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FESTIVALS / AWARDS Italy

The MedFilm Festival will unspool online, showcasing 70 films from the Euro-Mediterranean region

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- From 9–15 November, the 26th edition of the festival will unspool online on MYmovies, offering up films from 30 countries as well as meetings exploring the Euro-Mediterranean market

The MedFilm Festival will unspool online, showcasing 70 films from the Euro-Mediterranean region
Lift Like a Girl by Mayye Zayed

“A new way of being together”: this is the theme of the 26th edition of the MedFilm Festival, an event dedicated to the distribution of films from the Euro-Mediterranean region which will this year welcome 70 films representing 30 countries, of which 38 films will be Italian premieres, 4 international premieres and 1 a world premiere. Thanks to its partnership with the MYmovies platform, the entire programme of this year’s festival, which is presided over by Ginella Vocca and directed by Giulio Casadei, will be available to the public online from 9 – 15 November.

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The Official Competition - Love & Psyche Prize will present 8 films touching upon various crucial aspects of modern-day society: female emancipation through sport, in the Egyptian documentary Lift Like a Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Mayye Zayed, the housing crisis and the strength of family ties, in Spanish work Last Days of Spring [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Isabel Lamberti
film profile
]
by Isabel Lamberti, the contradictions at play in today’s Turkey, between real estate investment and drugs trafficking, in Ghosts [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Azra Deniz Okyay, and the decolonisation of the historic past, in the Iraqi film-performance Sandlines by Francis Alÿs. Meanwhile, the Iranian picture Careless Crime by Shakram Mokri and Israel’s The Death of Cinema and My Father Too [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Dani Rosenberg offer up kaleidoscopic reflections on film, while the French work À l’abordage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Guillaume Brac
film profile
]
by Guillaume Brac and Palestine’s Gaza mon amour [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Tarzan and Arab Nasser constitute two bright hymns to friendship and love.

Stealing focus in the Out of Competition line-up, we find Nardjes A. [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Karim Ainouz, which was filmed entirely via a Smartphone and which follows a day in the life of Algerian activist Nardjes Asli during the 2019 protests; Red Soil [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Farid Bentoumi, homing in on brand-new Erin Brockovich who’s fighting for the truth, and the short film Correspondencia, a moving, filmed, epistolary conversation between Carla Simón and Dominga Sotomayor Castillo on the subject of maternity and family legacies.

MedFilm will also play host to the 9th edition of Lux Film Days in Rome, which will offer a retrospective of 6 Lux Prize finalist films from the past decade, exploring migration, female emancipation, war, school and childhood: Mediterranea [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jonas Carpignano
film profile
]
by Jonas Carpignano, Sami Blood [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Amanda Kernell
interview: Lars Lindstrom
film profile
]
by Amanda Kernell, Summer 1993 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carla Simón
film profile
]
by Carla Simón, As I Open My Eyes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leyla Bouzid
film profile
]
by Leyla Bouzid, The High Sun [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dalibor Matanic
interview: Tihana Lazovic
film profile
]
by Dalibor Matanic and Class Enemy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rok Biček
interview: Rok Bicek
interview: Rok Bicek
film profile
]
by Rok Bicek.

Ever central to reflections on the Mediterranean region, Algeria will boast a presence at the festival with a special retrospective involving 8 titles, intitled “Tomorrow, Algeria”. The line-up will consist of mid-length films and short works directed by key filmmakers of the 2010s’ Algerian New Wave: Karim Moussaoui, Sofia Djama, Amin Sidi-Boumédiène, Hassen Ferhani, Dania Reymond, Damien Ounouri, Djamel Kerkar and Lamine Ammar-Khodja.

Similarly unspooling within the MedFilm Festival is the fourth edition of the MEDMeetings, which home in on commercial opportunities for Euro-Mediterranean films and will this year present the new “Lazio Cinema International” call.  This 4th edition will also mark the debut of the MedFilm Works in Progress initiative, curated by Azza Chaabouni and consisting of an open call for fiction projects and creative documentaries which are in the post-production phase and which hail from Italy and the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Another new addition is the MedFilm Talents section, dedicated to emerging talent from Euro-Mediterranean lands and involving two online meetings with Florian Weghorn, Berlinale Talents’ programme manager. And, last but not least, masterclasses led by Susanna Nicchiarelli and Babak Karimi are also on the agenda.

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(Translated from Italian)

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