Set on the idyllic shores of the Lakes of Revine, in northeast Italy, the Lago Film Fest returns with a nine-day cornucopia of screenings, meetings and master classes devoted to the cinema of the future. A go-to event for short-film enthusiasts around the world, the festival will kick off its 19th edition on 21 July and unveil a whopping 200 films from 45 countries. Prominent international and Italian filmmakers will flock to Revine to take part in several thought-provoking talks and panels: among them, Catarina Vasconcelos, Cyril Schäublin, Eduardo Williams, Helena Wittmann, Agathe Bonitzer, Francesco Sossai, Eva Giolo and Lav Diaz, the latter of whom will be the subject of a retrospective – the first of its kind ever to be organised in Italy, and arguably this edition’s crown jewel.

Selected from over 3,000 submissions, 109 fiction, documentary and animated films will be unveiled across various competitive sections: Moving Bodies, Nuovi Segni, Princìpî Award, Regione del Veneto, Concorso Nazionale and Concorso Internazionale, plus three programmes dedicated to children (Unicef Kids, Unicef Teens and Unicef Young Adults) and the L.O.S.T. Lago Original Soundtrack competition for the best soundtrack. Among the many highlights are Monica Lima’s IFFR winner Natureza Humana; Francesco Sossai’s Cuore di Mamma, a world premiere that will kick off proceedings on 21 July; and the restoration of Manuela Serra’s O Movimento das Coisas, a long-lost film picked by director Catarina Vasconcelos as the festival’s closing title.

Seven of Lav Diaz’s majestic works will screen in a theatre the festival has set up for the occasion, turning a disused building into a makeshift cinema. From the 11-hour Evolution of a Filipino Family to the 2014 Golden Leopard winner From What Is Before, audiences will enjoy a riveting foray into the oeuvre of one of independent cinema’s most idiosyncratic voices. Furthermore, Eduardo Williams, Helena Wittmann and Cyril Schäublin will be invited to screen some of their most significant shorts as part of the Fireworks section, designed to spotlight young international filmmakers pushing the medium down new, electrifying paths.

Among this edition’s thematic focuses is the newly established Frontiers, a programme designed to explore the cross-pollination between cinema and other art forms. This year, Frontiers will centre on Forensic Architecture, a studio whose video investigations have long addressed social justice through the double prism of architecture and documentary cinema. Other themes and regions that will be featured in the section include director-producer Nolitha Refilwe Mkulisi’s essential mapping of contemporary South African cinema, a special focus on Chinese science fiction, a bold and fresh look at the representation of sex toys in cinema, and a journey into contemporary animation curated by Raman Djafari.

In partnership with the Ljubljana Short Film Festival—FeKK, and organised under the aegis of the European Network for Film Discourse—The END, Lago Film Fest will also host a film-criticism workshop led by critic Leonardo Goi. Designed to bring together six young cinephiles from around the world for a week of screenings, writing, networking and group discussions, the workshop is a luminous testament to the incubator-like role that Lago Film Fest has carved out for itself: a space where people can meet, ideas can flourish, and the filmmakers of tomorrow can plant the seeds of their new works.