The CFF hosts a selection of 28 Italian and international short films. The jury of excellence, composed of leading figures from the Italian cultural scene, will award the prizes for Best National Short Film, Best International Short Film and Best Documentary Short Film: President of the jury Gregorio Paonessa, Giulia Grandinetti, Raffaele Perillo, Vittoria Spaccapietra, Alessandro Gori and Fabrizio Ciavoni.
In a dystopian future where the borders between countries are closed indefinitely, a replica of Hanover becomes the only way to experience Western culture. Citizen Yu wanders through this nostalgic and unsettling city, built on memories of the past. But what does he really see?
An elderly Malay-Tamil couple discovers that their goat, destined for ceremonial sacrifice, is pregnant. Divided between their faith and the expectations of the community, they must decide whether to perform the sacrifice or face the wrath of the gods.
In an isolated castle, students prepare for an exam that will change their lives. As the wait reaches its peak, a storm breaks out. Trapped between dilapidated walls, their academic sanctuary transforms into a prison and their minds begin to give way.
Selma takes her nephew Dino on a hike to take him away from computers and video games. During the journey, their contact with nature leads them to confront themselves and find a new way to communicate.
On the outskirts of Lima, the 11-year-old Chito lives with his brother Rockío in a neighborhood that grew up on the outskirts of an immense cemetery. On the roof of their house, he takes care of traveling pigeons employed in illegal trafficking, with whom he has established a deep bond. Together with his friends, he sells flowers among the graves, suspended between play and survival.
During a game, the violence that sweeps through the neighborhood breaks out brutally, killing Rockío and another boy and shattering their childhood. The community deals with the grief through rituals, music, and dance. Overwhelmed by grief, Chito seeks revenge, but an unexpected act of humanity deflects his fate, opening a crack of freedom in the sky.
Liepa and her daughter move to Germany in search of a new beginning, but soon find themselves facing disapproval from their family and the difficulties of life in the big city.
Cebriana is convinced she saw a fire in the night on the mountain. There are no traces of flames or witnesses to confirm her vision. Her grandmother, an elderly herbalist, will try to help her see beyond the flames.
Dan has an open wound in his neck that refuses to heal. Why? He can’t remember it, nor talk about it. Returning to the unsettling arena of his childhood, he must find that part of himself that he once left behind and that, now as an adult, prevents him from being whole.
Planet Earth, year 2960 AD. A group of uranium miners returns to the blue planet in search of the precious metal. The crackling of the Geiger counter leads one member of the team into the depths of a cave. There, the explorer comes across an ancient relic from the world of old, awakening it from a sleep that lasted centuries, perhaps millennia.
“Bestia Feroce Bestia Lontana” tells the last day of the life of Ettore Macca, while his voiceover reflects on the outside world, addressing his sister, his mother, his father, his ex-boyfriend and himself. The short film blends the classic digital camera style with the staticness of the analog photographic format. The work is a letter of farewell from a person who has decided to leave this world, a study of the past, trauma, a dysfunctional family and depression.
On a quiet late summer day, Alessandro and Flavio go in search of the last secrets of their city. Today, some trails lead them to unexplored places, and they wait for the night on a large cherry tree. A beer with friends in a deserted square, the motorcycles returning home like a flock, and then nothing more.
A year after the start of her gender transition, Marina spends a summer weekend at her best friend Camilla’s house. Everyone tells her how beautiful she has become, but she doesn’t feel that way; on the contrary, she constantly compares her own body to that of Camilla, who observes and records it in her notebook. The arrival of an intrusive male presence – Lorenzo and his friends – will put Marina, Camilla, and their friendship to the test.
Nieregen, a city where it never rains.
Pluvia, a city where it rains continuously.
An insurmountable distance separates two lovers, clinging to each other.
a phone line in the space of one night.
Desires and dreams intersect at every border of the globe.
and unutterable fears. The voice remains the last hold on hope.
reality while silently, like a nocturnal flower,
a feverish desire for contact grows: a need for skin, a need for
hands and bodies. A love that risks imploding, swallowed up
from the dark abstraction that distance condemns.
There is a duck in the cemetery. That’s what Nicola says, but Rita and Rosaria don’t believe him. With his binoculars, he sees things that don’t exist, his sister tells him, busy with her friend telling old stories from the village. In the cemetery, a place that tends towards something that cannot be seen but that can only be felt, the three protagonists remain on the edge of the frame as they try to reach the duck.
The mountain is about to descend at night. A lonely car drives down the road. At the wheel, someone starts singing a strange lullaby…
After a computer crash, a girl suffers the loss of Bubba, her long-time virtual pet.
Training, Take-Off, Grand Prix. Legacy is one of the most valuable and celebrated horses in show jumping. In pursuit of victories, she is flown between competition venues across the globe. Air Horse One follows Legacy on her long journeys in the business class of equine air travel.
EveryDay in Gaza offers an intimate portrait of life in the Gaza Strip through the eyes of its residents.
The daily challenges of the Farra family and Wafa, a woman who cares for vulnerable children. Without narration, the film captures dignity and resilience in the face of impossible challenges.
A mother travels alone with her three-month-old child to a house by a river. Her sense of loneliness grows ever stronger until she makes a surprising gesture of liberation.
The river flows, time passes. She meets a stranger from the village. And she discovers a new sense of complicity with her child.
A family taboo, a missing story. Using 25 photographs, a nephew reconstructs the life story of Michele, an uncle lost to AIDS and heroin in 1980s–90s Italy. Guided by his mother’s warm memories and the cold gaze of AI, he reflects on memory, the value of images, and what remains unspoken.
In Slet 1988, dancer Sonja Vukićević (74) moves through socialist-modernist spaces; her body is an archive of the last mass performance in Yugoslavia. Her gestures echo past rhythms and present realities, intertwining with a 1988
teenage girl’s diary to reveal the shift from socialist collectivism to rising individualism while a new national collective body is creeping in and will soon shape the future of the country.
How does a machine learn to read the world? Testimonies and screen recordings introduce the experience of online micro-workers from the Global South: their job is to teach the AI of self-driving cars to navigate the streets of the Global North. As they investigate the images they receive from the US, they imagine micro-strategies in order to organize and hack back the system exploiting their hands and eyes.
A beech tree suffering from a strange form of anorexia carves a diary into its own bark. In a world unsettled by climate collapse, its fragile body becomes a mirror of our struggle to adapt. As the seasons pass, the film drifts through the tension between holding on and letting go, searching for a way to live when both the world and the self feel unstable. A quiet fable where human and vegetal wounds echo one another.
The story of Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che, who, in 1975, after fleeing the Vietnam War by boat and docking in the Philippines, were utilized as background extras in the filming of APOCALYPSE NOW.
The remains of a traveling pigeon are found in a fireplace in a house south of London. On its leg is a capsule containing a message from 80 years ago. A secret and a mystery of the Second World War. What does that mysterious cipher conceal? Could that message have changed the course of the war and the entire world?
Early 2000s, Maremma. On San Bartolomeo Day, two sisters run away from home, crossing meadows and olive groves. Anna, the youngest, lives the escape as a game: she knows that she will return to her grandmother by evening. Leda, twelve years old, instead dreams of leaving that small village forever. Their paths are about to separate, while the village continues to repeat itself unchanged in its rituals, songs, and festivals every summer.
In an anonymous metropolis, the young Riccardo’s face begins to become that of another. The unresolved contradictions of his private and professional life are no longer avoidable.
An elderly man finds his connection with his son by breaking a salt shaker.
In a dystopian future where the borders between countries are closed indefinitely, a replica of Hanover becomes the only way to experience Western culture. Citizen Yu wanders through this nostalgic and unsettling city, built on memories of the past. But what does he really see?
An elderly Malay-Tamil couple discovers that their goat, destined for ceremonial sacrifice, is pregnant. Divided between their faith and the expectations of the community, they must decide whether to perform the sacrifice or face the wrath of the gods.
In an isolated castle, students prepare for an exam that will change their lives. As the wait reaches its peak, a storm breaks out. Trapped between dilapidated walls, their academic sanctuary transforms into a prison and their minds begin to give way.
Selma takes her nephew Dino on a hike to take him away from computers and video games. During the journey, their contact with nature leads them to confront themselves and find a new way to communicate.
On the outskirts of Lima, the 11-year-old Chito lives with his brother Rockío in a neighborhood that grew up on the outskirts of an immense cemetery. On the roof of their house, he takes care of traveling pigeons employed in illegal trafficking, with whom he has established a deep bond. Together with his friends, he sells flowers among the graves, suspended between play and survival.
During a game, the violence that sweeps through the neighborhood breaks out brutally, killing Rockío and another boy and shattering their childhood. The community deals with the grief through rituals, music, and dance. Overwhelmed by grief, Chito seeks revenge, but an unexpected act of humanity deflects his fate, opening a crack of freedom in the sky.
Liepa and her daughter move to Germany in search of a new beginning, but soon find themselves facing disapproval from their family and the difficulties of life in the big city.
Cebriana is convinced she saw a fire in the night on the mountain. There are no traces of flames or witnesses to confirm her vision. Her grandmother, an elderly herbalist, will try to help her see beyond the flames.
Dan has an open wound in his neck that refuses to heal. Why? He can’t remember it, nor talk about it. Returning to the unsettling arena of his childhood, he must find that part of himself that he once left behind and that, now as an adult, prevents him from being whole.
Planet Earth, year 2960 AD. A group of uranium miners returns to the blue planet in search of the precious metal. The crackling of the Geiger counter leads one member of the team into the depths of a cave. There, the explorer comes across an ancient relic from the world of old, awakening it from a sleep that lasted centuries, perhaps millennia.
“Bestia Feroce Bestia Lontana” tells the last day of the life of Ettore Macca, while his voiceover reflects on the outside world, addressing his sister, his mother, his father, his ex-boyfriend and himself. The short film blends the classic digital camera style with the staticness of the analog photographic format. The work is a letter of farewell from a person who has decided to leave this world, a study of the past, trauma, a dysfunctional family and depression.
On a quiet late summer day, Alessandro and Flavio go in search of the last secrets of their city. Today, some trails lead them to unexplored places, and they wait for the night on a large cherry tree. A beer with friends in a deserted square, the motorcycles returning home like a flock, and then nothing more.
A year after the start of her gender transition, Marina spends a summer weekend at her best friend Camilla’s house. Everyone tells her how beautiful she has become, but she doesn’t feel that way; on the contrary, she constantly compares her own body to that of Camilla, who observes and records it in her notebook. The arrival of an intrusive male presence – Lorenzo and his friends – will put Marina, Camilla, and their friendship to the test.
Nieregen, a city where it never rains.
Pluvia, a city where it rains continuously.
An insurmountable distance separates two lovers, clinging to each other.
a phone line in the space of one night.
Desires and dreams intersect at every border of the globe.
and unutterable fears. The voice remains the last hold on hope.
reality while silently, like a nocturnal flower,
a feverish desire for contact grows: a need for skin, a need for
hands and bodies. A love that risks imploding, swallowed up
from the dark abstraction that distance condemns.
There is a duck in the cemetery. That’s what Nicola says, but Rita and Rosaria don’t believe him. With his binoculars, he sees things that don’t exist, his sister tells him, busy with her friend telling old stories from the village. In the cemetery, a place that tends towards something that cannot be seen but that can only be felt, the three protagonists remain on the edge of the frame as they try to reach the duck.
The mountain is about to descend at night. A lonely car drives down the road. At the wheel, someone starts singing a strange lullaby…
After a computer crash, a girl suffers the loss of Bubba, her long-time virtual pet.
Training, Take-Off, Grand Prix. Legacy is one of the most valuable and celebrated horses in show jumping. In pursuit of victories, she is flown between competition venues across the globe. Air Horse One follows Legacy on her long journeys in the business class of equine air travel.
EveryDay in Gaza offers an intimate portrait of life in the Gaza Strip through the eyes of its residents.
The daily challenges of the Farra family and Wafa, a woman who cares for vulnerable children. Without narration, the film captures dignity and resilience in the face of impossible challenges.
A mother travels alone with her three-month-old child to a house by a river. Her sense of loneliness grows ever stronger until she makes a surprising gesture of liberation.
The river flows, time passes. She meets a stranger from the village. And she discovers a new sense of complicity with her child.
A family taboo, a missing story. Using 25 photographs, a nephew reconstructs the life story of Michele, an uncle lost to AIDS and heroin in 1980s–90s Italy. Guided by his mother’s warm memories and the cold gaze of AI, he reflects on memory, the value of images, and what remains unspoken.
In Slet 1988, dancer Sonja Vukićević (74) moves through socialist-modernist spaces; her body is an archive of the last mass performance in Yugoslavia. Her gestures echo past rhythms and present realities, intertwining with a 1988
teenage girl’s diary to reveal the shift from socialist collectivism to rising individualism while a new national collective body is creeping in and will soon shape the future of the country.
How does a machine learn to read the world? Testimonies and screen recordings introduce the experience of online micro-workers from the Global South: their job is to teach the AI of self-driving cars to navigate the streets of the Global North. As they investigate the images they receive from the US, they imagine micro-strategies in order to organize and hack back the system exploiting their hands and eyes.
A beech tree suffering from a strange form of anorexia carves a diary into its own bark. In a world unsettled by climate collapse, its fragile body becomes a mirror of our struggle to adapt. As the seasons pass, the film drifts through the tension between holding on and letting go, searching for a way to live when both the world and the self feel unstable. A quiet fable where human and vegetal wounds echo one another.
The story of Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che, who, in 1975, after fleeing the Vietnam War by boat and docking in the Philippines, were utilized as background extras in the filming of APOCALYPSE NOW.
The remains of a traveling pigeon are found in a fireplace in a house south of London. On its leg is a capsule containing a message from 80 years ago. A secret and a mystery of the Second World War. What does that mysterious cipher conceal? Could that message have changed the course of the war and the entire world?
Early 2000s, Maremma. On San Bartolomeo Day, two sisters run away from home, crossing meadows and olive groves. Anna, the youngest, lives the escape as a game: she knows that she will return to her grandmother by evening. Leda, twelve years old, instead dreams of leaving that small village forever. Their paths are about to separate, while the village continues to repeat itself unchanged in its rituals, songs, and festivals every summer.
In an anonymous metropolis, the young Riccardo’s face begins to become that of another. The unresolved contradictions of his private and professional life are no longer avoidable.
An elderly man finds his connection with his son by breaking a salt shaker.
