Two separate films will open the Festival this year, on 19th January at Teatro Miela and on 23rd January at Politeama Rossetti, respectively, with Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World by Radu Jude and Green Border by Agnieszka Holland
The Sindacato Nazionale Critici Cinematografici Italiani Best Film Awards 2023 go to:
Pacifiction by Albert Serra and Rapito (Kidnapped) by Marco Bellocchio.
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Due to the complexities of theatre scheduling, the 35th Trieste Film Festival (taking place from 19th to 27th January) will feature two official opening films on different days in its two traditional main venues. This is indeed a double opportunity to properly showcase two films which have dominated the last few months of 2023, and have been recognised as some of the great European films of the year ever since their premières at Locarno and Venice.
On 19th January the Festival will launch its first opening night at Teatro Miela with Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World by Radu Jude. This is both a dizzying essay about cinema itself and an explosive critique towards the cynicism of modern capitalism. It’s an all-encompassing film, coming soon to Italian cinemas (I Wonder Pictures distribution), full of irony, lashing out with moralistic outbursts and replete with erudite quotations. It confirms the genius of Romanian director Radu Jude, (previously a Golden Bear winner, and the recipient of a special jury prize at Locarno for this latest film) – a filmmaker whose talent is as original as it is impossible to classify.
On 23rd January it will be the turn of Politeama Rossetti to host the second opening night, with a showing of Green Border, Special Jury Prize winner at last year’s Venice Film Festival and on general release in Italy from 8th February (distributed by Movies Inspired and Circuito Cinema). This marks the return of a great master of European cinema – Polish director Agnieszka Holland. It is a film both uncomfortable to watch and filled with a sense of justice. Shot in a powerful black and white, and with an uncompromising harshness that is at times difficult to bear, the story focuses on the tragic fate of migrants venturing into Europe (in this case from the border between Belorussia and Poland) in search of a welcome that governments have long foregone, and a sense of solidarity which only single individuals, often illegally, seem to possess.
2024 will again feature the traditional collaboration between the Trieste Film Festival and the Sindacato Nazionale Critici Cinematografici Italiani (SNCCI – Union of Italian Film Critics). The latter will announce its awards for the best films of 2023 on the stage of Politeama Rossetti.
There will be two prizes – to the best Italian film and to the best international film. The Italian film that received the most votes among the members of the critics’ union was RAPITO (Kidnapped) by Marco Bellocchio, who was previously awarded the same accolade in 2020 for his Il traditore (The Traitor).
Albert Serra’s PACIFICTION was voted best film overall, among all those that were shown in Italian cinemas during 2023. In this case, the film was chosen (from the 28 shortlisted by the critics) by a dedicated committee whose members included Pedro Armocida, Paola Casella, Massimo Causo, Adriano De Grandis, Francesco Di Pace, Fabio Ferzetti, Beatrice Fiorentino, Federico Gironi, Roberto Manassero, Raffaele Meale, Paolo Mereghetti, Anna Maria Pasetti, Cristiana Paternò, Giulio Sangiorgio and Sergio Sozzo.
