The 44th edition (running 7 to 15 March) of the Bergamo Film Meeting will once again sit at the crossroads of international cinema, showcasing somewhere in the region of 170 films, spanning shorts and feature-length movies. Two competitive sections dedicated to feature films and documentaries will grace the agenda, alongside tributes to director Abbas Kiarostami, on the tenth anniversary of his death, and to French actor Louis de Funès, a focus on pinscreen animation, a retrospective revolving around Polish director Agnieszka Holland and the usual focus on new contemporary European cinema, this time homing in on Ildikó Enyedi and Alex van Warmerdam (read our article).

Aimed at new directors, the international competition will present 7 fiction feature films competing for the audience-awarded Bergamo Film Meeting Prize and the Best Director trophy, decided upon by an international jury composed of Gabriella Manfrè (producer), Patrice Toye (director) and Miguel Valverde (director of IndieLisboa). The section includes Maricel (Cyprus/Greece) by Elias Demetriou, whose protagonist travels from a Filippino metropolis to a small village in the Cypriot hills to take care of an elderly couple, making for a challenging cohabitation experience. Written, produced and directed by newcomer Abdelkarim El-Fassi, Porte Bagage [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Netherlands) revolves around the Idrissi family in Holland: the father, Musa, wants to return to Morocco, so his daughter, Noor, postpones her work transfer to Paris to take him home, embarking on a long journey across Europe. Subsuelo [+lire aussi :
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interview : Fernando Franco
fiche film] (Spain/Uruguay) sees Spanish director Fernando Franco trying his hand at a psychological thriller based on Argentine writer Marcelo Luján’s novel of the same name, while Hidden People [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Miha Hočevar (Slovenia/Serbia/Iceland) is a unique comedy in which a thirty-something Slovenian dreamer and a fifty-something Icelandic man wake up in each other’s arms, handcuffed together, in the vicinity of Ljubljana. Pieces of a Foreign Life [+lire aussi :
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interview : Gaya Jiji
fiche film] (Belgium/France), which is Gaya Jiji’s second feature film, charts one woman’s (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) dramatic flight from war-torn Syria to Bordeaux. Virginie Efira and Arieh Worthalter lead the cast of Thomas Kruithof’s new film, Les Braises (France), which is set against the explosion of the gilets jaunes movement in France. Last but not least, The Frog and the Water [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Germany) by Thomas Stuber, presented in Tallinn’s Black Nights Festival, sees a young man with Down syndrome joining up with a group of Japanese tourists travelling from Germany to Switzerland.

The Close Up section will showcase 14 independently produced documentaries, including  The Last Will (Latvia) by Jānis Ābele, which sees a poet honouring a colleague’s last wishes; We, the Wolfs (Germany/Ecuador) by Darío Aguirre, following an Ecuadorian family with German ancestry; Road 190 [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Switzerland/Belgium) by Emilie Cornu and Charlotte Nastasi, which focuses on a prisoner on death row in Texas; Green Light [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Austria/Romania) by Pavel Cuzuioc, which revolves around a German neuropsychiatrist responsible for assessing the decision-making capacity of people requesting assisted suicide; Supernatural [+lire aussi :
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interview : Ventura Durall
fiche film] (Spain/France/Belgium) by Ventura Durall, centring on the controversial shaman André Malby; Riding with Death (Finland) by Nina Forsman and Sakari Suuronen, which explores the culture of sanatoriums in Finland between the Twenties and the Sixties; To Close Your Eyes and See Fire [+lire aussi :
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interview : Nicola von Leffern et Jako…
fiche film] (Austria) by Nicola von Leffern and Jakob Carl Sauer, which examines the consequences of the port explosion in Beirut; Master and Servant (Italy) by Roberto-C., focusing on the lower classes in Naples, and Days of Wonder [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Finland/Denmark/Norway) by Karin Pennanen, which was named Best Documentary in Tallinn’s Black Nights Festival and is dedicated to the director’s Uncle Markku who was a visual artist, musician and composer.

The Bergamo-based gathering will also host the sixth edition of the Film Industry Meetings (running 11-12 March), entitled “New forms of distribution: European models across classics, contemporary and immersive cinema”, which will consist of panel discussions on distribution and programming strategies, broadcasting immersive experiences, social media marketing, and cultural policies.