Article by Andrea Dosio
Translation by Alice Ivaldi Lessona
No Woman’s Land is a photo feature shot in Afghanistan by Kiana Hayeri for the World Press Photo 2025. It is a testament to the resistance and dignity of Afghan women, which has a lot in common with Cinema Jazireh, Gözde Kural’s second feature film presented in competition at the TFF.
Continua la lettura di “CINEMA JAZIREH” BY GÖZDE KURAL (ENG)
Article by Niccolò Bedino
Translation by Alessandra Di Paola Seminara
«I am not in danger, I am the danger». Walter White’s legendary line from Breaking Bad could easily serve as the plot twist in Untitled Home Invasion Romance, the directorial debut of Jason Biggs. The actor of American Pie (Paul Weitz, 1999) trades teen comedy for dark comedy and shows an unexpectedly sharp command of timing, both before and behind the camera. He does not reinvent the genre, but he navigates it with a confidence many veteran filmmakers lack.
Continua la lettura di “UNTITLED HOME INVASION ROMANCE” BY JASON BIGGS (ENG)Article by Marilina Rita Monzo
Translation by Francesca Corino
Everything starts with a deed both creepy and moving: Eva kidnaps children, she is convinced that she must save them from a threat, visible only to her. The topic of child protection, already touched upon by the director Emanuela Rossi in Buio (2019), assumes in this film a key role. Eva’s impulse does not come from violence but follows a primordial instinct. Her mission seems to stem from a grief that can be read in her actions, a grief born from a traumatic event that changed her: it is a deep crack that swallowed her, like a wound that cannot be healed.
Continua la lettura di “EVA” BY EMANUELA ROSSI (ENG)Article by Dina Aghaei
Translated by Giorgia Cattaneo
To mark his daughter Sofia’s twenty-fifth birthday (Vic Carmen Sonne) –now his sole heir after the death of his son– Marcos Timoleon (Willem Dafoe), a wealthy Greek shipowner, hosts an elaborate celebration on his private island. A party that seems to be choreographed down to the last detail. But things don’t unfold quite according to his script.
Continua la lettura di “THE BIRTHDAY PARTY” BY MIGUEL ÁNGEL JIMÉNEZ (ENG)Article by Vittorio Barbieri
Translation by Giulia Zanotto
The life of Dane (Ferdinand Mbaïssané), a driver for an NGO in N’Djamena, proceeds normally until a tragic incident exposes him to the burden of diya: the bloody price a family wants him to pay for running over their son. From this moment on, the movie turns into an introspective journey into which responsibility, guilt and redemption intertwine, dragging the audience into a syncopated thriller.
Continua la lettura di “DIYA” BY ACHILLE RONAIMOU (ENG)
Article by Giada Franzoni
Translation by Carlotta Anna Antonacci
What would happen if Fellini’s naïve Cabiria suddenly ended up in John Waters’ irreverent film universe? Fucktoys, the debut feature directed by and starring Annapurna Sriram, answers this question by creating a glamourous and glittering atmosphere which recalls the 1970s and camp aesthetics, while competing in the 43rd edition of the Torino Film Festival.
Continua la lettura di “FUCKTOYS” BY ANNAPURNA SRIRAM (ENG)Article by Dina Aghaei
Translation by Viola Suria
With Mo Papa, her second fiction feature film after Mo Mamma (2023), Estonian director Eeva Mägi returns to explore the most fragile part of human relationships, this time choosing the bond between father and son. The film speaks with intensity and clarity: the story of a man who longs for an ordinary life and strives to act rightly, yet remains trapped by his past and unresolved traumas. Haunted by a city that condemned him and a stolen childhood, he is slowly driven toward self-destruction.
Continua la lettura di “MO PAPA” BY EEVA MÄGI (ENG)Article by Martina Oliva
Translation by Chiara Ventura
After Juliette Binoche took part in the performance In-I In (2008), a piece both danced and acted in which she performed alongside the British dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, she filmed the documentary In-I In Motion (2025).
Continua la lettura di “IN-I IN MOTION” BY JULIETTE BINOCHE (ENG)Article by Niccolò Bedino
Translation by Valeria Marconi
Hollywood promises you the world. However, after stealing your soul, it often gives you only a pale reflection of what you were looking for in return. Billy Knight, Alec Griffen Roth’s debut film is a love letter to cinema, a tale which is halfway between reality and imagination. This is the journey of a young artist who is trying to understand if cinema can save him or if it is only a sweet illusion.
Continua la lettura di “BILLY KNIGHT” BY ALEC GRIFFEN ROTH (ENG)Article by Davide Lassandro
Translation by Alice Ivaldi Lessona
Revolutions, of any kind, have always existed and have incessantly shaped the course of history. But what is their purpose? What are they fought for? And against whom? These are the questions that define Daniel Vidal Toche’s first feature film, La anatomía de los caballos, presented at the 43rd Torino Film Festival. The Peruvian director creates an unusual and personal cinematic work, depicting the relationship between a land and its people filtered through the complex and contradictory theme of revolution.
Continua la lettura di “LA ANATOMÍA DE LOS CABALLOS” BY DANIEL VIDAL TOCHE (ENG)Article by Luca Delpiano
Translation by Virginia Milazzo
Presented to the 43rd Torino Film Festival’s documentaries competition, About a Hero ponders over the concept of representation itself during the era of generative technologies. A true-crime style mockumentary – guided by a fake AI generated Werner Herzog – intertwines the figure of the great German director with a sequence of real interviews: artists, scientists and philosophers who discuss the increasingly uncertain boundary between man and machine.
Continua la lettura di “ABOUT A HERO” BY PIOTR WINIEWICZ (ENG)Article by Marilina Rita Monzo
Translation by Giacomo Patterlini
In Avemmaria, what stands out is not the story, but a perspective: that of a man who, on the threshold of fatherhood, realises he cannot move forward without coming to terms with the child he once was. This insight gave rise to Fortunato Cerlino’s directorial debut, presented at the 43rd Turin Film Festival. The work naturally weaves together two periods of life, building a continual debate between the adult Felice, the director’s alter ego – played by Salvatore Esposito – and the young Felice, played by Mario Di Leva.
Continua la lettura di “AVEMMARIA” BY FORTUNATO CERLINO (ENG)Article by Greta Maria Sorani
Translation by Francesca Corino
A woman lays motionless on a bed, seemingly lifeless. On top of her, a man, panting, abuses her. The second feature film by Lino Escalera, Hamburgo, opens with this violent image. After his debut with No sé decir adiós (2017), the Madrid-born director returns on the topics of drug addiction and loneliness by adopting the conventions and atmospheres of noir cinema.
Continua la lettura di “HAMBURGO” BY LINO ESCALERA (ENG)Article by Carlotta Profico
Translated by Giorgia Cattaneo
After decades in the industry, a renowned music producer fights to preserve his record label, Stackin’ Hits Records, as it faces a looming takeover by a global corporation. His efforts are suddenly disrupted when, from his penthouse overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge, he learns that his teenage son has been kidnapped.
Continua la lettura di “HIGHEST 2 LOWEST” BY SPIKE LEE (ENG)Article by Marta Mastrocinque
Translation by Maria Iacovone
Dolph: Unbreakable tells the life and career of Dolph Lundgren, starting from his most vulnerable moment: his illness. Andrew Holmes’ documentary opens and closes there, in the moment the actor – action cinema icon – stops being just a “tough guy” and becomes a man fighting in silence, still working, exercising and living.
Continua la lettura di “DOLPH: UNBREAKABLE” BY ANDREW HOLMES (ENG)Article by: Alessandra Sottini
Translation by: Carlotta Anna Antonacci
In Ailleurs la Nuit, presence and absence are two faces of a coin: among personal doubts, fleeting encounters and secret bonds, the lives of six characters echo into one another. Although the drama of this dichotomy springs from its paradoxical representation in Pirandello’s work, in Ailleurs la Nuit it is incommunicability and silence that make it noticeable.
Continua la lettura di “AILLEURS LA NUIT” BY MARIANNE MÉTIVIER (ENG)Article by Alessandra Sottini
Translation by Luca Perrone
On November 7th in Rome, the elegant Acquario Romano venue hosted the press conference presenting the 43rd edition of the Torino Film Festival. This year, the event is adorned with the face and magnetic gaze of Paul Newman, as evident from the poster: a picture shot in 1981 by Eva Sereny, which captures the famous star during the filming of Absence of Malice. It goes without saying that this is one of the twenty-four movies of the Festival paying homage to the actor.
Continua la lettura di 43rd TORINO FILM FESTIVAL’S PRESS CONFERENCE (21-29 NOVEMBER 2025) (ENG)Article by Emidio Sciamanna
Translation by Francesca Borgheresi
Lurking in the shadows of a social pessimism and often embodied by the human values of science and justice, the search for rationality takes the ruthless and tragic shape of a great evil, which is a demon that feeds itself with collective discrimination and mutual hate. The second full-length film by Han Dong-seok, The Sin, presented in the category “Crazies” of the 41st edition of Torino Film Festival, suggests a crazy concept of the original sin, where fear and the obsessive desire of revenge insinuate in the mechanic physicality of multiple moving bodies.
Continua la lettura di “THE SIN” BY HAN DONG-SEOKArticle by Emidio Sciamanna
Translation by Chiara Rotondo
An elderly painter climbs the steep cliff face of Brittany’s coastline, wearing worn-out clothes and holding his palette, easel and brushes in hand. Upon reaching a secluded grotto, he is free to express his imagination against the stunning coastal backdrop. This is the opening scene of Barbet Schroeder’s latest documentary, Ricardo et la peinture (“Ricardo and painting”), which premiered Out of Competition at the 41st Turin Film Festival.
Continua la lettura di “RICARDO ET LA PEINTURE” BY BARBET SCHROEDERArticle by Elena Bernardi
Translation by Camilla Lippi
In Cambio Cambio (“Change Change”), one of the movies presented out of competition in the “Nuovi Sguardi Argentini” (“New Argentinian Perspectives”) section at the 41st Torino Film Festival, Lautaro García Candela paints a picture of Generation Z in a post-pandemic Argentina, somewhere between a thriller and a love story.
Continua la lettura di “CAMBIO CAMBIO” BY LAUTARO GARCÍA CANDELA
