THE COMPETITION, THE SALANI PRIZE, SPECIAL SCREENINGS AND BOOK PRESENTATIONS
On Friday, January 26th, the screenings will begin at 11:00 a.m. at Cinema Ambasciatori with the special event SIVI KAMION CRVENE BOJE by Srđan Koljević (The Red Colored Grey Truck, SRB – MNE – SLO – D, 2004, col., 95′, Serbian o.v.). Sivi Kamion Crvene Boje is an offbeat road movie about a color-blind Bosnian truck hijacker who falls in love with a girl from Belgrade trying to escape a country on the brink of war. A debut film by the late Srđan Koljević, presented in competition at the TSFF in 2005, it received the FIPRESCI Award at the Warsaw Film Festival in 2004 and the Audience Award at the Mannheim Festival in Germany.
The debut film by the late Srđan Koljević, presented in competition at the TSFF in 2005, received the FIPRESCI Award at the Warsaw Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Mannheim Film Festival in Germany in 2004.
At 11:00 a.m. at Antico Caffè San Marco, the tradition of meetings with the Festival’s guest authors is renewed. We will be able to listen to Katalin Moldovai (director of Without Air), Maryna Vroda (director of Stepne), Janez Burger (director of Opazovanje), Maja Doroteja Prelog (director of Cent’anni), Michał Hytroś (director It’s Only/Not Only A Body… Or a Short Film About Freedom), and Gergő Somogyvári (director of Fairy Garden).
At 2:00 p.m. at Ambasciatori Cinema, the world premiere of the out-of-competition documentary 77 DE ANI ÎNAPOI by Dan Stroie, Alexandru Bodrug (77 years back, RO, 2023, col., 38′, Romanian o.v.) will be screened. The documentary/film is about a journey in search of one’s origins, but also about the search of a grandson and his grandfather to uncover the truth about their family’s past as refugees from Bessarabia.
Immediately after, the documentary competition presents Liis Nimik’s PÄIKESEAEG (Sundial EST, 2023, col., 65′, Estonian o.v.) in its Italian premiere. The film is set in the Estonian countryside, where humans and every living being compose an orchestra, where everyone has their place in the co-creation of the humble rhythm of Earth. Sundial premiered in competition at Visions du Réel 2023.
Following this and once again within the documentary competition MOTHERLAND by Alexander Mihalkovich, Hanna Badziaka (S – UA – N, 2023, col., 92′, Russian – Belarusian o.v.) will be screened at 4:00 p.m., in its Italian premiere. In 2020, Belarus’s military practice of violent bullying, torture, and murder of conscripts as a means of control became a flash point and a rupture for a growingly dissatisfied population. Winner at the last CPH:DOX 2023, Motherland has since been selected at more than 30 international festivals.
At 6:00 p.m., and also in competition, we will see the Italian premiere of the documentary 1489 by Shoghakat Vardanyan (AM, 2023, col., 76′, / Armenian – Russian o.v). Soghomon Vardanyan, a 21-year-old student and musician, had almost finished his mandatory military service when the Nagorno-Karabakh war started, in 2020. On the seventh day of the war, Soghomon goes missing. Using her phone camera, his sister Shoghakat decides to document her and her parents’ search. Best Film and FIPRESCI Jury Prize at IDFA 2023.
We will continue with the competition where, at the same venue at 8:00 p.m., we will watch FOTO NA PAM’YAT by Olga Chernykh (A Picture to Remember, UA – F – D, 2023, col., 72′, Ukrainian – Russian o.v.) in its Italian premiere and whose project was pitched at When East Meets West. Foto na pam’yat is an essayistic account of a family’s long journey through the war. It tells the story of the search for a way to handle terrible and recurring losses experienced by three generations of Ukrainian women – the director, her mother, and her grandmother. One of the projects selected last year at Last Stop Trieste, Foto na pam’yat premiered in competition at IDFA 2023.
At 10:00 p.m., the last screening of the day at Cinema Ambasciatori is by the Salani Prize, which presents LA SOLITUDINE È QUESTA by Andrea Adriatico (Solitude, It’s That, 2023, col., 98′, Italian o.v.). The film tells the story of Pier Vittorio Tondelli, through his words and his books, re-read by seven writers of today, born in the very 1980s that Tondelli traversed and described. The film premiered at the Rome Film Festival 2023.
Also at 2:00 p.m., but at Politeama Rossetti, within the Off the Beaten… Screens section, Mersiha Husagic’s CHERRY JUICE (BIH – D – F, 2023, col. & b-n, 88′, English – Bosnian – German o.v.) will be screened as an Italian premiere. Cherry Juice seeks an answer to the question of what remains when the war ends, through a wild and unpredictable night in Sarajevo when Selma, a young Bosnian screenwriter, shares an adventurous encounter with a German actor named Niklas. Cherry Juice premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2023.
In the same venue at 4:00 p.m., there will be the third compilation of the short film competition and then, at 6:00 p.m., we will continue with the feature film competition, where Elene Naveriani’s SHASHVI MAQ’VALI (Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, CH – GE, 2023, col., 110′, Georgian o.v.) will be screened as an Italian premiere. A 40-year-old Georgian woman, after an affair with a local delivery man, begins to question her whole life. A bittersweet portrait of an unusual feminist heroine. After its premiere at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes 2023, the film was screened in many international film festivals.
At 8:00 p.m., within the feature film competition, it will be the turn of another Italian premiere with Vladimir Perišić’s LOST COUNTRY (Lost Country, SRB – F – L – HR, 2023, col., 98′, Serbian o.v.), which takes us to the Serbia of 1996, during demonstrations against the Milošević regime. Fifteen-year-old Stefan has to go through the hardest revolution of all: facing up to his beloved mother, a spokesperson for the corrupt government. Inspired by autobiographical events, Lost Country premiered at Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique in 2023, where Jovan Ginić won the Rising Star Award.
The screenings at Teatro Rossetti will close with the out-of-competition screening of MAGYARÁZAT MINDENRE by Gábor Reisz (Explanation for Everything, H – SK, 2023, col., 152′, Hungarian o.v.). The tensions of a polarized society come to the surface when high school student Abel’s history graduation exam turns into a national scandal. Executive producer Kornél Mundruczó, Orizzonti Award for Best Film at the last Venice Film Festival.
We also remind you of the presentation of the book IL MINISTRO, edited by Bottega Errante Edizioni at the Antico Caffè San Marco at 6:00 p.m. Stefan Bošković, a Montenegrin writer and screenwriter, tells us about nine turbulent days in the life of the Minister of Culture of Montenegro, Valentino Kovačević, sketching a psychedelic and decadent portrait of contemporary society, politics and the unstable balance between man and power. Journalist Francesca Schillaci will discuss the topic with the author. Free admission.
EVENTS WITH RESERVATION / MORE EVENTS
HOW TO CATCH THE WIND?
Workshop for adults by Museo della Bora
The Magazzino dei Venti houses a collection of winds from around the world. But how is the wind caught? We will find out at the Museo della Bora Saturday 27th at 11:00 a.m. during a visit to the world’s messiest little museum that brings together wind and imagination. Admission fee, reservation required: prenotazionitsff@gmail.com
WOMEN’S WORK IN TRIESTE FROM THE 18TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY
by Marzia Arzon, tourist guide
The itinerary on Saturday 27th from 11 a.m. will take you through the history of women’s work from the end of the 18th century to the present day and will take you to both well-known and lesser-known places in the city. We will talk about pancogole (women who baked bread) and mlekarice (women who milked cows and produced dairy products), about women employed in the manufacture of sails and women who transported stones for the construction of piers, but also about women employed in rosolio (an Italian liqueur) distilleries. We will then discover the jobs of more recent times.
We will explore Trieste as a working-class city in the 1960s and 1970s, the years of women’s emancipation, up to contemporary times with professions linked to the gentrification of the city. The starting point will be the Casa del Cinema, Piazza Duca degli Abruzzi 3. Admission fee, reservation required: prenotazionitsff@gmail.com
