25/09/2025 - Running 15 – 26 October in Rome, the festival dedicated to younger generations will present Ronan Day-Lewis' Anemone, which is competing alongside 10 international titles

The return of Daniel Day-Lewis in a premiere of his son Ronan’s first work, Anemone, is just one of the surprises in store in the 23rd edition of Alice nella Città, which is unfolding in Rome between 15 and 26 October, in parallel with Rome Film Fest yet wholly independent from the festival from this year onwards. Daniel Day-Lewis, who’s reappearing on screen eight years on from Phantom Thread, will be in Rome with his son in order to present the latter’s film, which has been selected for the international competition, and to deliver a masterclass.

Dedicated to themes relating to younger generations, Alice nella Città is offering up a programme including 11 works screening in competition and 6 out of competition, as well as 6 films battling it out for the Audience Award, 3 Special Screenings and 3 TV series, all in the Panorama Italia line-up. “What we’re really interested in are young people: offering up their ideas on what’s normal and what’s different, on the importance of taking another path to fulfil your desire if it helps you to live a better life”, explain artistic directors Gianluca Giannelli and Fabia Bettini.

One movie directly inhabiting the memories of its director is The President’s Cake, Hasan Hadi’s first work which has been selected in the international competition having already scooped the Caméra d’Or for Best First Film in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. The search for family ties fuses with a desire for freedom in the Nigerian capital of Lagos, which is rocked by political turmoil in 1993, in Akinola Davies Jr.’s moving debut My Father's Shadow [+see also:
film review
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interview: Akinola Davies Jr
film profile], which was also rewarded in Cannes, bagging a Caméra d'Or Special Mention in the Un Certain Regard section. Czech director Vojtěch Strakatý has opted for a delicate study of childhood which captures a sense of sisterhood, uncertainty and emancipation in his second feature film, The Other Side of Summer [+see also:
film review
interview: Vojtěch Strakatý
film profile]. The earliest years of a little girl’s life, meanwhile, are mapped out in the animated movie Little Amélie of the Character of Rain [+see also:
trailer
interview: Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han
film profile], which Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han adapted from Amélie Nothomb’s bestseller, The Character of Rain.

After competing in San Sebastián, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s new film Sundays [+see also:
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interview: Alauda Ruiz de Azúa
film profile] is travelling directly to Rome, introducing us to an idealistic and brilliant seventeen-year-old girl who’s ready to embrace life as a cloistered nun. Spanish director José Alayón’s second feature film, Dance of the Living [+see also:
film review
film profile], which was also presented in San Sebastian in recent days, explores an ancestral mystery which keeps families together, while newcomer Lucía Aleñar Iglesias will present Forastera [+see also:
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film profile] (awarded the FIPRESCI Prize in Toronto), a film about memory, awareness of loss and the ability to let go. Iranian director Hesam Farahmand will also be making his debut with the powerful social drama My Daughter's Hair, as will Siyou Tan with Amoeba [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which reflects upon adolescent attempts to challenge social conventions. The second work by the American screenwriter and director Max Walker-Silverman will round off the competition line-up, with Josh O'Connor leading the cast of Rebuilding.

Primed and ready to open the festival out of competition is new American director Ben Leonberg’s indie horror, Good Boy, which has already gone viral. Other out-of-competition titles include A Second Life [+see also:
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film profile] by the eclectic French director Laurent Slama, which is set during the Paris Olympics, Momoko Seto’s animated movie Dandelion’s Odyssey [+see also:
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interview: Momoko Seto
film profile], and Nicholas Hytner’s The Choral [+see also:
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film profile], starring Ralph Fiennes and exploring the power of music as a kind of social glue.

For the very first year, an audience award will go to one of the films in the Panorama Italia Competition: Daniele Barbiero’s Squali is a modern tale about adolescence and social pressure in a hyper-connected world; Margherita Spampinato’s delicate Sweetheart [+see also:
film review
interview: Margherita Spampinato
film profile], which scooped the Special Jury Prize in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present Competition, invites us to see memory as a tool for growth; reality and memory, though this time involving a mixture of genres, formats and visual languages, also feature in Bouchra [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani, while deeply personal and authentic experiences are at the heart of Leila, directed by Alessandro Abba Legnazzi, Giada Vincenzi and their daughter Clementina. Last but not least, Matteo Oleotto’s second work, Ultimo schiaffo, takes us to a distinctly noir dimension.

Una famiglia sottosopra is the “family-fantasy” comedy scheduled to close the Panorama Italia line-up, a remake of the French film Family Swap [+see also:
trailer
film profile], directed by Alessandro Genovesi, while Special Screenings are on the cards for Domani interrogo by Umberto Carteni and Per te by Alessandro Aronadio, in co-production with Rome Film Fest.

(Translated from Italian)