28/02/2025 - From 8 to 16 March, the festival will offer 160 films, meetings with guests and industry days about the valorisation of the European cinema heritage

Lazy Girls by Karim Dridi

With 160 short and feature films, the 43rd edition of the Bergamo Film Meeting will be a crossroads for international cinema in Italy between 8 and 16 March, also presenting guests, encounters, special events, webinars and masterclasses. The programme of the festival, directed by Fiammetta Girola and Annamaria Materazzini, features two competitive sections, the Competition dedicated to fiction features, and the Close Up Competition, dedicated to documentary; a retrospective of Otar Iosseliani, the great Georgian master naturalised French who passed away in 2023; an homage to the cinema of Polish director Wojciech Jerzy Has, on the centenary of his birth; the usual focus on new contemporary European cinema, Europe, Now!, with the personal works of Czech filmmaker Alice Nellis and German director Christian Petzold (read the article), which will be enriched by a selection of European graduation films adhering to Cilect, and the Europe, Now! Film Industry Meetings (12-13 March), two days for professionals of the sector that this year will focus on the valorisation of the European cinema heritage.

17 fiction features competing for the Bergamo Film Meeting Prize, all European productions or co-productions, are characterised as always by the linguistic and narrative originality with which they address contemporary themes. In Lazy Girls (France) by Karim Dridi, two punk girls evicted from a squat leave in their old truck for a trip without destination, while in Winter in Sokcho [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Koya Kamura
film profile] (France/South Korea), directed by French-Japanese filmmaker Koya Kamura and presented in Toronto and San Sebastián, the arrival of a French illustrator in search of accommodation breaks up the routine of a young cook in an old pension in a Korean village. Gina [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Austria) by Ulrike Kofler is a drama told through the eyes of a little girl who refuses to surrender to a destiny of failures, while the teenage protagonist of Tarika [+see also:
film review
interview: Milko Lazarov
film profile] (Bulgaria/Germany/Luxembourg), shot on 35mm by Milko Lazarov, must face an hereditary syndrome from her mother that is viewed with fear and superstition by the villagers. Raised by a single mother in a Sami village, the protagonist of My Fathers’ Daughter [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Norway/Finland/Switzerland), by Egil Pedersen, has never known her father and dreams of being the daughter of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the star of Game of Thrones. In Bitter Gold (Germany/Uruguay/Chile) by Juan Olea, a 16-year old, Carola, works on a gold vein in secret with her father in the desert of Atacama, Chile, dreaming of changing her own destiny. Finally, a couple of fortysomethings live with their three teenagers in a small village in the Slovakian countryside in March to May [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martin Pavol Repka
film profile] (Czech Republic), the debut feature by Martin Pavol Repka, when news of a new pregnancy arrives.

Of the 14 independent productions in the international documentary panorama, we will mention The Labour of Pain and Joy [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Finland) by Karoliina Gröndahl, about two birth assistants who challenge old traditions; having its world premiere, Generations of Images [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Albania/Austria) by Johannes Gierlinger, about the profound processes of transformation that Albania is going through; The Other One [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Czech Republic/Slovakia) by Marie-Magdalena Kochová, a coming-of-age documentary about responsibility and sisterhood; Personale [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carmen Trocker
film profile] (Italy/Austria) by Carmen Trocker, which explores the life of migrant workers in a hotel in the Dolomites; from the Berlinale, Afterwar [+see also:
film review
interview: Birgitte Stærmose
film profile] (Denmark/Kosovo/Switzerland/Finland) by Brigitte Stærmose, shot over 15 years and following a few children from Pristina; and also Dear Beautiful Beloved [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Austria) by Juri Rechinsky, The Trail Left by Time [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Spain) by Luis (Soto) Muñoz and Alfredo Picazo, and Nonkonform (Germany) by Arne Körner.

(Translated from Italian)