleson is battling AIDS and the illness is consuming his body. Despite medical advice and doctors’ warnings, Ian commits to the role wholeheartedly. During rehearsals and performances, the actor turns his struggle with death into one of his most extraordinary performances. When the doctor orders him not to perform, he sneaks out of the clinic to go on stage. With a masterful Andrew Scott and a memorable Olivia Colman as supporting, Elsinore tells a true story of triumph in the face of tragedy: a young man gazing at death and choosing theater, life, and others.

LE FANTÔME DE L’OPÉRA
by Alexandre Castagnetti, France, 2026, 134’ | World Premiere |
Cast: Deva Cassel, Romain Duris, Julien de Saint-Jean, Laïka Blanc-Francard
In contemporary Paris, Anastasia (Deva Cassel), a young dancer, joins the prestigious Paris Opéra. While rehearsing Oedipus, an opera rumored to be cursed and allegedly composed by the Phantom of the Opera, she falls in love with a mysterious pianist (Julien de Saint-Jean). As opening night approaches, incidents and shocking revelations pull Anastasia into a story of love that straddles the line between reality and fantasy.

GEISTER (GHOST SONG)
by Fatih Akin, Germany, 2026, 106’
Cast: Mariam Dawoud, Eren M. Güvercin, Carlotta von Falkenhayn, Gabriel-Winner Amorim
Farasha and Faris meet at a graduation party; they are twenty and have fallen in love at first sight. But something separates them, and they will remain together for only forty nights to see, speak, and know one another. Fatih Akin’s new film—a powerful romance with melodramatic tones—delivers a deeply human story of love, haunted by ghosts that roam the city at night and drift away by bus, metro, or boat. Set in Hamburg, shot in dense, suggestive black and white by Frank Griebe, with a breathtaking aerial view from the Heinhroch Tower, the film is a contemporary romantic-mystery about love and longing.

I PLAY ROCKY
by Peter Farrelly, United States, 2026, 127’
Cast: Anthony Ippolito, AnnaSophia Robb, P.J. Byrne, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Jay Duplass, Matt Dillon, Stephan James, Kiki Seto
Sylvester (Anthony Ippolito) dreams of being an actor but grows up in poverty and scrapes by as he can. One evening in a bar, he watches the legendary boxing match where Chuck Wepner knocks down Muhammad Ali on TV, and an irresistible inspiration hits him: within days he writes a script about a boxer who gives everything to succeed, and gets it into a Hollywood studio. The producers read it and are eager to buy it. But Sylvester insists on portraying his own Rocky Balboa. He will not back down. In the 50th anniversary year of Rocky, the true story of the film that transformed unknown Sylvester Stallone into a global phenomenon is told, launching him permanently among Hollywood stars. Directed by Peter Farrelly (Oscar winner for Green Book). The young Anthony Ippolito delivers a performance that could define a career.

JE SO’ PAZZO
by Nicola Prosatore, Italy, 2026, 105’
Cast: Massimiliano Caiazzo, Mariasole Pollio, Giovanni Ludeno, Giuseppe Brunetti, Leonardo Bianconi, Monica Nappo, Antonia Truppo, Giampiero de Concilio, Massimiliano Rossi, Demi Licata, Mirko Della Vecchia, Riccardo Betteghella, André Garofalo, Luca Chikovani, Yuri Pascale Langer, Ettore Mirabilia, Matteo Trapanese, Michele Gargiulo
Je so’ pazzo is a vivid portrait of Pino Daniele (played by Massimiliano Caiazzo), a rebellious figure born in Naples’ alleys who reinvented Italian music by blending blues, jazz, and Neapolitan tradition. The film traces his ascent—from difficult childhood marked by abandonment to the iconic 1981 concert before two hundred thousand people. Amid family conflict, personal fragility, and deep loves, Pino discovers in music a language to express what he cannot say. Yet success brings new challenges: unresolved issues with his father, the burden of expectations, and the risk of repeating past mistakes. It is not only the story of an extraordinary musician but of a man wrestling with himself, seeking reconciliation with his roots and with the love of a city that has never stopped waiting for him.

UN JEU DANGEREUX
by Karine Silla, France, 2026, 93’
Cast: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Vincent Perez, Zahia Dehar, Tess Perez, Jules Porier, Ghjuvanna Benedetti, Yasmine Fraioli, Eye Haïdara
In a luxurious summer residence, a married couple of more than twenty years invites a mysterious young woman (Zahia Dehar) for a short vacation. Between desire, jealousy, and unspoken words, a perilous game begins to unfold within the trio, where each plays their part. The children observe the situation from afar and worry: who is playing with whom? Is their mother in danger?

JUSTE UNE ILLUSION
by Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache, France, 2026, 114’
Cast: Louis Garrel, Camille Cottin, Pierre Lottin, Simon Boublil, Alexis Rosesnstiehl, Jeanne Lamartine
1985. Vincent (Simon Boublil), about to turn thirteen, lives on the outskirts of Paris in a middle-class family, between a distant elder brother (Alexis Rosesnstiehl) and perpetually conflicting parents (Louis Garrel and Camille Cottin). No longer a child and not yet an adult, Vincent asks questions and wrestles with identity, friendship, family, religion, desire, and first romantic stirrings. The new comedy from Toledano and Nakache explores that period of childhood when the hope of changing the world was “not just an illusion…”

KLARA AND THE SUN
by Taika Waititi, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States, 2026, 116’
Cast: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Mia Tharia, Aran Murphy, Steve Buscemi, Natasha Lyonne
Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nobel Prize-winning novel and written and directed by Oscar-winner Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit), Klara and the Sun tells the story of Klara (Jenna Ortega), an Artificial Friend whose sole wish is to find the perfect home. When Klara meets Josie (Mia Tharia), the two quickly form a strong bond; although Josie lives in a troubled relationship with her mother (Amy Adams) marked by a devastating loss, Klara’s innocent wonder and unwavering loyalty begin to heal the family’s wounds, bringing light back into Josie’s complicated world.

ME, YOU
by Bille August, Italy, France, 2026, 104’ | World Premiere |
Cast: Sonia Ammar, Kolbjørn Skarsgård, Massimiliano Caiazzo, Blake Ritson, Valentina Cervi, Patrick Joswig, Alessia Cappello, Arcangelo Iannace, Vincenzo Leto, Billie Steiner, Marina Vitolo, Coco Maertens, Brian Cox, Laura Morante, Tim Roth
Set in 1950 on a small Italian island in the Mediterranean, Me, You follows the life of 14-year-old Londoner Marco during a family holiday and his encounter with Caia (Sonia Ammar), a young Jewish woman who lost her family in World War II. Over the summer, their bond becomes a journey of discovery and growth, addressing deep themes such as war trauma, memory, and the transition from childhood to adolescence. Based on Erri De Luca’s novel Tu, Mio, Me, You is a lyrical portrait of innocence, first love, and the enduring wounds of war.

IL MINISTERO DELL’AMORE
by Giacomo Ciarrapico, Luca Vendruscolo, Italy, 2026, 106’
Cast: Pif, Corrado Guzzanti, Pietro Sermonti, Angela Finocchiaro, Alessandra Mastronardi, Carlo De Ruggieri, Massimo De Lorenzo, Dharma Mangia Woods, Federico Cesari, Leonardo Lidi, Cristina Pellegrino, Daniele Natali, Luca Amorosino, Giampiero Judica, Lucio Patanè, Thomas Trabacchi, Ninni Bruschetta, Fabio Balsamo, Andrea Pennacchi
Aldo (Pif) is a brilliant parliamentary journalist who spends his days in the chaos of Roman politics, unaware that the real crisis is about to erupt inside him. In his inner world, feelings become a matter of state and a peculiar “Ministerial Council” governs every decision through emotional decrees and laws of the soul. When the love affair with Claudia (Alessandra Mastronardi) begins to falter, the Government of Aldo descends into its greatest crisis.

NOI, UN PO’ MEGLIO
by Daniele Luchetti, Italy, 2026, 107’
Cast: Elio Germano, Maria Chiara Giannetta, Anna Bonaiuto, Ilaria Spada, Caterina Guzzanti, Dajana Roncione, Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Francesca Romana De Martini, Filippo Nigro
Simone (Elio Germano) and Lucia (Maria Chiara Giannetta) are very different: he is a structured man with a strong sense of family, she is independent, allergic to conventions, and has always opposed motherhood. Yet their relationship is very strong, and every clash makes way for their love, whose soundtrack is a continuous, meticulous, and witty negotiation about everything. When the challenge becomes adopting a child, the act becomes an adventure that exposes their deepest differences. Can they overcome the many obstacles this test will place in their path? A romantic comedy that exposes the necessity of confronting one’s fears and desires in order to be oneself… a little better.

L’ORA DI TUTTI
by Stefania Rocca, Italy, 2026, 105’
Cast: Alice Pagani, Simone Coppo, Eleonora De Luca, Ignazio Oliva, Giulia Petrungaro, Antonio Monsellato, Alessio Boni
freely inspired by Maria Corti’s novel of the same name, Stefania Rocca’s directing debut reimagines the sack of Otranto in 1480 in a timeless moment, turning it into an archetype of every war. Idrusa (Alice Pagani) is married to Antonio, a fisherman, but their marriage doesn’t make her happy until she meets Manuel, a Spanish soldier, and falls in love. During a night of great fishing, Idrusa gives herself to Manuel, while Antonio braves the storm to return home and loses his life at sea. The enemy fleet is approaching. Manuel and his Spanish comrades flee. Despite despair, the Otrantins choose to endure. The men defend the walls and the women take refuge in the cathedral, but Idrusa breaks curfew and moves through the besieged city, connecting the two fronts. With hope fading, Idrusa leads the other women who prepare to fight. This film is dedicated to forgotten women. Because the hour of all is the hour of choosing who to be and what freedom to resist for.

LA SERA A ROMA
by Enrico Vanzina, Italy, 2026, 98’
Cast: Massimo Ghini, Carlo Buccirosso, Martina Stella, Rocio Muñoz Morales, Vittorio Viviani, Florence Nicolas, Elvira Zingone, Riccardo Terrana, Gabriella Germani, Ricky Memphis, Luca Ward, Nicoletta Romanoff, Sofia Bartoli
In an elegant and decadent Rome, Federico (Massimo Ghini) is a successful journalist and an “alternative” screenwriter with a hit film behind him. He moves among aristocratic salons of the capital, newspaper offices, historic trattorias in the center, and the film entourage. One day, one of Rome’s best-known financial brokers invites him to meet Domenico Greco (Riccardo Terrana), a young actor eager to enter the cinema world. For courtesy, Federico invites him to his home. A few hours later, however, the young man is killed and Federico becomes involved in the investigations. His private life does him no favors: married to a French intellectual, he has a relationship with Claudia (Rocio Muñoz Morales), a South American Pilates teacher linked to the victim, and a complicated friendship with Giulia (Martina Stella), a Roman princess. To untangle the web of secrets, clandestine relationships, silent loves, betrayals, and revenge, Margiotta (Carlo Buccirosso), a witty commissioner, Maselli (Seamus McLean Ross), a crime journalist hungry for a scoop, and the same Federico are called to help. He must fight to prove his innocence.

A TALENT FOR MURDER
by Anton Corbijn, United Kingdom, Italy, 2026, 106’
Cast: Helen Mirren, Alden Ehrenreich, Olivia Cooke
Switzerland, 1995. Patricia Highsmith (a stunning Helen Mirren), renowned author of the Tom Ripley crime novels, lives in isolation in the mountains. Edward Ridgeway (Alden Ehrenreich), a young emissary from a publishing house, travels from New York to persuade her to write the concluding chapter of the series. Like his mysterious predecessor, who disappeared, Edward faces a formidable author who can understand the darker sides of human nature. Meanwhile, Edward meets Clementine, a young New Yorker hoping to convince her wealthy aunt Peggy to unlock her trust fund. A bond soon forms between them. When Highsmith finally agrees to write the new novel on the condition that Edward helps devise the perfect murder, the line between author, character, and reality becomes increasingly blurred.

UN TRANQUILLO FUNERALE DI FAMIGLIA
by Massimiliano Bruno, Italy, 2026, 98’
Cast: Claudia Pandolfi, Pietro Sermonti, Stefano FRESI, Beatrice Arnera, Dino Abbrescia, Giulia Vecchio, Edoardo Ferrario, Carlo Amleto, Alessandro Mauthe, Giovanni Iovino, Carlo Buccirosso, Diego Abatantuono, Stefania Sandrelli
On the day of their patriarch’s funeral, the Mancuso siblings Daria (Claudia Pandolfi) and Riccardo (Pietro Sermonti) confront long-simmering resentments and unspoken secrets. What should be a solemn farewell becomes an unpredictable sequence of revelations and grotesque misunderstandings that reveal the fragility and contradictions of a family far from perfect. Based on the Death at a Funeral (2007) story by Dean Craig, adapted by Massimiliano Bruno and Edoardo Falcone.

WHALEFALL
by Brian Duffield, United States, 2026, 98’
Cast: Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, John Ortiz, Jane Levy, Emily Rudd
After his father’s death, Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams) dives off the central California coast to search for his father’s remains but is swallowed by a giant whale. Trapped inside the whale’s belly with only an hour of oxygen left, Jay realizes the lessons his father taught him may be the key to his escape.

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Best Documentary Selection
ALEA JACARANDAS
by Hassen Ferhani, Algeria, France, 2026, 78’ | Documentary |
Quasi always off-screen, Algerian filmmaker Hassen Ferhani engages with his father, journalist and writer Ameziane Ferhani, who studied in France in the 1970s and later decided to return to his homeland. But beyond a father-daughter dialogue, the film is primarily a portrait of the city of Algiers, where Ameziane maps more than two hundred jacaranda trees planted since 1838; trees whose violet blossoms punctuate the city. The trees serve as the through-line of the book Ameziane is writing, richly symbolic. The film, wandering through labyrinths of narrow streets and secret courtyards, becomes both a memory journey of a painful past and a reflection on beauty that can save us alone.

ALLA TUA PARTENZA SARÀ NOTTE
by Nicolò Ribolla, Italy, 2026, 94’ | Documentary |
Nicolò enters a recovery community to stay close to his uncle Matteo during what should be the last month of his program. Matteo has arrived there after years of moving from one facility to another, carrying an emptiness that seems to swallow him. Life in the community flows on, governed by rules, expectations, small conflicts, and people who come and go. In this suspended time, Nicolò and Matteo forge a close bond. They seek each other and push away, protect and wound each other. Then something forces them to confront a guilt neither can fully fathom. The past returns to occupy the present, bringing to light wounds and unresolved knots in a family. As Matteo’s future becomes increasingly uncertain, the boundary between those who need to be saved and those who can truly save them becomes more fragile.

A MARE
by Alessandra Cutolo, Italy, 2026, 70’ | Documentary |
A chorus of mothers and children from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Senegal, Morocco, Eritrea, and Tunisia—residents of the Roma social housing Spin Time and 4 Stelle—and a day at the sea unfold. The film follows a day at the seaside, from morning wake-up to train journey, from meeting the sea to the misadventure of the disappearance of little Adonai, which triggers a shared trauma of crossing the Mediterranean. The trauma resonates through the children who inherit it, the mothers who experienced the journey, and relatives left in Tunisia or continuing the voyage north. Immersing in the sea means facing the memory of companions lost to fear, the presence of spirits, mermaids, mamiwata that drag into the abyss, and the opening toward a mysterious, spiritual dimension that rebinds human beings to nature.

ARTEFICI DI MERAVIGLIA. VIAGGIO NELL’ILLUSIONISMO
by Francesca Bellucci, Italy, 2026, 51’ | Documentary |
The documentary explores magic not only as stage art but as a profound necessity of the human spirit. It tells a fairy-tale-like story set in a magic shop that seems suspended in time, where a mysterious vendor performs for two children, passing on the spark of wonder to the new generation. Through the children’s eyes, the film links nostalgic fascination with the era of magic’s golden age to a vision of its future. With exclusive interviews and live performances by renowned magicians including FISM world champions Anca & Lucca, the French champion Jad Illusionist, Van Denon, Trifunov, Sestieri, and host Mago Lupis, the film recreates the energy of the Magic International Grand Gala while also reflecting on the art’s history, soul, and timeless poetry.

L’ASSURDA STORIA DELLA GIALAPPA’S BAND
by Walter Veltroni, Italy, 2026, 105’ | Documentary |
Exactly forty years after Gialappa’s Band first appeared on Radio Popolare, the trio recounts their professional history in a film directed by Walter Veltroni. Through a sharp, original lens, the director traces four decades of humor, invention, and irony, presenting the trajectory of Giorgio Gherarducci, Marco Santin, and Carlo Taranto—three central figures who reshaped Italian entertainment. L’Assurda Storia della Gialappa’s Band explores the group’s creative universe and the lasting impact of a unique comedic voice that has spanned generations and become part of Italy’s pop culture.

UN ATTO D’AMORE
by Stefano Ribaldi, Italy, 2026, 48’ | Documentary |
On May 23, 1992, the Capaci bombing—when Giovanni Falcone’s life and the hope of an honest country were violently cut short—sent shockwaves through Italy. Yet the country experienced a rebirth: banners of white sheets blossomed on balconies across the nation. Maria Falcone decided to establish a Foundation for all Mafia victims, a task she alone undertook. Un Atto di Amore retraces over thirty years of work in schools across Italy and in May 23 demonstrations, first in the bunker classroom and then in the Foundation’s new headquarters, where memories are preserved in a museum, including the Quarto Savona 15 car that held Falcone’s last breath. Narrated by Maria Falcone, the film uses archival material and voices of Falcone and Borsellino, Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis, and Presidents Napolitano and Mattarella. The revolution is not complete, but “the life and death of Giovanni and Paolo were not in vain; their memory is our present and their dreams our future.”

Selezione Best Documentary
BIRDS OF WAR
by Janay Boulos, Abd Alkader Habak, United Kingdom, Syria, Lebanon, 2026, 85’ | Documentary |
In 2016, Libyan-born journalist Janay Boulos in London for BBC Arabic receives footage from Syria shot by Abd Alkader Habak, a young cameraman and activist documenting the war in Aleppo. The two begin exchanging messages and voice recordings; while Habak continues to risk his life in the field, their relationship grows into love. Thirteen years of personal archives tell the story of the Syrian war, exile, Lebanon, and two people learning to know each other with the medium of a screen, bearing witness to what it means to assist, document, and survive history.

BLU
by Denis Brotto, Italy, 2026, 85’ | Documentary |
Blu is a cinematic journey through Italy’s seas, from South to North, tracing the breath of water and the marks it leaves on the landscape, memory, and imagination. Through the voice and gaze of Marco Baliani, the film explores coasts, islands, and seabeds, recounting places where the sea guards ancient stories and bears witness to profound transformations. The film blends science and myth and surveys a living, fragile universe of biodiversity, creatures, currents, and memories. Beneath the surface lie signs of an increasingly fragile balance: warming, pollution, and the consequences of human activity. A contemplative and urgent portrait that questions our relationship with the sea and invites a new, more conscious and responsible gaze. A living, vulnerable sea that asks for care from all of us.

CANTONA
by David Tryhorn, Ben Nicholas, United Kingdom, 2026, 115’ | Documentary |
From France, with a blazing start in Marseille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, and a premature end to a promising career (at only twenty-five), to England, Leeds, and especially Manchester United, the encounter with coach Alex Ferguson, who managed to identify, focus, and regulate the formidable talent of Eric Cantona, a temperament that could so easily derail him. Directed by the Britons David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas, a film that blends football and cinema (recalling My Friend Eric by Ken Loach), with television footage, unseen material, new interviews, and precious, unseen Super8 footage shot by Cantona’s father. A full, vibrant portrait of a multi-faceted talent, not only an athlete but also a poet and painter—an artist who loves football and life to the fullest.

CUSTODI DELLA MEMORIA. LA NATURA AL TEMPO DEL FUOCO
by Francesco Conversano, Nene Grignaffini, Italy, 2026, 80’ | Documentary |
Between 2023 and 2025, in British Columbia, Canada, wildfires destroyed nearly 5 million hectares of forest. The voices of Indigenous peoples of British Columbia, custodians of these lands, together with the voices of trees and forests, remind us of memory’s strength, the urgency of environmental care, and the need to recover the ancient connection between humans and nature. The film’s soundscape testifies to the vital, profound, ancestral presence of trees, forests, and the natural world, weaving with the poetic voices of communities who continue to protect and defend Nature: the Squamish Nation, Lil’wat Nation, and St’át’imc Nation, guiding us toward a spiritual, ancestral dimension that reestablishes the interconnectedness between humans and nature in all its forms. Not to forget the environmental disaster and the consequences of fire in Lytton, destroyed in 2021, and the story of Indigenous communities’ past oppression, land loss, and cultural identity.

Selezione Best Documentary
DANS LA GUEULE DE L’OGRE (INTO THE JAWS OF THE OGRE)
by Mahsa Karampour, France, 2026, 87’ | Documentary | Debut Feature |
Using footage she shot over the years, Iranian filmmaker Mahsa Karampour makes her directorial debut by reconstructing her brother Siavash’s story—a musician in the underground and a member of the Yellow Dogs, a Tehran-based group that later moved to the United States. The film follows their journey from Iran, where playing rock music means confronting censorship and repression, to New York, a promise of freedom that proves far from straightforward, even after the band’s tragedy in 2013. A musical documentary and family story that also charts exile. Karampour avoids reverential hero-worship and Western notions of utopia; instead, she reveals distance between the brothers, the psychological cost of uprooting, and the necessity of continuing to create. An intimate and liberating debut.

Selezione Best Documentary
ELZA
by Eryk Rocha, Brazil, 2026, 105’ | Documentary |
Elza Soares, legendary icon of Brazilian popular music, emerged from poverty to become a defining figure of samba and Música Popular Brasileira in the twentieth century. In this documentary, produced from eight years of footage and conversations with the artist before her death in 2022, Eryk Rocha collects her direct testimony to compose a memoir that is not strictly chronological. Through rare archival material and film clips that shaped Brazilian cinema, the arc of the singer’s life intersects with Brazil’s historical wounds, spanning more than seven decades of struggles against racism, violence, and class inequality. Eschewing posthumous hagiography, Rocha lets Elza herself guide the narrative with her evolving artistic and human resilience, portraying a woman who faced tragedy and censorship without ever bending.

EVA MAMELI CALVINO. LA SIGNORA DEI FIORI
by Alessandra Usai, Italy, 2026, 74’ | Documentary |
The remarkable story of Eva Mameli Calvino, a pioneering woman, visionary scientist, and among Italy’s first environmentalists. In the early decades of the twentieth century, in a male-dominated scientific world, Eva Mameli Calvino built a remarkable path rooted in a deep love for nature and botanical research, bringing her from Sardinia to Pavia, Cuba, and Sanremo. She became the first Italian woman to obtain a free professorship in Botany in 1926 and later the first woman to direct a Botanical Garden in Cagliari. In an era when women were asked to choose between family and career, Eva refused this binary and became a renowned scientist while raising her children, among them the future writer Italo Calvino. Sanremo became the city of flowers also thanks to her scientific contributions. Through her words, archives, interviews, reconstructions, and original animations, the film revisits a woman who turned love for nature and knowledge into a mission to serve society.

FEDERICA – L’ULTIMA OLIMPIADE
by Federico Gariboldi, Paolo Novelli, Italy, 2026, 92’ | Documentary |
A deeply intimate and personal portrait that begins with a fracture rather than a victory. Born from the friendship between director Federico Gariboldi and Federica and Davide Brignone, the documentary follows the champion’s journey from her return after the 2025 World Cup finals, a moment of happiness soon broken by the pain of an injury, through surgery and lengthy rehabilitation, to a return to the snow only 74 days after the Milano-Cortina 2026 Games. Beside her, her brother offers technical yet affectionate support in a team of doctors, physiotherapists, and coaches who reveal the hidden collective dimension behind what appears to be an individual sport. The arc culminates in the seemingly impossible achievement: two Olympic gold medals within 318 days of a severe injury, and the story of a woman who remains profoundly free until the end.

I FILI DELL’ANIMA
by Francesco Fei, Italy, 2026, 71’ | Documentary |
On the tranquil shores of Lake Como, in the timeless village of Corenno Plinio, Franco Citterio, master woodcarver and puppeteer, chooses a piece of wood smoothed by the water. In his eyes, that rough fragment already holds a presence, a possible story. Franco is the living heir of a centuries-old tradition: the Carlo Colla & Figli Puppet Company, the world’s oldest puppeteering troupe, a guardian of an art that spans over two centuries of Italian history. From the heart of Brianza to Milan’s stages, the film tracks the creative process that transforms matter into figures and figures into emotion. In the Colla Workshop, among painted backdrops, hand-sewn costumes, and thousands of puppets hanging, a daily rite unfolds: to give life to the inanimate. Franco is joined by Maria Grazia, Cecilia, Giovanni, and other members of the company, bonded by a common history and knowledge passed down through time. The soundtrack is by Morgan.

FIVE LIVING BUILDINGS (BY RENZO PIANO)
by Jonathan Goodman Levitt, China, Italy, United States, 2026, 89’ | Documentary |
Architecture is the art of creating refuges, not only for individuals but for communities, for society, for everyone. It is more than a building; it is giving form to spaces where people live together and belong. This is the principle of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, founded in Paris in 1981. The film follows the people who live in five of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop’s most famous buildings: a cultural center in Greece, a children’s hospital in Uganda, the Whitney Museum in New York, an industrial park in China, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In each place we meet doctors, patients, students, gardeners, visitors, and artists who inhabit the buildings, turning them into living organisms. Directed by the documentarian and researcher Jonathan Goodman Levitt (Being BeBe, Among the Believers), the film reflects Renzo Piano’s deeply humane philosophy, his pursuit of beauty, peace, and dignity for all.

FUKSAS – DA TUTTA LA VITA
by Elisa Fuksas, Italy, 2026, 114’ | Documentary |
“How old have we been when we started filming this movie?” asks the director to the protagonist. And he answers, “All my life.” Fuksas – Da tutta la vita is the public and private portrait of Massimiliano Fuksas, a story woven from architecture, painting, extraordinary encounters, passion, loss, and memory. Between present and past, the relationship between subject and director mirrors that of father and daughter who, through this film of a lifetime, come to know one another and, above all, reinvent themselves.

IL GHIACCIO IN TASCA. MIO PADRE GIUSEPPE SINOPOLI
by Giovanni Sinopoli, Italy, 2026, 93’ | Documentary |
Twenty-five years after his father’s sudden death, conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli, Giovanni undertakes an intimate journey to discover the man behind the public figure. Through his voice, family films, archival materials, and interviews with relatives, musicians, and artists who knew him, the documentary reconstructs an unspoken dialogue between father and son, questioning Sinopoli’s cultural legacy and the role of classical music today, especially for new generations.

IL GIOCO DEL SILENZIO
by Vincenzo De Caro, Italy, Switzerland, 2026, 80’ | Documentary |
Born and raised in the North, Vincenzo De Caro grew up under the myth of Sicily transmitted by his large family. An origin both omnipresent and unattainable: none of them ever returned to the island. At twenty, Vincenzo discovers why: Gaspare Mutolo, Totò Riina’s driver and a former Mafia killer who later became a state witness, is a relative… his uncle. That and other discoveries about his family’s fight against the Mafia force him to face a truth defined by contrasts, evasions, silences, and shame. He confronts what his family has spent decades trying to forget. The film traces his quest to know the truth and to give a voice back to those who, blameless, bore the burden for life, paying for others’ choices.

GIUDECCA
by Maria Tilli, Italy, 2026, 83’ | Documentary |
On the Giudecca island near Venice, one of Italy’s last female prisons sits inside an elegant former monastery, hosting a small number of inmates who engage in cultural and personal activities in a cooperative atmosphere. During an artistic project in which inmates create self-portraits using stencil, under the guidance of the renowned street artists STEN LEX, inmates Jenni, Rachida, Patrizia, and Giulia share their stories, fears, and dreams. Personal frescoes explore family relationships, the violence experienced and inflicted, irreparable guilt, all joined by a renewed sense of self discovered during their time in prison and the transformative work behind the barriers.

GIVE ME THE BALL!
by Liz Garbus, Elizabeth Wolff, United States, 2026, 102’ | Documentary |
Billie Jean King was not only one of the greatest tennis players of the twentieth century: her fight for equal prize money, the birth of the professional women’s circuit, and the iconic “Battle of the Sexes” against Bobby Riggs in 1973 reshaped the relationship between sport, gender, and civil rights. Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff reconstruct her story through archival material and new interviews, but also highlight the private price King paid: her marriage to Larry King, her relationship with Marilyn Barnett, her public outing in 1981, and the long struggle to reconcile public identity with private life. The portrait does not shy away from the film’s most painful moments, offering a portrait of a woman who spent years subordinating herself to the cause she represented.

Selezione Best Documentary
KNIFE: THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SALMAN RUSHDIE
by Alex Gibney, United States, 2026, 107’ | Documentary |
On August 12, 2022, during a public talk in New York, Salman Rushdie was attacked and stabbed fifteen times, losing his right eye. Building from the writer’s autobiography and footage recorded by his wife Rachel Eliza Griffiths during his recovery, Alex Gibney retraces the dramatic event while connecting the past: from the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 to Khomeini’s fatwa, and three decades lived under the shadow of a death threat. The documentary combines archival material, animation, and readings of Rushdie’s work to offer a rigorous exploration of trauma and memory. By gradually revealing the true images of the attack, the film shifts the focus from the violence of the act to processing the experience, reaffirming the power of words and narration as the only radical instrument to reclaim one’s destiny and not be forever defined by victimhood.

LORENZO – L’INCREDIBILE AVVENTURA DI JOVANOTTI
by Dario Zonta, Carlo Zoratti, Italy, 2026, 83’ | Documentary |
The story of an extraordinary life: songs, success, travel, bicycles, from a small local radio to enormous crowds. But Lorenzo doesn’t stop there; he traverses what we know and arrives at a more intimate, secret, surprising place. An authentic and personal account that becomes a universal reflection on the ability to continue dreaming, loving, and growing at any age. Thus the artist we all know becomes the person very few have truly met.

MACE AN OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE
by Giorgio Testi, Italy, 2026, 75’ | Documentary |
For the second time in his career, MACE returns to the Forum in Milan and reunites the artists who have given voice to his musical universe: Venerus, Gemitaiz, Joan Thiele, Salmo, and many others. The film is more a journey into perception than a mere concert: from the intimate to the collective, from control to ecstasy. Through the words of the participants and footage of rehearsals and performance, it follows the birth of a shared experience. Rehearsals, stage, and audience fuse into a flow where the boundary between reality and hallucination becomes increasingly thin.

THE MATCH
by Juan Cabral, Santiago Franco, Argentina, 2026, 91’ | Documentary |
On June 22, 1986, at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, Argentina and England played one of the most famous quarterfinals in World Cup history, a clash whose significance transcends sport. Four years after the Falklands War, Diego Maradona scored in a few minutes both with the famous “Hand of God” and with what would be hailed as the “Goal of the Century,” one of the most extraordinary athletic feats ever seen. Cabral and Franco revisit those ninety minutes to recount two centuries of rivalry and conflict between the two nations, using archival materials and testimonies from participants of both teams.

NEDO, UN ITALIANO
by Ruggero Gabbai, Italy, 2026, 84’ | Documentary |
Nedo Fiano, born in Florence in 1925, survived Auschwitz because he was drafted into Kanada Kommando, composed of prisoners forced to sort the personal effects of deportees at the camp’s arrival ramp. The film, which traces his testimony about his arrest, deportation, the devastating loss of his entire family upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the terrifying “death march” that took him through seven other camps after Auschwitz’s evacuation, unfolds on three levels: Nedo’s direct testimony, his family’s accounts (the three children Enzo, Andrea, and Emanuele), and grandchildren describing how trauma has been transmitted and the heavy burden borne by silence and painful stories. The personal story thus meets family history and then relates to a broader collective history and to a present that cannot escape the war’s shadows.

NON IMPORTA DOVE
by Francesco Fei, Consuelo Moschella, Italy, 2026, 94’ | Documentary |
After being sidelined by the industry that had made him famous, Morgan disappears. No TV, no contracts, no public life. For two years the film follows him closely with an intimate, discreet presence through daily life, moments of musical creation, and private relationships. Entirely self-produced, the film arises from the desire to approach Morgan without filters, freeing him from the simplified narratives that turned him into a one-dimensional public figure. His Milanese home becomes the heart of the story—a refuge, archive, and battleground—an autobiography in which every object tells a story. Through nights spent composing and small performances away from the spotlight, emerges a portrait of an artist out of control and outside the system, as he seeks to rebuild himself and find a new space in the world, culminating in the reunion of Bluvertigo: a long-awaited return, far from peaceful. The film is not about a fall, but a question: is Morgan a victim of his own persona, or its author?

Selezione Best Documentary
NOWRUZ – NUOVO GIORNO
by Francesco Cannavà, Italy, 2026, 74’ | Documentary |
In Turin, a group of young Iranian women gather around Homa, a women’s soccer team, united by the need to belong to a community. None of them are professionals: they play for passion, to build bonds, to feel free at last. In Iran they were forced to cover themselves and to live under rules that severely restrict women’s rights; in Italy they study, work, train, and attempt to reconstruct a daily life far from home. The film follows their year-long journey toward self-determination and their participation in Balon Mundial 2025, the historic tournament of migrant communities; but suddenly war disrupts their lives: distance from the homeland becomes fear for their families, tension within the community, a painful question about belonging to a homeland that is loved and wounded. In this suspended time, running without a veil, shouting together, falling and rising again become simple and powerful acts of resistance. The film gives voice to a generation often invisible to our gaze: young Iranian women suspended between exile and belonging, who turn nostalgia and pain into community, courage, and a desire for a future.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM
by David Greaves, United States, 2026, 100’ | Documentary |
An August afternoon in 1972 when a large group of Black intellectuals and artists gathered for a party at Duke Ellington’s New York home. Invited by William Greaves, a filmmaker, producer, actor, activist and true legend of American independent cinema in the 1960s–1980s, more legends arrive: the poets, painters, musicians, writers, editors, actors and intellectuals who built the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s and later spread across the United States. They speak, drink punch, recite poetry and literary passages, sing, play piano, rehearse culture, politics, and anecdotes, all under the eyes of the many 16mm cameras of Greaves. No nostalgia, but a proud assertion of their demands and art. Over fifty years later, Greaves’s son, William, recovers the material and edits it with modern editing and split screens to craft a portrait of that movement, drawing a direct line from the 1930s to the 1970s and to today.

PÉTROS ENÍ
by Paula Ortiz, Italy, Spain, Vatican City, 2026, 60’ | Documentary |
The tomb of Saint Peter is one of the Vatican’s best-kept secrets, until now. Guided by the actor Chris Pratt, PÉTROS ENÍ takes us to the heart of the Holy See, down to the hidden Necropolis beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, to tell the story of the tomb of the Apostle and of the first Pope. Peter—the “rock” on which Christianity was built—shaped Catholic faith around the world and, more generally, the course of Western civilization. A journey through faith, history, and archaeology, enriched by the testimony of Pope Leo XIV on what it means to be Peter’s successor. A sacred place explored across the millennia, where the story of Saint Peter intersects with the Basilica’s origins and with the roots of Catholic faith.

PLUS DE BRUIT: MANO NEGRA! (MAKE SOME NOISE: MANO NEGRA!)
by David Dufresne, France, 2026, 109’ | Documentary |
In the late 1980s, the French band Mano Negra exploded onto the music scene in a blaze of energy. Led by Manu Chao, this collective of rebellious, visionary youths forged a new, unprecedented sound. In just four albums and five years, Mano Negra revolutionized world music and lit up stages worldwide. The documentary traces the rapid ascent of a legendary band: a journey of music, freedom, and raw intensity. It also paints a vivid portrait of an era, raising a central question: what do we do with our utopias today?

Selezione Best Documentary
REHEARSALS FOR A REVOLUTION
by Pegah Ahangarani, Czech Republic, Spain, 2026, 95’ | Documentary |
Once a popular actress in her homeland before exile, Pegah Ahangarani reconstructs over four decades of Iranian history through the stories of five people close to her family or to her political and emotional formation. Home videos, photographs, audio recordings, protest footage, and archival material connect the 1979 Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, the repression of opponents, and student protests, up to the most recent events. The film’s great merit lies in refusing the separation between history and autobiography: every political turning point leaves a trace in friendships or family relations. A film that fuses exile diaries with the private history of contemporary Iran, where each generation seems to have to reimagine a revolution that risks remaining unfinished.

Selezione Best Documentary
THE SECRET READING CLUB OF KABUL
by Shakiba Adil, Elina Hirvonen, Finland, Norway, 2026, 95’ | Documentary |
In Kabul, again under Taleban rule, a group of young women clandestinely meets to read books, study, and write diaries, inspired by Anne Frank’s experiences in 1940s Amsterdam. They document the condition of women in Afghanistan using hidden cell phones, turning their homes into shelter and prison as the Taliban attack a clandestine girls’ school or arrest women practicing martial arts. Filmed over three years by Shakiba Adil (who herself grew up under the first Taliban regime, then became the first woman to appear on Afghan television, and was forced to flee twice) with co-director the Finnish writer and documentarian Elina Hirvonen, the film intertwines the protagonists’ stories with Adil’s personal experiences.

SENSE OF WATER
by Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, 2026, 39’
Cast: Behnush Najibi, Ali Nourani
On a winter night under the northern lights, the Iranian writer Ali reaches a glass-walled retreat with his former partner Nazanin. He lives in exile and is expected to build a new life elsewhere, yet he has chosen to return to Iran despite a long prison sentence awaiting him. In less than forty minutes, Rasoulof concentrates many of the film’s core themes: political persecution, the responsibilities of the artist, and above all, the relationship with language. For a writer, exile means not only living in another country but also needing to rediscover in a foreign language the meaning of words like love, anger, joy, and pain.

Selezione Best Documentary
LA STANZA DEGLI ALTRI
by Enrico Maisto, Italy, Switzerland, 2026, 79’ | Documentary |
Mietta is a retired seventy-year-old woman living alone in an elegant Milan district. Once a juvenile judge, she never had a family of her own. Everything changes when Ibu, a Senegalese friend, asks for temporary shelter for herself and her pregnant wife. Mietta decides to take a radical turn in her life: she buys an apartment large enough for everyone and transforms what was meant to be a temporary solution into a long-term cohabitation. The three begin sharing the same space without truly knowing each other, while little Khadim grows up among them. The film follows this shared experience over the years, revealing tensions, silences, and conflicts that test domestic balance, but also the possibility of building a family beyond blood ties, cultural, economic, ethnic, and generational differences.

Selezione Best Documentary
TIN CASTLE
by Alexander Murphy, France, Ireland, 2026, 96’ | Documentary |
On a forgotten road in rural Ireland, Pa’ and Lisa O’Reilly live in an old caravan with their ten children. They belong to Ireland’s Traveller community, yet live on the margins, leading a secluded life, raising horses, and preserving traditions increasingly at odds with modern Ireland’s rules. Alexander Murphy has followed and filmed them for five years, turning the camera into what he calls the “eleventh O’Reilly.” The result dispenses with folklore and sociological critique, instead focusing on poverty, isolation, prejudice, as well as children’s games and a surprising joy.

Selezione Best Documentary
TO HOLD A MOUNTAIN
by Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić, Serbia, France, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, 2026, 105’ | Documentary |
On Montenegro’s high plains, Mileva “Gara” Jovanović and her daughter Nada raise livestock as the mountains face a NATO training facility project. Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić follow the family’s struggle alongside the local community, grounding their actions in everyday shepherding, animal care, and family memory marred by violence. A documentary that fuses environmentalism, anti-militarism, and peasant resistance to defend the same idea of territorial defense. Politically sharp but always humane, with women sustaining generational continuity, work, and landscape in a simple and powerful film that Montenegro submits to the 2027 Academy Awards.

TUTTE LE STANZE CHE SERVONO
by Francesca Sironi, Alberto Gottardo, Italy, 2026, 42’ | Documentary |
Behind every door lies a different room of life. A pregnancy to protect or terminate, a confused adolescent, a disoriented mother. They are all heard at the family planning clinic. Tutte le stanze che servono is a radical observational documentary that for the first time gives unprecedented access to Milan’s Policlinico family clinic—a public service at the heart of people’s rights, bodies, and daily choices. Moving freely across ages and timelines, the film explores doubts, fear, courage, laughter, and the lived experiences of women and girls.

ULTIMO FELLINI
by Gianluigi Attorre, Italy, 2026, 113’ | Documentary |
Fellini has been told a lot, but there is a chapter that remains relatively unexplored: the last decade of his life and his art. In the 1980s and 1990s, the film industry celebrated him but struggled to support his visions. The Master never stops creating and fights to continue expressing himself. He shares his dreams with extraordinary companions: Roberto Benigni, Martin Scorsese, Nicola Piovani, Vincenzo Mollica, Milo Manara, and his inseparable secretary Fiammetta Profili. Written and directed by Gianluigi Attorre, Ultimo Fellini reveals the man behind the icon through three years of research, private archives, and unseen materials, starting from Vincenzo Mollica’s precious materials. An intimate, authentic, and vibrant portrait of a genius who continued to give stories and thoughts that will shine forever.

WAX & GOLD
by Ruth Beckermann, Austria, Italy, Ethiopia, 2026, 97’ | Documentary |
“Wax and gold” is an Ethiopian-American poetic metaphor in which a secret, precious content is hidden beneath something ordinary. It also serves to mask the truth and make it inaccessible: a device that arises in the attempt to tell the story of Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s last emperor, who was dethroned in 1974. A figure still controversial and debated, portrayed in the equally controversial book The Negus. Splendors and miseries of a tyrant, by Ryszard Kapuściński, whose reception among today’s readers Beckermann studies. The film also offers an unexpected portrait of a country with a millennia-old culture that is changing. After a brief Fascist colonial episode, Ethiopia today is a site of interest for contemporary powers, starting with China.

BEST OF 2026

BEN’IMANA
by Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, Rwanda, Gabon, France, Ivory Coast, 2026, 101’ | Debut Feature |
Cast: Clémentine U. Nyirinkindi, Kesia Kelly Nishimwe, Arivere Kagoyire, Isabelle Kabano, Antoinette Uwamahoro, Léocadie Uwabeza, Aime Valens Tuyisenge, Hamida Uwimana, Adelite Mugabo, Clémence Murorunkwere
Rwanda, 2012. Eighteen years after the genocide against the Tutsis, a survivor woman, Vénéranda, organizes meetings between the victims and families of the perpetrators. She believes in reconciliation, but her daughter Tina’s unexpected pregnancy forces her to test her beliefs once more. For a first feature, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo focuses the narrative on the women who, almost twenty years after the genocide, continue to live beside those who took part in the massacres. Some demand justice, others guard secrets, and some no longer want to hear forgiveness asked of them. Cannes 2026: Caméra d’Or for Best First Feature.

LA BOLA NEGRA
by Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi, Spain, 2026, 155’
Cast: Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Lola Dueñas, Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close
1932: Carlos, heir to a Granada family, receives a black billiard ball. It is the categorical rejection by the city’s prestigious casino, as he is homosexual. 1937: Sebastián is a trumpeter among the nationalists during the Civil War. His duty is to guard a war prisoner: Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, the last ally of Federico García Lorca. 2017: Alberto, estranged from his mother Teresa for being openly homosexual, receives his grandfather’s will and a document that recalls memories long kept quiet. Linked by the unfinished Lorca play La bola negra and the drama La piedra oscura by Alberto Conejero (which imagines finishing Lorca’s work), the three stories chase one another and interweave with energy and visual exuberance. The duo “Los Javis” (Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo), famed for their TV series, win the Best Director prize at Cannes and represent Spain at the 2027 Academy Awards.

FATHERLAND
by Paweł Pawlikowski, Poland, Germany, Italy, France, 2026, 82’
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Anna Madeley
Fatherland focuses on the relationship between Nobel Prize-winning author Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller), a writer, actress, and rally driver. In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, father and daughter embark on a challenging and emotional road trip by car across a shattered Germany—from Frankfurt, under American influence, to Weimar, under Soviet control. Returning home after sixteen years in exile in the United States, Mann must confront not only a divided nation but also a deep rift within his own family. With Fatherland, Pawlikowski continues the work begun with Ida and Cold War, exploring identity, family, love, and guilt against the backdrop of postwar Europe’s turmoil and moral confusion. In competition at Cannes 2026 and Poland’s Oscar® 2027 submission.

FJORD
by Cristian Mungiu, Romania, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, 2026, 146’
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Lisa Carlehed, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Henrikke Lund-Olsen, Vanessa Ceban
The Gheorghiu—a devoted Romanian-Norwegian couple—move to a village nestled in a fjord where they befriend the neighboring Halbergs. Their children grow close despite divergent upbringing. When the teenage Elia Gheorghiu presents at school with bruises on his body, the community wonders whether traditional upbringing by the Gheorghiu parents might be implicated. Cannes 2026 Palme d’Or winner and Romania’s Oscar® 2027 submission.

HOPEU (HOPE)
by Na Hong-jin, South Korea, 2026, 156’
Cast: Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton
In Hope Harbor, a remote fishing village between forests and mountains in the demilitarized zone separating the Koreas, hunters report a dead ox in a country road to Commissioner Bum-seok. Although he pursues a fierce creature—perhaps a tiger—the truth proves far more terrifying: a gigantic, humanoid monster, over three meters tall, sowing destruction and death. Bum-seok chases the beast. A stunning example of Korean fantasy-horror saga, the first hour of Hope is relentless, then briefly shifts into comedy before returning to a sci-fi invasion finale. A superb and gripping Korean fantasy-hanting film written and directed by Na Hong-jin (The Chaser, Goksung). Special appearances by Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander.

MARIAGE AU GOUT D’ORANGE
by Christophe Honoré, France, 2026, 115’
Cast: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Vincent Lacoste, Paul Kircher, Alban Lenoir, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Malou Khebizi
March 1978, in the suburbs of Nantes. Jacques Puig (Paul Kircher), the youngest of seven siblings, is about to marry Martine (Malou Khebizi), a girl from the neighborhood. All the family members attend the wedding except Jacques’s father, who has been banished from the family. For the couple, it is a love marriage. But can love heal childhood wounds? Adapted from the autobiographical stage work Le Ciel de Nantes (2021), Honoré crafts a powerful ensemble tapestry of lives that dance between joy and pain, echoing the sensibilities of Claude Sautet and Robert Altman. A Cannes 2026 out-of-competition “immersive” and captivating experience for audiences.

MINOTAUR
by Andrey Zvyagintsev, France, Germany, Latvia, Russia, 2026, 140’
Cast: Dmitriy Mazurov, Iris Lebedeva, Boris Kudrin, Yuriy Zavalnyouk, Varvara Zmykova, Vladimir Friedman
Gleb is a successful businessman who runs a shipping company, with a charming wife and a teenage son. The action unfolds in Krasnoborsk, Russia, in 2022, as the war between Russia and Ukraine begins. An invisible war affects everyone’s lives. The government drafts men for the front; friends and colleagues of Gleb emigrate; tension and uncertainty seep through the country. Then Gleb discovers his wife’s infidelity with a young photographer. Based on a narrative by Andrey Zvyagintsev, this film provides a harsh, tightly wound portrayal of Russia’s bourgeois class, its ritual façades, power dynamics, and the violence that pervades relationships. A thriller and social fresco that won the Grand Prix of the Jury at Cannes 2026 and stands as France’s Oscar® 2027 submission.

NINA ROZA
by Geneviève Dulude-De Celles, Canada, Italy, Bulgaria, Belgium, 2026, 104’
Cast: Galin Stoev, Ekaterina Stanina, Sofia Stanina, Chiara Caselli, Michelle Tzontchev, Christian Bégin, Nikolay Mutafchiev
The viral video of a Bulgarian eight-year-old painter Nina—considered a prodigy of painting—circulates online. The phenomenon draws the attention of a Bulgarian art expert, Mihail (Galin Stoev), who lives in Montreal and is tasked with returning to Bulgaria to assess the young artist’s work. For the first time in his homeland, almost thirty years after leaving, Mihail faces the ghosts of his past—the guilt of emigration and unresolved tensions with his sister—while his direct contact with little Nina brings him back to the “before” that seemed buried in memory forever. Written and directed by Geneviève Dulude-de Celles in her sophomore film, it won the Silver Bear for Screenplay at the previous Berlin Film Festival and was Canada’s Oscar® 2027 selection.

NOTRE SALUT
by Emmanuel Marre, France, Belgium, 2026, 153’
Cast: Swann Arlaud, Sandrine Blancke, Mathieu Perotto, Harpo Guit, Mathilde Abd-El-Kader, Jean-Baptiste Marre
September 1940. Henri Marre, a fifty-something engineer with no money or prospects, arrives in Vichy as the regime consolidates its control. Armed with several copies of his self-published manifesto “Notre Salut” (“Our Salvation”), he seeks a high post in the new administration. But his desire for efficiency and order drags him deeper into the machinery of collaboration. Marre is a lucid and rigorous meditation on complicity with evil and on how daily compromise erodes a sense of justice. Won Best Screenplay at Cannes 2026.

THE ONLY LIVING PICKPOCKET IN NEW YORK
by Noah Segan, United States, 2026, 88’
Cast: John Turturro, Steve Buscemi, Giancarlo Esposito, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany
In the past, he was a master of his craft: Harry Lehman, a light-handed thief with a sharp eye, a consummate pickpocket in New York. But the city has changed: cash is rarely carried, valuables are scarce; credit cards are blocked, smartphones tracked, and Harry himself has aged—an “analog” relic. The long-awaited heist seems to be the one that will finally go right, only to become a dangerous misstep. Cloaked in a long tweed coat, John Turturro traverses New York’s five boroughs, immersed in jazz, at once comical, melancholic, and anachronistic in a distinctly American crime film with the rhythm, wit, and beauty of the 1970s. Written and directed by actor Noah Segan (his second feature after Blood Relatives), featuring cameos by Steve Buscemi and Jamie Lee Curtis. The film’s strong festival presence in 2026 includes Sundance, Berlin, Karlovy Vary, Telluride, Toronto, and New York.

EL SER QUERIDO
by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Spain, France, 2026, 135’
Cast: Javier Bardem, Victoria Luengo, Melina Matthews, Marina Foïs, Malena Villa, Mourad Ouani, Pepa Gracia, Raúl Prieto, Pablo Gómez Pando, Raúl Arévalo, Nuria Prims, Laura Birn
A man and a younger woman sit across from each other at a table; they speak, and the camera never leaves their faces as a dynamic unfolds. They discuss a film they will make together and hint at a long separation. They are Esteban Martinez (Javier Bardem) and his daughter Emilia (Victoria Luengo): a renowned director who, after many years living and working in the United States, with two Academy Awards and a new family, returns to Spain to make a film about Spain’s colonial history in the Sahara during the 1930s; while Emilia—who hasn’t seen her father in twenty years, since he left her mother—has mostly acted in television and works as a waiter. Thus begins the story of a film’s production, shaped by a complex web of revenge and guilt, love and anger that binds director and lead actress; the story of a film and all those who work on it, under the control of a harsh and exacting boss. The talented Rodrigo Sorogoyen builds his film around a few highly effective moments (from the tense twenty-minute opening dialogue to the repeated desert lunch takes), while never abandoning a delicate focus on all characters, from the two leads to the other figures on set.

STORIA DEL CINEMA

DOCUMENTARIES

ALIEN VS. CIRO
by Ciro Ippolito, Italy, 2026, 78’ | Documentary |
The Cinemagnacce, two young Milanese bloggers who love horror cinema, set out to hunt down Ciro Ippolito, the old Neapolitan director who, in 1980, made the sci-fi Alien 2 Sulla Terra, signing as Sam Cromwell. A low-budget film that has, over the years, become a cult, especially for the many adventures that marked its making. The Cinemagnacce aim to tell Ciro’s adventures through a character created with AI. The veteran director, back in the limelight, tours to present several films reevaluated by critics. At first skeptical, he agrees under pressure from the young people. Milan, Pisa, Rome, and Sitges form the backdrop for a hilarious generational clash and surprising developments. A multi-layer road movie that juxtaposes two ways of making cinema, through AI and the craft of the cinematographer. Two worlds that, perhaps, are not as distant as they seem.

BELLOCCHIO, LE CINÉMA DE LA RÉVOLTÉ À LA TENDRESSE
by Jean Gili, Sandra Marti, France, 2026, 52’ | Documentary |
For more than sixty years, Marco Bellocchio has filmed Italy to illuminate the country’s deepest wounds: family, power, religion, violence, memory. Through an exceptional interview with the director and the testimonies of his collaborators, this documentary explores the work of an artist who turned his inner struggles into universal cinema. More a portrait than a biography, it is a plunge into the heart of a free and demanding creation, where every film sheds light on the one that came before and forms, across the decades, a single search for truth.

CARLO MONNI, COME UN GRILLO NELL’URAGANO
by Romeo Conte, Valentino Conte, Italy, 2026, 77’ | Documentary |
Carlo Monni was an actor, poet, and theatre man, and, above all, a son of the land. Born in Campi Bisenzio in 1943 to a farming family, he traversed cinema, television, theatre, music, and poetry, always carrying a deep identity linked to his origins. From his youth in the Tuscan countryside to his collaboration with Donato Sannini and Roberto Benigni, from moving to Rome to his celebrated film roles as one of Tuscany’s most recognizable faces, the film follows his journey through testimonies from colleagues and friends. For some, Carlo Monni was a “good devil”; for others, a saint, a modern-day Franciscan. He could be brusque, romantic, unpredictable, and generous. Yet behind these labels lies a figure difficult to confine to a single role: a man who turned words, gestures, food, friendship, and even everyday encounters into his own form of performance. Through interviews, archival footage, theatrical and cinematic fragments, and his own words, the documentary searches for the man behind the actor and the poet behind the man. The portrait that emerges is that of a free, deeply popular artist, rooted in his land but capable of transforming it into imagination, storytelling, and poetry: Carlo Monni, the Peasant Poet.

CAROLCO, UN RÊVE HOLLYWOODIEN
by Julien Dupuy, Jérémy Fauchoux, France, 2026, 60’ | Documentary |
The emblem of Hollywood excess and the American dream, the Carolco production company was, above all, the incredible adventure of Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna. Mario, from Lebanon, had a natural talent for attracting stars; Andy, Hungarian, was a formidable businessman. Together they allowed great directors of the era—from Alan Parker to Roland Emmerich and Oliver Stone—to express themselves freely and produced films for major stars of the 1980s and 1990s, from Sylvester Stallone to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone. Told for the first time by those who animated the studio, the documentary revisits those fifteen wild years, from the heights of fame to the sudden collapse.

CRONENBERG À CORPS OUVERT
by Marc Godin, France, 2026, 52’ | Documentary |
For Martin Scorsese, Cronenberg seems “a Beverly Hills gynecologist.” For almost six decades, however, the Canadian director has given form to unsettling films and visions drawn from his nightmares. Although since the early 2000s his cinema has become more measured, Cronenberg remains the master of parasitic horror and body horror, violence and pathological sexuality. “I am a child of chaos,” he says, referring to his Jewish grandparents who fled the pogroms in Lithuania. The documentary retraces the artist’s career, returning to his early days in Canada and his first horror B-movies, detailing the shoots of his films and analyzing some of his most iconic frames. A journey into a radical imaginary where the obsessions that ran through his entire body of work return.

LES FILMS INACHEVÉS
by Laurent Galinon, France, 2026, 64’ | Documentary |
What do Kubrick, Welles, Fellini, Leone, and Tati have in common? These legendary filmmakers all abandoned the film that would have defined their life. Grand projects that never came to be, productions cursed, enormous budgets, the director’s death: Napoleon, Mastorna, Leningrad, Confusion, and Don Quixote are wrapped in mystery, fueling endless obsessions and questions among cinephiles. Laurent Galinon’s film brings to light a parallel, long-buried filmography that has, over the years, become a cinematic myth in its own right.

LAURA BETTI, UNA DISPERATA VITALITÀ
by Peter Marcias, Italy, 2026, 80’ | Documentary |
A singer, actress, writer, provocateur by instinct before choice, Laura Betti traversed the extraordinary years of the latter half of the twentieth century as a vibrant, rebellious personality. A devotee of Pasolini’s cult, a visceral performer, her voice—both lyrical and fierce—captured existential torments. Betti was too much: too alive, too intelligent, too angry to wear modest clothes. She possessed the candor of a child and the ferocity of someone who refuses to be deceived. A stubborn, unyielding woman who, at times, acted against herself, she traversed life with a desperate, animalistic vitality. The film reveals a woman who embraced life with a fierce, relentless energy.

RIZ, ARMONIE E DISSONANZE
by Marco Dentici, Italy, 2026, 115’ | Documentary |
Riz Ortolani, one of the world’s greatest composers of film scores, conductor of the Rai Symphony Orchestra’s rhythm section in the late 1950s, and conductor at the world’s leading theatres. On the centenary of his birth, using rare archival material, new animations, interviews, and live performances, the film revisits the versatility of a composer who could move from jazz to classical music, from lyrical pieces like “Dolce è sentir” written for Zeffirelli’s Fratello sole, sorella luna, to the scores for “Il sorpasso” and to the iconic “Mondo Cane,” which earned him a Grammy and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. Beyond a portrait of a long, prolific international career, the film also offers an intimate look at his private life, through the testimony of Katyna Ranieri, his wife, and other collaborators such as Pupi Avati, Renzo Arbore, Plácido Domingo, Filippo Sugar, Andrea Bocelli, and Stefano Bollani, who explain the “harmonies and dissonances” of the Maestro’s life.

ROBERTO PERPIGNANI – L’EMOZIONE DEI TAGLI IMPROPRI
by Marco Chiarini, Italy, 2026, 102’ | Documentary |
In retracing the career of Roberto Perpignani, a master of Italian editing, director Marco Chiarini discovers that the film he is making is not only about cinema and its great authors, but about all the experiences—joyous and painful—that have marked the editor’s life and, unexpectedly, resonate with Chiarini’s own practice and feelings. The film becomes an intimate dialogue between two artists and their shared approach to cinema and emotion.

ROBERT RICHARDSON – THE WHITE DEVIL
by Jana Hojdová, Czech Republic, 2026, 104’ | Documentary |
Three Oscars for JFK, The Aviator, and Hugo, and numerous collaborations with Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, John Sayles, Errol Morris, Robert Redford, and many others. Robert Richardson, one of the greatest living directors of photography, speaks about his art in a documentary by young Czech filmmaker Jana Hojdová, who accessed him during the Covid lockdown after expressing a wish to make his thesis about him. Richardson shares diaries, photos, and memories; together with his partners and children, he recounts collaborations with Scorsese, Stone, Tarantino, Kate Hudson, Robert Downey Jr., and others. The portrait reveals the human and professional life of a photographer whose work spans decades.

TERRIFIC SERGIO
by Vanessa Strizzi, Melissa Strizzi, Italy, 2026, 75’ | Documentary |
During preparations for the London exhibition “Sergio Strizzi The Perfect Moment” dedicated to Sergio Strizzi, daughters Vanessa and Melissa Strizzi recount their father’s career and their relationship with him, one of the most important set photographers in Italian and international cinema. Active from the 1950s to the early 2000s, Strizzi took part in more than a hundred films, capturing iconic images now part of our collective memory—from Totò eating spaghetti in Miseria e nobiltà to photographs from Italian classics by De Sica, Monicelli, Antonioni, Petri, Rosi, Tornatore, Benigni, and also from John Huston, Terry Gilliam, Francis Ford Coppola, and many others. Sergio Strizzi was not merely a set photographer but a true artist of imagery.

RESTAURI

LES AMANTS DU PONT-NEUF
by Leos Carax, France, 1991, 125’
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant, Klaus-Michael Grüber, Daniel Buain, Marion Stalens, Chantal Auber
The unforgettable meeting between a fire-eating street performer and a young runaway painter with a rare eye disease. A raw fairy tale romance set around Paris’s most ancient bridge, Pont Neuf, closed for repairs: amid alcohol and sedatives, museum visits, waterskiing on the Seine, and robberies, Carax builds a film balancing symbolism and realism. A wildly ambitious work, featuring Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant in a memorable acting tour de force.
Restoration: MK2 with support from CNC. Courtesy of StudioCanal Classics

BILLY LIAR
by John Schlesinger, United Kingdom, 1963, 98’
Cast: Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, Wilfred Pickles, Mona Washbourne, Ethel Griffies, Finlay Currie
In Billy Liar, a cornerstone of the British New Wave, young funeral director Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) escapes provincial mediocrity by retreating into the imaginary realm of Ambrosia, weaving an intricate web of lies and lovers. An encounter with free-spirited Liz (Julie Christie) seems to offer a route to London, but his inability to sever ties with his own reality ends up trapping him. A film that blends visual humor with an approach that still honors classical storytelling, a quintessential portrait of youthful frustration in early-1960s Britain.
Restoration: StudioCanal Classics

BOOGIE NIGHTS
by Paul Thomas Anderson, United States, 1997, 155’
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy
Set in 1977, the golden era of porn cinema, Mark Wahlberg is transformed from a waiter to a superstar, albeit in the back rooms. There is no explicit sex scene; instead, the film offers a revealing finale and a cinematic universe of its own, with love and squalor. The film explores a world with an Altman-esque sensibility and nods to Scorsese, but is truly Paul Thomas Anderson’s own cinematic vision. Restoration: Warner Bros. supervised by Paul Thomas Anderson

L’ECLISSE
by Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 1962, 126’
Cast: Alain Delon, Monica Vitti, Francisco Rabal, Lilla Brignone, Rossana Rory, Mirella Ricciardi
L’Eclisse is a precise study of absence between a man and a woman who drift apart in a way that cannot be reversed. The alienation between the two (she, a bored bourgeois figure; he, a rising, cynical man) is rendered by Antonioni in a mood of playful and adolescent courtship, making the emptiness between them even crueller. Restoration: StudioCanal Classics with the permission of MondoTV

FIGHT CLUB
by David Fincher, United States, 1999, 139’
Cast: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, Jared Leto, Zach Grenier
Adapted from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, the film traces a man’s descent into madness through the birth of a clandestine fighting club. Fincher probes the psyche and the theme of the double through a schizophrenic storytelling that juxtaposes the protagonist’s loneliness with the cathartic violence of his dream-world. By staging the clash, the film erases social class boundaries and attacks the consumerist dictator of modern life: rejecting a life defined by brands and goods, it offers a visceral and savage answer to life’s emptiness. By staging the protagonist’s downfall as a result of a system, the film masters a balance of sociological analysis and pure visual spectacle, becoming a cult classic of counterculture. Restoration: Disney

MARIE ANTOINETTE
by Sofia Coppola, United States, 2006, 125’
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Rose Byrne, Asia Argento, Molly Shannon, Danny Huston
A grand court in France. Coppola reimagines the period drama in pop terms, recasting Marie Antoinette not as a queen but as a youthful girl, with the longings and melancholy of a vulnerable age, living in a stifling society. The old world collides anachronistically with the contemporary: while Manolo Blahnik shoes appear, cross-pollinating styles, the soundtrack fuses Vivaldi and Scarlatti with New Order, The Strokes, and The Cure. The exquisite costumes by Milena Canonero earned an Oscar. Restoration: Zoetrope

MEPHISTO
by István Szabó, Hungary, 1981, 146’
Cast: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Krystyna Janda, Ildikó Bánsági, Rolf Hoppe, György Cserhalmi, Péter Andorai
Mephisto by István Szabó is not only a rediscovered classic of Hungarian cinema but a merciless mirror of the human soul. Through the story of actor Hendrik Höfgen, brilliantly portrayed by Klaus Maria Brandauer, we witness the tragic clash between artistic talent and blind ambition. Facing Adolf Hitler’s rise, the hero chooses to betray his principles and loyalties to stay at center stage. Based on Klaus Mann’s controversial novel, this Faustian parable reveals the terrible price paid when one makes a pact with power. Restoration: Hungarian Film Laboratory, in collaboration with the Hungarian Film Directors’ Society and with the support of Minerva Pictures

MORIRE GRATIS
by Sandro Franchina, Italy, 1967, 88’
Cast: Franco Angeli, Karen Blanguernon, Torquato Baglioni, Alessandro Lilloni, Mario Mulas
A Roman artist exhibits a sculpture representing the Capitoline Wolf; after two days, he must take the piece to Paris for display at another gallery. A French guest shows great interest, and they arrange to meet in Paris to finalize the sale. Despite exhaustion, the sculptor decides to depart that very night for the long journey. He loads the sculpture onto his Alfa Romeo Giulietta and leaves. Along the way he meets Michelle, a young Parisian girl who must return home; the two continue their journey together to France. During the trip they come to know each other and confront one another. “Dying for free means dying for nothing, but I’m not afraid of death… artist, delegate, powerless, alcoholic.” These are Franco Angeli’s words, spoken by the real-life Roman street artist who traveled from Rome to Paris with his latest sculpture—a Capitoline Wolf. Morire gratis is Franchina’s only feature-length film that was never released. Restoration: Cinecittà SpA and Archivio Luce

Paz!
by Renato De Maria, Italy, 2001, 102’
Cast: Claudio Santamaria, Flavio Pistilli, Max Mazzotta, Matteo Taranto, Rosalinda Celentano, Iaia Forte, Roberto Citran
“Paz! I started from comics. No frame, no premise nor consequences. I wanted to work within Andrea’s comics and do it with discipline. Pazienza was the brilliant narrator of a generation. Not only that: he invented and told characters that have become symbols of youth, of a particular era in life. In my film I interwoven three stories that belong to Paz’s tales. The first two are Pentothal and Zanardi; the third is Enrico Fiabeschi. Pentothal represents Bologna’s generation of ’77: the movement as a whole—political and cultural. Zanardi is Paz’s most famous character, sharper and more caustic. It’s youth in its purest, cynical form. Fiabeschi is the character I contributed most to building. He appears only in two pages of a Paz story called ‘Giorno.’ To draw a character from such a slender starting point, I drew inspiration from the comics that ran in ‘Male’ or ‘Frigidaire’” (Renato De Maria).
Restoration: 11 Marzo Film and I.T.C. Movie with the director Renato De Maria and cinematographer Gian Filippo Corticelli’s supervision. Courtesy of Lucky Red

POLA X
by Leos Carax, France, 1999, 134’
Cast: Guillaume Depardieu, Yekaterina Golubeva, Catherine Deneuve, Delphine Chuillot, Laurent Lucas, Šarūnas Bartas
An adaptation of Pierre or the Ambiguities of Melville, Pola X marks a dark shift toward obsession and identity deconstruction. The film follows Pierre’s downfall as he abandons privileged life in Normandy to sink into Parisian misery with his illegitimate sister Isabelle. Pre-empting the “New French Extremity,” Carax blends visceral eroticism, taboo incest, and harsh industrial sounds into an aesthetics of excess devoid of catharsis. Through the stark contrast between aristocratic light and metropolitan darkness, the work becomes a tragic manifesto about the impossibility of preserving purity: a merciless search for truth that, instead of saving the protagonists, devours them.

SANS TITRE
by Leos Carax, France, 1997, 9’
Commissioned by the Cannes Film Festival on its 50th anniversary, Sans titre is a manifesto of radical experimentation, free from the usual constraints of feature-film synthesis. Through a magmatic editing that fuses silent cinema, natural elements, war, and eros, Carax anticipates the moods of his later Pola X and offers a portrait of a filmmaker with a slippery, intentionally incoherent, and enigmatic identity. Restoration: Leos Carax, Arena Films, and Cinémathèque Française, at the Eclair Classics lab. Courtesy of Arena Films

SEMBRA MORTO… MA È SOLO SVENUTO
by Felice Farina, Italy, 1986, 85’
Cast: Sergio Castellitto, Marina Confalone, Mario Prosperi, Anita Zagaria, Claudio Spadaro
In a small apartment on Rome’s outskirts live forty-something siblings Romano and Marina Duranti, a lazy but curious pair, deeply affectionate. Marina falls for a cheerful neighbor, Alfio, who seduces her and then hides a package of drugs in his fridge. When the police arrive, the goods are not found, but Alfio, implicated in the crime network, bolts. Marina, besotted, follows him into the street. For Romano, who had found and concealed the package, it’s a near-collapse; he regroups, specializing in running illegal bets and dog-napping. Years later, Marina returns home pregnant, alone. There’s little time for explanations: Romano loads Marina into a car, a greyhound in the trunk. In Farina’s directorial debut, forty years ahead of Easy Rider, Morire gratis is the film that never saw distribution—a hallucinatory blend of Italian comedy, thriller, social investigation, and intimate moments. The first mark of a director who is uniquely independent and curious. Restoration: Cinecittà SpA and Archivio Luce

SEXY BEAST
by Jonathan Glazer, United Kingdom, 2000, 90’
Cast: Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane, Amanda Redman, James Fox, Cavan Kendall
Jonathan Glazer’s spectacular debut shattered the British gangster movie template, turning a classic heist into a claustrophobic psychodrama. Moving the action from dreary London to the sun-drenched Spain, the film meditates on the illusion that ex-criminal Gal can escape his past. The idyll is shattered by the arrival of Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), a sociopathic force of nature whose verbal violence is as devastating as any physical one. Rich with surreal insights, the film stands as a stark parable about the impossibility of severing ties with one’s past. Restoration: 4K approved by the director. Courtesy of Minerva Pictures

TRAINSPOTTING
by Danny Boyle, United Kingdom, 1996, 93’
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald
In the drab Edinburgh of Irvine Welsh’s novel, twenty-year-old Mark Renton and his wayward friends seek heroin as a refuge from the banality of modern life. A defining film of the Nineties, it charts drug addiction by moving through the city’s grimy underbelly and moral ambivalence. Driven by an unforgettable soundtrack that fuses Lou Reed with Underworld, Trainspotting quickly established itself as an immortal cult classic.
Restoration: Sony. Courtesy of Adler Entertainment

TROUBLE IN PARADISE
by Ernst Lubitsch, United States, 1932, 83’
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charles Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton, C. Aubrey Smith
Between a papier-mâché Venice and a dizzying Paris of glamorous interiors, an international thief and a clever con artist exchange bags, fall in love, hatch plots against a languid, very rich Madame and her awkward suitors. Trouble in Paradise is not Lubitsch’s first talkie; between 1929 and 1932 there were musical comedies, from The Love Parade to One Hour with You. But here Lubitsch first invites the word to do all that language can offer his lucid gaze on cinema and the world. A film of audacious ambition, with Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant delivering a memorable performance. Restoration: Criterion

OMAGGI ED EVENTI SPECIALI

HONORARY TO BRUNELLO RONDI

FRANCESCO GIULLARE DI DIO
by Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1950, 85’
Cast: Aldo Fabrizi, Gianfranco Bellini, Peparuolo, Severino Pisacane, Roberto Sorrentino, Arabella Lemaitre
Scripted by Roberto Rossellini in collaboration with Federico Fellini, Father Antonio Lisandrini, Father Félix Morlion, and Brunello Rondi. Courtesy of Mediaset-RTI.

Book presentation
“THE CINEMA OF FELLINI” by BRUNELLO RONDI, CURATED BY ROY MENARINI
Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia/Edizioni Sabinae 2026

HONORARY TO GILLO PONTECORVO

LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI
by Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy, Algeria, 1966, 121’
Cast: Brahim Haggiag, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Samia Kerbash, Ugo Paletti, Fusia El Kader
Restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna and Istituto Luce – Cinecittà, in collaboration with Igor Videocine Produzioni, Surf Film Srl, Casbah Entertainment Inc. and CultFilms, at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory. Courtesy of Surf Film.

BELLEZZA E BIZZARRIA: OMAGGIO A GOFFREDO FOFI
Goffredo Fofi was a cultural agitator, as well as a scholar, writer, critic. He trained generations of researchers, artists, cultural and social operators with his intelligence, passion, moral strength, and curiosity. To remember him, eleven films chosen from those Fofi particularly loved, introduced by his voice and by his friends and collaborators.

OMAGGIO A TESSA ROSS

BILLY ELLIOT
by Stephen Daldry, United Kingdom, France, 2000, 110’
Cast: Jamie Bell, Julie Walters, Gary Lewis, Jamie Draven, Jean Heywood, Stuart Wells

IN BRUGES
by Martin McDonagh, United Kingdom, United States, 2008, 107’
Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clémence Poésy, Jérémie Renier, Jordan Prentice

THE ZONE OF INTEREST
by Jonathan Glazer, United States, United Kingdom, Poland, 2023, 106’
Cast: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Johann Karthaus, Luis Noah Witte, Nele Ahrensmeier. Courtesy of IWonder Pictures.

THE LOBSTER
by Yorgos Lanthimos, France, 2015, 118’
Cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Jessica Barden, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Ariane Labed, Angeliki Papoulia, John C. Reilly, Ben Whishaw

SHAME
by Steve McQueen, United Kingdom, 2011, 99’
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale, Nicole Beharie, Hannah Ware

HONORARY TO JACQUES PERRIN

LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT
by Jacques Demy, France, 1967, 126’
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, George Chakiris, Gene Kelly, Jacques Perrin, Michel Piccoli, Jacques Riberolles, Grover Dale, Henri Crémieux, Pamela Hart, Leslie North, Danielle Darrieux

NUOVO CINEMA PARADISO
by Giuseppe Tornatore, Italy, France, 1988, 123’
Cast: Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Agnes Nano, Leopoldo Trieste, Antonella Attili, Enzo Cannavale, Pupella Maggio. Courtesy of Cristaldifilm.

OCEANS
by Jacques Cluzaud, Jacques Perrin, France, Spain, 2009, 84’ | Documentary |