10/11/2025 - The festival’s 43rd edition will unspool between 21 and 29 November, showcasing 120 titles spanning features films, documentaries and shorts, and welcoming international guests

The 43rd edition of the Torino Film Festival is set to unspool between 21 and 29 November, dedicated to the iconic Paul Newman on the centenary of his birth and showcasing 24 of his films.  More broadly, the event will offer up 120 titles divided across three competition sections (feature films, documentaries and short films) and three non-competitive sections. The raft of international guests on the invitation list boasts Spike Lee, Vanessa Redgrave, Juliette Binoche, Franco Nero, Daniel Brühl, Terry Gilliam, Claude Lelouch, Aleksandr Sokurov, Hanna Schygulla and Jacqueline Bisset.

The movies selected for the Feature Films Competition will be judged by Italian screenwriter Ippolita di Majo, French actress Lolita Chammah, Belgian director Wannes Destoop, Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa and Locarno Film Festival director Giona Nazzaro. Jostling amongst these 16 titles are Peruvian director Daniel Vidal Toche’s debut, The Anatomy of the Horses [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Spain/Peru/Colombia/France), which was presented in Karlovy Vary’s Proxima Competition; Cinema Jazireh [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gözde Kural
film profile] (Turkey/Iran/Bulgaria/Romania) by Turkey’s Gözde Kural, which also competed in Karlovy Vary and which sees a Taleban regime survivor disguising herself as a man in order to look for her missing son; Eva (Italy) by Emanuela Rossi, which revolves around a mysterious woman who’s been linked to the disappearance of several children, and a mother in China battling against her daughter’s illness; The Garden of Earthly Delights [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Netherlands/Philippines), in which Morgan Knibbe explores youth in Manila, hampered by poverty, crime and postcolonial exploitation; thriller Hamburg [+see also:
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film profile] (Spain/Romania), which is Spanish director Lino Escalera’s second film, tackling the problem of mafia groups controlling female prostitution; Slovenian director Ester Ivakić’s debut movie Ida Who Sang So Badly Even the Dead Rose up and Joined Her in Song [+see also:
film review
film profile], which is a youth-focused drama following a girl who does everything to save her beloved grandma in 1970s Yugoslavia, and Estonian director Eeva Mägi’s second work after Mo Mamma [+see also:
film review
interview: Eeva Mägi
film profile], Mo Papa, which follows Eugen who is hoping to be reconciled with his family after spending ten years in prison for causing the death of his younger brother. A thirty-something actor who’s struggling to find roles and who decides to invent an identity and characters in his everyday life is the focus of Italian director Fabrizio Benvenuto’s first work, Il protagonista. Last but not least, following a stint in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, Her Will Be Done [+see also:
film review
interview: Julia Kowalski
film profile] - which is the second work by the French director of Polish origin Julia Kowalski – is also gracing the line-up, centring on twenty-something protagonist Nawojka who starts to experience trance-like states and to demonstrate mysterious powers.

Stealing focus in the Documentaries Competition are In-I in Motion, Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche’s directorial debut; About a Hero [+see also:
film review
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interview: Piotr Winiewicz
film profile] by Piotr Winiewicz, which opened last year’s IDFA; Bobò [+see also:
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film profile] by Pippo Delbono, presented out of competition in the most recent Locarno Festival; The Clown of Gaza by Abdulrahman Sabbah, co-produced by France, Palestine and Qatar; Coexistence, My Ass! [+see also:
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trailer
film profile], which won Israeli stand-up comedian and activist Amber Fares the Special Grand Jury Award in Sundance 2025; Mothers by Alice Tomassini, focusing on criminalised surrogate pregnancy in Cambodia, and Shadowland [+see also:
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interview: Otso Tiainen
film profile] by Finland’s Otso Tiainen, revolving around former film director Richard Stanley who is now a spiritual guide in the French Pyrenees.

And finally, stand-out films scheduled to screen out of competition include Sound of Falling [+see also:
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interview: Mascha Schilinski
film profile] by Germany’s Mascha Schilinski, which won the Jury Prize in Cannes, The Captive [+see also:
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interview: Alejandro Amenábar
film profile], which sees Oscar winner Alejandro Amenábar exploring the years spent in prison by Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes; The Fence [+see also:
film review
interview: Claire Denis
film profile] by French director Claire Denis which is based on a book by Bernard-Marie Koltès; the new film by Romania’s Radu Jude, Dracula [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Radu Jude
film profile], which competed in Locarno, and H Is for Hawk [+see also:
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film profile] by Philippa Lowthorpe, which is based on the autobiography by British writer and naturalist Helen Macdonald.

(Translated from Italian)