In 1922, two humble fishing families from the Marche region decide to embark on a journey to America. However, a storm at sea overwhelms and destroys their boat, their only source of survival. Hopes turn into fears, and the necessity to make choices that will influence the future of generations to come arises.

When Mia runs into her former schoolmate Steffen and his son at the grocery store, she is pleasantly surprised by the unexpected encounter. But the joy quickly turns into unease as Mia and her daughter slowly realize that Steffen’s supposed son might be in danger.

The origin of the word ‘desire’ is one of the most beautiful that one can encounter, but on this night, the sky is extinguished, and there are no traces of stars. Yet, the desires are so many: some wish for a special book, the power to fly, others hope to meet their idol, some dream of traveling, and some aspire to create galaxies… But how can a dream become real? From an idea by the 2B class of I.C.1 in Acqui Terme (AL).

“Caramelle” [Italian for Sweets] is a short film that tells the tale of the inextricable tie between three generations: father/grandfather, daughter/mother, grandson/son. A bond so strong as to transcend the boundaries between Life and Death, the Earthly World, and the Afterlife, in an atmosphere of compelling magical realism. It is a simple story: Lucia, a middle-aged woman visits her father’s grave in the local graveyard from time to time. One day she finds a sweet wrapper scrunched up in a ball on top his grave. This strange episode happens over and again until Lucia finds out that… but that would be telling… we won’t spoil your appetite, let’s just say that the whole story revolves around the sweets in the title, in our modern pop revisitation of the Proustian Madelaine! This short film is made using techniques in 3D animation, blended with real life modern day photos taken to celebrate little known corners of the city of Ravenna, in the area around its port.

On the National Day, a woman, long neglected by those around her, decides to desperately draw attention to herself.

The short film titled “Corruption on Earth” is about a fictional award ceremony for the “Best Regime in the World”. The prize is awarded to Iran. The excellent political and social achievements of the political leadership were praised in a laudatory speech. In an emotional acceptance speech, Iran’s supreme political leader Ali Khamenei insists on going into detail about his regime’s excellent achievements in person. The filmic recordings are mixed with real cell phone recordings of the current Iran protests and in this way combine reality and fiction, they are intended to leave the viewer in a state of emotional chaos. 

“Dehumanized” is an experimental short film, in which the peace of the dead in a military cemetery is disturbed with loud war noises. The camera itself becomes a weapon. “The truth of war in a nutshell. Without words, but everything is said.” Holger Janke, Pastor. 

Maria, a young argentinian woman, evolves in a men’s world: rodeo. The day before qualifying for the famous “Jesus Maria” tournament, for the first time open to women, she must make a choice: speak or let fate decide for her…

For a mysterious reason, every individual on Earth is immobile. Made of wax. They are all alive; they breathe, communicate with their eyes, but they are motionless. They remain unchanged, existing without truly living. Phyllis is a young writer. In her city, she is the only one who can move.

Stop-motion short. Zip, a character made from found objects, finds a “broken” flower and tries to fix it while his friends look on. There is no dialog. Only music.

Guy, a pianist passionate about his music, sees his life turned upside down when the church where he officiates takes in a mysterious little girl. A true piano virtuoso, the child prodigy will soon steal the show. A duel of egos then begins.

In one of Rome’s suburbs, a multiethnic and diverse neighborhood, a mother and her two sons are evicted from their home. The two brothers, convinced that it is being reassigned to an immigrant family, will decide to take justice into their own hands. They will do anything to take their home back.

Saloni, a class topper, is period shamed in school after she gets her first period. At home, her uneducated but caring mother Asha tears the only vest of her husband to provide a clean cloth for Saloni’s protection and comfort as she has to take annual exams the next day. When Saloni’s father, Anil, comes to know that his only vest has been torn and used to absorb menstrual blood, he gets furious. He puts the cloth left for sun-drying into the fire and it turns into ashes. Saloni is shattered but Asha is determined, neither she wants period shaming for her daughter nor she wants her to miss exams. Through Saloni’s classmates, Asha comes to know about sanitary napkins, a hygienic alternative available at the health centre but Anil says that they can’t afford that luxury because of their poverty. It is then Asha decides that she will do anything possible to send Saloni to school to take exams as she doesn’t want her daughter to drop out of school after first periods as she had to do it because of the period stigma and poverty.

YESTERDAY: Normality for Fernando will never return, the life he knew before, the one he spent next to his wife is gone and he has to deal with the fact of sinking into the inexorability of the disease that is afflicting him. The same burden must be borne by his wife Mariuccia, a helpless witness in the face of the tragedy that is perpetuating and worsening every day. Mariuccia tries with all her strength to maintain a dignity, the same dignity that she tries to keep for her husband. Unfortunately, she will realize that the wounds inflicted by that inexorable enemy in their lives become impossible to face, until the reaching of a sad and inevitable epilogue.

THE BALL: The Kampfs lived humbly until recently but Alfred suddenly found success and their circumstances have changed drastically. They have moved into a huge apartment and now they’re trying to establish themselves in society. Antoinette, the daughter, is roped into helping to write the invitations but her mother will have none of that. Based on the classic “The Ball” by Irène Némirovsky.

“Inner Memory” tells the story of friendship, urging us to extend our focus beyond the moment, directing our lens toward others, and emphasizing the importance of our heart’s internal memory. Cutty, an SLR camera, travels the world with her owner Annabelle, capturing memories until an accident erases her internal memory. Replaced by a new camera, Cutty despairs until she befriends Lucille, an elderly neighbor. When Annabelle discovers Cutty’s newfound talent, she plans a global journey. However, Cutty chooses to stay with Lucille, who is grappling with Alzheimer’s, helping her cherish each moment through art. The tale underscores the enduring value of friendship and the love stored in the heart’s inner memory.

Disappeared Internet: Andrea is a guy who seems to be out of touch with the people around him. Constantly on the phone, by now they seem to live only through the social reality in which Andrea is not remotely interested. Firmly convinced that small real encounters with strangers are the glue that holds together our society, he is desperately trying to start a conversation with someone, but after the umpteenth failure, he decides to disappear from the virtual world paying dearly for the consequences.

ON MY WAY: Granny died today. After years of marriage, Hubert is alone for the first time, tired and diminished. This toilet roll is always too far. Léonie his grand daughter comes in order to help him. Oppressed by the adults fussing around the best idea is maybe this old good whiskey bottle.

Joseph is a 50-year-old lonely and defeated man who works as a clown, selling balloons outside a crumbling pier. The world has given up on him, and he has given up on the world. That is until Annie, a waitress from a bar, asks him out and shows him that life can be magnificent at last.

THE HOUSE: In the suburbs, a married couple rests peacefully at home. They do not expect visitors, but there is a knock on the door; The police, accompanied by a married couple with their young son, whom accuse them of occupying the house. They all defend that the house is theirs, but someone is an intruder.

Lucas and his terminally ill daughter, Clarisa, embark on a wondrous journey into space as members of the NASA crew. The goal of this voyage is to connect with a magical universe in hopes of finding a way to save her.  

BLOODY PINOCCHIO!: Pupils in class are reading Pinocchio. Some kids wonder if there are other magic pieces of wood like the one from which Pinocchio was created. They don’t know it yet, but the answer is really near.

In 1985, the Pope visits Atri, a small town in the region of Abruzzo. It’s an important event for the town, and the whole community has taken the day off. Everyone is getting ready to welcome His Holiness, and even the farmers, dressed in their Sunday best, are preparing for the big day. Fernando, however, has other ideas. He gives his family the slip and sneaks off on his ramshackle scooter to the home of his sweetheart, Silvia. Meanwhile, the Pope is greeted by the enraptured crowds.

Mario is a Sicilian child of Eleven years, intelligent, cheerful, lover of the sea, his hometown and bike rides. After an extrasensory experience lived during a bath in the waters of the city of Marsala, Mario will find some pieces of wood on the shore and decide to take them home, later discovering that they belonged to a sunken migrant boat.

BAD SEED: In a city, Sadia is involved in a mysterious traffic. One of her friends, Arthur, surprises her and discovers what she is hiding. He will have to make a choice.

TABLE FOR 3: Five friends go to dinner at a high-end restaurant. Upon arrival, they discover that the reserved table, initially for five people, is now a table for three. An unforeseen situation that will test friendship and the bonds that exist within this group of friends.

UNBELIEVABLE: There is a force that beats beneath all our efforts. UNBELIEVABLE invites to reflection.

NazPari, a young Afghan girl, is promised to a suitor from Germany. When the day arrives, she discovers the suitor is an elderly man. Despite her refusal, her family insists she marry him for a better life. NazPari attempts suicide but survives. Upon waking, her family, realizing her mental distress, decides to keep it a secret from the suitor’s family. During the wedding ceremony, NazPari remains silent, leading to a confrontation with the suitor’s mother. The ensuing fight exposes the truth, ending the marriage. It’s revealed that NazPari feigned mental illness to escape the unwanted union.

Grandma and Grandpa always loved their tranquil life in the apartment, enjoying the calm days, content. But in these times of isolation, where the difference between home and prison is hard to see, a long forgotten feeling rises again: boredom. And boredom can be a very dangerous. 

“PIZZA D’Amour” is a comedy that tries to make the audience laugh. In the film, we deal with sexual themes and taboos. Suri represents modern society struggling with old patterns, while “the three elders” are the open and shameless parents we all want to be.

Every day for ten years, Guido has been receiving pizza deliveries he never ordered. Exasperated, he looks for the culprit: what at first seems a simple investigation, slowly becomes an obsession that will lead him to madness.

When a woman’s window flower box finally blooms, she’s surprised to find one of the flowers has a rebellious streak—after it changes the radio station as she’s listening. Relationship Cultivation is an animated short about the universal challenges of parenthood (even houseplant parenthood). 

GIVE THANKS TO GOD Roberto, Giacomo, and Giovanni are priests who have decided to address the issue of poverty in their own way: they steal from the homes of the wealthy to give to the poor.

In a family of sheep thieves, a 15-year-old boy must confront his father’s bullying to help his younger brother care for the lamb left orphaned after the last raid. 

1958. The story of the sacred rock of San Vito, a stone that has the power to fulfill the desire of women who want to get pregnant. The mute custodian of the church receives a visit from Maddalena, the mayor’s wife. The two will spend a night of hope and intimacy together. 

A healer with extraordinary powers suffers the worst of curses: he can’t save his sick wife. But close to him there’s his beloved granddaughter, who doesn’t give up. 

A bald girl and a boy with long hair try to solve their issues with the hijab at the Moral Police headquarters in Tehran.

Soon after discovering that they are unaware protagonists of an ongoing film, two idle guys will have to put up a fight against a very particular film crew. 

As 2063 dawns, DING Xin grapples with the intricate and multifaceted tribulations of existence, fervently seeking a beacon of affection in the frigid and unknown new world that surrounds her. Overcome by a tempest of unmitigated desolation, she ultimately succumbs to her despair and casts herself into the abyss beneath the bridge. Yet in this very moment of vulnerability, she uncovers a covert revelation that her husband ZHANG Ran has kept hidden from her for four decades, and her recollections, frozen for so long, finally start to thaw and resurface from that fateful day forty years ago…

After two ISIS attacks eerily resemble passages from his latest book, a TV writer finds himself under thin ice when he realizes that the new TV show he’s been approached to develop by a mysterious Turkish production company might be used as a blueprint for the terrorist group’s new attack. 

Third act: Inspired by a game played in Sarnano, in the Marche region, in 1944, the short film portrays a story in three stages: adolescence marked by eternal promises, adulthood dominated by a brutal reality, and old age filled with open wounds.

According to Chinese custom, every soul will pay a last visit to their beloved family on the 7th night after they passed away. This is a story about a little boy waiting for the return of his lost beloved cat MaoMao. Will MaoMao come back for her farewell? or has she forgotten about her owner? 

When London-based DJ Egle returns to native Lithuania for an Easter celebration, she finds herself facing more than just the music.

An Iranian girl decides to remove her Headscarf/Hijab in a life changing situation. 

Famous activist-couple Max and Lou went to extreme lengths to make a statement and got irreversibly sterilized together. They don’t want to have children in a world where humanity keeps on destroying the planet. They are about to have their first TV-appearance after their sterilization, when Max confesses something to Lou: Shortly before the procedure he got cold feet and couldn’t go through with the vasectomy…

Four teenagers in a remote mountain village spend their days inside an abandoned bus on the ridge, singing and making music. A contest for emerging bands will compel them to journey to the nearest city.

In a London gripped by white supremacist terrorism, two worlds collide when a neurodiverse teenager encounters a man on a suicide mission. 

Accused of murdering her husband, brother of the construction minister, Ana Knezevic is silently awaiting her trial. The lawyer assigned to her on official duty, David Klug, manages with his sincerity to gain Ana’s trust. With a series of dangerous questions, driven by a desire for truth and a clearly set goal, he draws attention to himself, coming across various obstacles and threats.

On his last day of vacation in Greece, a young dad working abroad embarks on a quest to find a precious ice-cream hoping to please his grumpy son. 

It is an afternoon at the end of school and Lorenzo and his friends meet at the bridge called UGHETTO FORNO for a football match. A headshot launches Lorenzo to the June 5, 1944 making him relive firsthand what Ughetto Forno experienced. Upon awakening Lorenzo is a new child, aware of the heroic deed made by that child Roman like him many years before. Today face to face with that Murales dedicated to Ughetto he feels himself a bit of a hero too.

ONE HOUR ONLY: Rome, the 1960s. A young couple speed through the city toward the sea in a brand new Fiat 500. Yearning to make love for the first time, they play their favorite song as they undress and overcome their biggest fears. But nothing in this romantic moment is what it seems…

TOWARDS HOME: After many years abroad and the end of her marriage, Silvia returns to live in the countryside of the Marche region with her daughter, Aurora. Her house now seems unrecognizable to her. She tries to rediscover a sense of belonging to that place by dedicating herself to the garden with her mother, who has been rooted in the Marche since birth. Aurora, in conflict with Silvia, manages to experience a newfound sense of love that binds her to the land and her mother.