Bif&st – Bari International Film&TV Festival is returning for its 17th edition between 21 and 28 March. "The key words for this year’s edition are the Mediterranean and Europe,” explains artistic director Oscar Larussi, “and they speak to a context of devastation in the Euro-Mediterranean region caused by the tragic ripple effects of war. It allows us to imagine that another version of the Mediterranean really is possible”.

The international Meridiana competition will present 12 films, all hailing from countries within the Euro-Mediterranean area. A world premiere is on the cards for the documentary opening this section, A War on Women, which is directed by the Iranian filmmaker living in Italy Raha Shirazi and which looks back on the history of the feminist movement in Iran from the Sixties to the present day. Titles hailing from the Balkan region include Man of the House [+lee también:
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entrevista: Andamion Murataj
ficha de la película] by Andamion Murataj, set in modern-day Albania and following a woman who has chosen to live like a man, in line with local tradition, and Hana Jušić’s second feature film God Will Not Help [+lee también:
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entrevista: Hana Jušić
ficha de la película], which earned a Best Actress Leopard for Manuela Martelli and Ana Marija Veselčić in Locarno and which revolves around the arrival of a mysterious Chilean woman in a community of Croatian shepherds at the beginning of the twentieth century. From Greece, Beachcomber by Aristotelis Maragkos, who won Best Director in Salonicco, is an allegory of a sailor-poet’s imagined odyssey, while Happy Birthday by Sarah Goher, which won an award in Tribeca and has been shortlisted to represent Egypt at the Oscars, explores social and class tension in modern-day Cairo.

North Africa is offering up Nomad Shadow by Eimi Imanishi, which was presented in Toronto and centres on a woman deported from Spain to the Western Sahara. For her part, Armenian-French director Tamara Stepanyan will present In the Land of Arto [+lee también:
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entrevista: Tamara Stepanyan
ficha de la película], a psychological thriller about war trauma, while stand-out European titles include the coming-of-age tale The Little Sister [+lee también:
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entrevista: Hafsia Herzi
ficha de la película], by actress-director Hafsia Herzi, which won Nadia Melliti Best Actress in Cannes. Spain will also be attending with two movies: Deaf [+lee también:
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entrevista: Eva Libertad
ficha de la película] by newcomer Eva Libertad, which charts a non-hearing woman’s adventures and challenges in motherhood and which bagged an Audience Award in Berlin’s Panorama line-up, and, in a world premiere, Meta Morfosis by Chumilla-Carbajosa, which is a loose cinematographic re-interpretation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Modern-day Portugal and the phenomenon of overtourism are the focus of Eugène Green’s The Tree of Knowledge [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], while Italy is set to round of the selection with Brunella Filì’s Sea Sisters, which is screening in a world premiere and which juxtaposes Gallipoli in sun-drenched Apulia with the Arctic Sea.

The films will be assessed by an international jury presided over by Italian director and writer Roberto Andò and further composed of Diana Martirosyan (a film critic and cultural journalist from Armenia), Giovanni Orlando (a film and TV producer from the USA), Fatma Sfar (an actress, musician and performer from Tunisia) and Ahmed Shawky (a film critic and chairman of FIPRESCI from Egypt).

The Per il Cinema Italiano section will offer up 10 films in competition - 6 works of fiction and 4 documentaries - ranging from Fabio Segatori’s historical-literary title Don Quixote to Valentina Zanella’s initiatory comedy Non è la fine del mondo, Fabrizio Cattani’s family film Io non ti lasci solo, the initiatory criminal tale Cattiva strada, which is a first work by Davide Angiuli, Era by Vincenzo Marra, Finale: allegro by Emanuela Piovano, and the documentaries Caprilegio by Margherita Laterza and Rosa Maietta, Su Maistu by Gianfranco Cabiddu and Tirrenica by Rosario Minervini. Films screening out of competition include two fiction titles - B.A.E. - Before Anything Else by Paula Lingyi Sun and Alessio Hong, and Giovannino Guareschi – Non muoio nenche se mi ammazzano by Andrea Porporati - and two documentaries, namely Devozioni by Gianfranco Pannone and Ritorno al tratturo by Francesco Cordio.

The Frontiere section consists of 12 titles, including Silent Rebellion [+lee también:
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entrevista: Marie-Elsa Sgualdo
ficha de la película] by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo, We Believe You [+lee también:
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entrevista: Arnaud Dufeys y Charlotte …
ficha de la película] by Charlotte Devillers and Arnaud Dufeys, Palestine 36 [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Annemarie Jacir, which has been chosen to represent Palestine at the Oscars, A State Film [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Roland Sejko and I Want Her Dead [+lee también:
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entrevista: Gianluca Matarrese
ficha de la película] by Gianluca Matarrese.

Special Events on the agenda include La salita by Massimiliano Gallo, Bobò [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Pippo Delbono and a remake of Jacques Audiard’s masterpiece, A Prophet: The Series by Enrico Maria Artale, while Rosso di Sera will boast three world premieres of Italian films, namely Francesco Lagi’s ensemble comedy Il dio dell’amore, Lucia Calamaro’s Antartica – Quasi una fiaba, and grandmaster Pupi Avat’s new movie, Nel tepore del ballo.