The Italian premieres of ‘Franz’ by Agnieszka Holland, and ‘The Disappearance of Josef Mengele’ by Kirill Serebrennikov will open the 37. Trieste Film Festival Ildikó Enyedi’s ‘Silent friend’ will close the festival
The 37th Trieste Film Festival, the first and most important event on Central and Eastern European cinema in Italy, will open with the Italian premieres of two films: one, a biopic of Franz Kafka directed by Agnieszka Holland, the other, the story of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele directed by Kiril Serebrennikov. ‘Franz’ will inaugurate the festival on Friday the 16th January at the Teatro Miela, while, on the 20th January, ‘The Disappearance of Josef Mengele’ will welcome audiences to the Politeama Rossetti.
Closing the festival, on Saturday 24th January, will be Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi’s ‘Silent Friend’, once again at the Politeama Rossetti.
Making their Italian debuts in a double opening at the Teatro Miela (January 16th) and the Politeama Rossetti (January 20th), Holland’s latest and most ambitious work (and Polish candidate for the 2026 Oscars), along with Serebrennikov’s dramatization of the escape from justice of Auschwitz’s ‘Angel of Death’ (played by August Diehl). On Saturday 24th, again at the Politeama Rossetti, Enyedi concludes the festival, bringing the millennium-spanning tale of a majestic Ginkgo biloba to the big screen.
The festival will take place in Trieste Jan. 16-24 with films, documentaries, shorts, masterclasses and meetings with protagonists, from great masters to newcomers, directors and actors, and with their stories, capable of building bridges between East and West.
Inaugurating the festival will be ‘Franz’ (distributed in Italy by Movies Inspired) by the Polish director Agnieszka Holland, returning after her success with ‘Green Border’ in 2023, which won the special jury prize at the Venice International Film Festival. After its Canadian and Spanish national premieres at Toronto International Film Festival and San Sebastián International Film Festival respectively, the most ambitious project of the director’s career also arrives in Italy: a biopic dedicated to the eminent 20th century Czech writer, Franz Kafka. Shortlisted at the EFAs and the Polish nominee for the 2026 Oscars, the film traces the mark Kafka has left on the world, from his birth in Prague in the 19th century, to his death in Vienna after the First World War.
In the customary double opening of the festival, when the festival enters the splendid Politeama Rossetti, there will also be“The Disappearance of Josef Mengele” by Kirill Serebrennikov (in Italian theaters from January 29 under the titleTheDisappearance of Josef Mengele, distributed in Italy by Europictures), a national debut after its world premiere at the Cannes Premiere section: at the center, precisely the life and story of the man known as “The Angel of Death.” In the aftermath of World War II, Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor of Auschwitz, flees to South America to rebuild his hidden life: through the eyes of his son who finds him, Mengele is forced to confront a past he can no longer ignore. From Buenos Aires to Paraguay via Brazil, he will arrange his methodical disappearance to avoid any form of trial. Director Kirill Serebrennikov will give a masterclass the next morning (Jan. 21), moderated by Joël Chapron, a longtime Cannes Film Festival contributor and expert on Russian and Soviet cinema.
Instead, the festival’s closing will be devoted to Ildikó Enyedi’s “Silent Friend” (Italian distribution Movies Inspired), already in competition in Venice – where actress Luna Wedler was awarded the Marcello Mastroianni Prize – and shortlisted for the EFAs, on the evening of Saturday, Jan. 24, at the Politeama Rossetti. At the heart of a botanical garden in a medieval university town in Germany stands a majestic ginkgo tree: this silent witness has observed the quiet rhythms of transformation through three human lives for more than a century. In 2020 a Hong Kong neuroscientist begins an unexpected experiment; in 1972 a young student is profoundly changed by the simple act of observing and connecting with a geranium; in 1908 the first woman admitted to the university discovers, through the lens of photography, the sacred patterns of the universe hidden in the humblest plants. We follow their faltering attempts to make contact as they are transformed by the silent, enduring and mysterious power of nature. The Hungarian director will meet the audience in a masterclass on the afternoon of the last day.
