Competition 2023
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A short piece exploring a specific site and its geological and human memories. Combining documentary and fictional storytelling, it recounts the story of the disappearance of workers during the construction of a dam on a toxic water basin located somewhere in the Swiss Alps.
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Genoa 2023. The port of Genoa needs space and grows towards the sea. The Pilot, skilled maneuverer and guardian of the port waters, leads the arrivals and departures of the boats like an orchestra conductor, while the landing of a cargo ship called Guang Rong is imminent. The construction site looks like a distant planet.
National Preview
Two days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Brooklyn-based artist and performer gets through to her older sister in Odessa via FaceTime. A film about love, memory, national identity, and the (im)permanence of home, as the sisters cling to a call that could be their last.
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The filmmaker returns to her childhood village. As she looks at her own past and the place’s history, a poetic investigation into the relationship between human and nature takes form.
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Tormented by a blood cancer that has attacked him for sixteen years, a man prepares for his second bone marrow transplant by following the therapy that has kept him alive until then: sculpting iron to make sea creatures immortal.
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In a state-funded nursing home on the outskirts of Stockholm, a close relationship develops between Monica – a compassionate care worker, and Ella – a 99-year-old resident who doesn’t have any close family. A story about trying to reconcile with life coming to an end, and to do so with humor, warmth and flying colours.
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How can you understand a violent past? Somali-born Abdi reenacts his life, marked by war and criminality, with the help of his neighbour and filmmaker Douwe. Through playful reconstructions in a special effects studio, they embark on a candid and investigative journey through a painful history, focusing on the creative process throughout.
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On Reunion Island, a few families live on the land of their ancestors in the remote mountain wilderness of a national park. One day, as the wind rises and carries with it echoes from the past, the inhabitants find themselves alone in the face of danger.
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Being afraid of losing connection with my hometown, I return to Odessa once again to talk to Olha and Mykyta, who, by the way, are my mom and my friend.
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The documentary Best in the World offers a revealing look beyond the photogenic image of Copenhagen. The Danish capital is often considered one of the most liveable cities in the world. But this was not always the case. Thirty years ago, Copenhagen was an industrial city on the brink of bankruptcy. Through political and architectural engineering the city has experienced a complete transformation, but at what cost? Today the city is an engine of inequality both within its own borders and in the surrounding countryside. Who ultimately gets to benefit from this desirable new city?
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A year along the Italian cableway on the Mont Blanc massif, before the shutdown of 2020. The machine, the workers and the users are represented as the main actors in a show designed to push the limits of modernity.
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In 1952 Angelo emigrated from Italy to France for work, followed the following year by his wife and daughter. When they return to Italy, to Vo’ Euganeo, to visit relatives, they use to bring with them a cassette recorder that contains stories, songs and news. Starting from those tapes, the film reconstructs the family memory, connecting three generations of women.
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Stonebreakers chronicles the conflicts around monuments that arose in the United States during the George Floyd protests and the 2020 presidential election. The portrait of a nation forced to reckon with the darkest chapters of its history.
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At the death of her mother, Aga decides to leave her life in Germany with her partner Maja to look after her younger brother in Poland. To do this, she has to hide her love for another woman from the authorities.
A closed world, surrounded by water, where all the inhabitants work in clam harvesting. It is Goro, at the end of the Po Delta. Here live the protagonists of Fortuna granda, a group of teenagers enrolled in a professional institute created to tackle school dropout. Through their eyes, the film looks at the adult community, at the fathers who wait for them in the lagoon, at the school that tries to hold them, at the future that seems to have been there forever.
Luigi Ghirri, an internationally renowned Italian photographer, wrote regularly throughout his life. Starting from his writings, the documentary traces the crucial stages of the photographer’s life. It is a journey through the provinces, a study of land, water, hills, infinite horizons.
Regional Preview
Tara is the name of a small river on the edge of the Italian port town of Taranto. The local people say that the water has magical healing powers, a legend involving a donkey is also woven around the “river of fortune”. Gradually the panorama expands to include the neighboring factory chimneys, contaminated water samples, the construction of a gigantic local steelworks in the 60s and the ancient history of the area, focusing above all, however, on the people who don’t give up in the run-down industrial town and challenge the injustice and decline with their ideas and initiatives.
