The 66th edition of the Festival dei Popoli, taking place from 1-9 November in Florence, will open with the Italian premiere of With Hasan in Gaza [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Kamal Aljafari
fiche film], with the auteur behind it, Palestinian director Kamal Aljafari, in attendance. In competition at Locarno in August, where it received the Europa Cinemas Label, the film is a meditation on memory and loss born of three MiniDV tapes found by the director that document life in Gaza in 2001.

Nine features will lock horns in the International Feature Competition, judged by programmer Cecilia Barrionuevo (Argentina), and filmmakers Elena Lopez (Spain) and Mala Reinhardt (Germany). In addition to the aforementioned With Hasan in Gaza, the selection includes A Scary Movie [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film] (Spain/Portugal) by Brazilian-Spanish director Sergio Oksman, which opened the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section of the latest San Sebastián International Film Festival, and follows a filmmaker and his 12-year-old son staying in an abandoned hotel in Lisbon. World-premiering, Last Letters From My Grandma (Belgium/Romania/Netherlands/Moldova) is a documentary by Olga Lucovnicova about the letters written by her grandmother, who took her own life in 1989 upon the collapse of the Soviet Union. In D for Distance (Finland), co-directors Christopher Petit and Emma Matthews tell the story of their son Louis, affected by a rare form of epilepsy. Spring in Kangiqsualujjuag (Canada/Germany), an international premiere by Marie Zrenner, focuses on a remote Inuit settlement in the Canadian Arctic. Also enjoying its international premiere, Better Go Mad in the Wild [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Miro Remo
fiche film] (Czech Republic/Slovakia) by Miro Remo – winner of the Crystal Globe at Karlovy Vary – adapts the eponymous book by Aleš Palán about twin brothers who embrace the wilderness. The residents of a Reykjavik care home are the protagonists of The Ground Beneath Our Feet [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] (Iceland/Poland) by Yrsa Roca Fannberg, presented at CPH:DOX 2025. Awarded a Special Mention for Best Documentary in the Forum at the most recent Berlinale, The Memory of Butterflies [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski
fiche film] (Peru/Portugal) by Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski intertwines the director’s personal story with Amazonian archives from the early 20th century. Finally, in To the West, in Zapata [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] (Spain/Cuba), which won a Special Jury Prize at Visions du Réel, David Bim explores the Zapata wetlands in Cuba, where a father hunts crocodiles with his bare hands to feed his family during the pandemic.

Highlights of the Italian Competition include Cumpartia by Daniele Gaglianone, about a small winery in Sulcis, Sardinia; She (Italy/France/Vietnam) by Parsifal Reparato, selected for the Locarno Critics’ Week, about women working 12-hour shifts in one of the world’s largest electronics plants in Vietnam; Waithood by Paola Piscitelli, centring on a boy from Naples and one from Cape Verde; and White Lies (Italy/Belgium/France), which tells the story of the director, Alba Zari, born into the controversial Children of God sect.

The festival will also present the International Discoveries Competition, dedicated to shorts and mid-lengths, and Doc Highlights, featuring internationally resonant titles such as Sanatorium [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
interview : Gar O’Rourke
fiche film] by Gar O'Rourke, Checkpoint Zoo by Joshua Zeman, Post Truth by Alkan Avcıoğlu, Il Settimo Presidente by Daniele Ceccarini and Mario Molinari, and Familiar Places by Mala Reinhardt. In addition, there will be a retrospective devoted to Sarah Maldoror, a revolutionary voice and the first woman filmmaker of African cinema; the Habitat section, focused on sustainability and human-rights issues; Let the Music Play, for music documentaries, with a retrospective of Marie Losier’s work; Popoli for Kids and Teens, for younger audiences; and Future Camps – European Doc Academy, showcasing works from the best film schools across Europe.