Monday’s TSFF is an early bird: the day starts at 9:00 with REFRAMING EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVALS: TRANSITIONAL HISTORIES, CULTURES AND IDENTITIES, the symposium by Gruppo di lavoro Consulta Universitaria del Cinema “Festival ed eventi cinematografici” in collaboration with Trieste Film Festival, Università Ca’ Foscari, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro” and Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna
will take place in the SALA CEI (free entry). The conference is devoted to examining the role of European film festivals as complex cultural dispositifs: spaces of encounter and mediation among films, audiences, and industry professionals; pivotal nodes within national and transnational networks of film circulation; contexts in which critical orientations are shaped and categories of taste are formed; arenas where crucial relationships for the film industry take root and evolve.
The conference aims to analyse these phenomena from historical and cultural perspectives, drawing on interdisciplinary approaches, innovative methodologies, and research based on archival sources that are often still under-explored. Discussions will address the diverse histories of European festivals, their relationships with political and social contexts, curatorial policies, mechanisms of canon formation, institutional dynamics, and the identities that emerge through programming practices and audience participation. Bringing together scholars from different countries, the initiative fosters an international dialogue on the contribution of festival systems to the definition of European film culture, as well as on the transformations that have reshaped their functions, configurations, and forms of mediation over time. The event also marks the conclusion of the PRIN 2022 project RIFF – Reframing Italian Film Festivals, funded by the
Italian Ministry of University and Research and dedicated to the study of Italian film festivals and to the collection and valorisation of the sources and memories that document their history.
Organising Committee: Federico Zecca, Francesco D’Asero, Gabriele Landrini, Angela Bianca Saponari (University of Bari “Aldo Moro”); Roy Menarini, Marco Zilioli (Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna); Marco Dalla Gassa, Giulio Tosi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice).
At 11:00, the matinée for schools at the Teatro Miela, where students will have the opportunity to watch and discuss PETER AND FRIENDS: DISCOVERING NATURE (H, 1963-1967, 70’) curated by Manuela Morana. The adventures of Peter, Katy, Felix the sausage dog, and Professor Leo are back! This time, they are off to discover the natural wonders of planet Earth. The screening will be followed by a playful film workshop designed for our young audience members!
Normal screenings begin again at 14:00 on the main screen of the Teatro Miela with the Slovenian Wild Roses, beginning with TELO/ Body Normal screenings begin again at 14:00 on the main screen of the Teatro Miela with the Slovenian Wild Roses, beginning with TELO/ Body by Petra Seliškar (SLO – HR – MK, 2023, col., 91’), a documentary recounting 20 years of her friend Urška’s life, who suffers from rare autoimmune diseases. The film blends intimate conversations, archives, and creative visuals to explore the body’s mysteries and the power of art and friendship. Selected at Last Stop Trieste 2022, it premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival 2023. The festival continues with V TIŠINI ŽIVLJENJA / The Silence of Life by Nina Blažin (SLO, 2024, col. & b-n / b-w., 88’) at 16:00. Each of us will have to face mortality. It’s up to us what we’ll be like in those moments. What will you do with the time you have left? The Silence of Life was presented at the Festival of Slovenian Film in Portorož and at the Torino Film Festival in 2024, among others.
At 18:00, the screening of SLEPA PEGA / Blind Spot by Hanna A. W. Slak (SLO, 2002, col., 87’). “No human being can live without interacting with society…” To save her brother from addiction, a woman isolates him from the world, unknowingly unleashing dark secrets capable of overwhelming them both. Slepa pega was selected at Locarno and Thessaloniki, it was later screened at TSFF in 2003.
Simultaneously, at the Caffè San Marco, the Croatian writer Robert Perišić, among the best-known Croatian writers of his generation, will present “A Cat at the End of the World” (BEE) – a work described by the Wall Street Journal as among the best of the year – in conversation with Rai journalist Walter Skerk. This TSFF BOOKS event falls also within the “Connessioni” with the collaboration of the Comunità Croata di Trieste. What was it like, at the edge of the world, when the Adriatic was the North Sea? How did the civilization we now call Europe come about? Who were the Liburnians, whose sky was a woman? How is it possible that the first cat arrived in the Adriatic on the same boat that carried the alphabet and urban planning?
Robert Perišić takes us on an adventurous journey aboard a ship that, in the 4th century BCE, departs from the Greek colony of Syracuse to found an apoikia, a new polis, a home away from home. On the ship bound for Issa are Kalia, a boy fleeing his master, and Miu, the cat, along with vines and olive plants, philosophy, and the model of society in which we still live today. An ecological fable about the birth of European civilization.
This work was published with financial support from the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia. A Cat at the End of the World is also a bestseller in the whole Balkan region and has come out in the US and Mexico.
Back on the Teatro Miela main screen, at 20:00, with the Queer Visions section and the screening of ARKOUDOTRYPA / Bearcave by Stergios Dinopoulos and Krysianna B. Papadakis (GR – UK, 2025, col., 132’ ). A mystical cave, a nettle pie and an unexpected betrayal spur a romantic adventure between two childhood friends. Bearcave premiered at the 2025 Giornate degli Autori, Venice and has been shortlisted at EFA 2026.
Closing the day at 22:30, two more films from the section, beginning with the world premiere of TATUAJE / Tatuaggio by Kamil Dobrosielski (PL, 2025-2026, col., 7’): set in a tattoo studio in Medellín, Sandro, a non-binary artist and rapper, sits down to get a new tattoo. As the needle moves across their skin, Sandro recalls their past: the murder of their brother, the years of anger and violence that followed, and the moment of transformation that came in prison. Subsequently, the Italian debut of ENDLESS by Wojciech Puś (PL – DE – F, 2024, col.,110’). “We made it out to the other side. With Endless we are reclaiming the right to tell our own stories with our own voice and from the perspective of people who actually went through events shown in the film. We are the Monsters, who can finally speak for themselves”.
