From March 25 to 29, 2026, under the high patronage of the European Parliament, Pordenone Docs Fest once again transforms the city into an international point of reference for the cinema of the real. Now in its 19th edition, the festival by Cinemazero confirms its place among the leading European events dedicated to documentaries, marking a significant milestone on the path leading toward “Pordenone Italian Capital of Culture 2027.”
This year’s edition stems from a precise awareness: we live immersed in a continuous flow of images that claim a presumed immediacy but, precisely because of their overabundance, risk producing desensitization and a loss of meaning. In an era of visual overexposure, the pain of others can turn into background noise and the gaze into a distracted surface. Pordenone Docs Fest therefore chooses a clear direction: not to chase visual shock, but to restore complexity, depth, and time to the act of viewing.
Within this framework fits the national premiere of Peacemaker by Ivan Ramljak — who will be present at the festival —, already a winner at the DOK Leipzig festival, which reconstructs the figure of Josip Reihl Kir, the police chief of Osijek (Croatia) in 1991, a man who chose dialogue as a tool for mediation. Through archival materials and testimonies, the film offers a portrait of an individual choice capable of questioning the present: a reflection also on the current rise of extremisms, which are increasingly uncontrolled and worrying even in the Balkan territory.
Among the most intense and timely works in the selection is the national premiere of A Fox Under a Pink Moon by Mehrdad Oskouei, winner of IDFA, the largest documentary festival in Europe: the visual diary of Soraya, a young Afghan artist in Iran (who will be present at the festival with the director), who films her daily life suspended between fear and the desire for a future with her smartphone. The film is an emblematic example of how a personal device can become a tool for self-representation and narrative resistance: the story of her attempts to escape from Iran to avoid violence in a male-dominated society opposed to women’s freedoms, and of her art, are a manifesto for self-determination and a cry of hope.
The relationship between images and perception is also at the center of The Longer You Bleed by Ewan Waddell, which, presented as a national premiere in the presence of the director, follows a group of young Ukrainians as they observe their homeland through Instagram feeds. Between irony (sometimes paradoxical and shocking) and visual experimentation, the film becomes a powerful reflection on how we consume images of pain and how these, inevitably, end up consuming us. Furthermore, the festival’s gaze opens up to female trajectories and stories of transformation.
In Wise Women, also a national premiere, director Nicole Scherg (present at the festival) accompanies the viewer through Ethiopia, Brazil, and Austria, alongside five midwives — key figures not always remembered and almost always female — who transform every birth into a gesture of freedom and responsibility, reminding us how the way we come into the world contributes to defining our future.
The program also includes the national premiere of Confessions of a Mole by Chinese director Mo Tan, an ironic coming-of-age story set between tradition and the desire for global openness that tells us a great deal about the contrasts of current Chinese society, and 32 Meters, a Turkish-Iranian production that follows the protagonist Halime as she challenges stereotypes and customs by organizing an all-female target shooting tournament in her village, witnessing the desire and possibility for change in contemporary Turkey.
Alongside the screenings, Pordenone Docs Fest strengthens its role as a platform for the future of the sector, with a rich international program parallel to the screenings (guest professionals from all over Europe and 5 days of intense sessions held entirely in English), increasingly an opportunity for discussion and the growth of collaborations. Among the extensive Industry offerings, a central moment will be the panel dedicated to documentary pedagogy, which will compare Italian and European best practices for integrating the cinema of the real into school curricula, promoting visual literacy and cultural citizenship, in line with the work of visual education and the restoration of “democratic gazes,” particularly for the audience of the future. Indeed, the documentary represents an exceptional educational and teaching tool for contemporary students.
Among the various proposals, NIUDOC – Where Stories Begin also returns, an industry space dedicated to emerging talents from the North East and the Balkan area, created in synergy with Lago Film Fest, CNA Cinema Audiovisivo FVG and Veneto, in collaboration with the FVG Audiovisual Fund. The path — which includes international tutoring, pitching, and mentoring with prestigious international distributors such as Taskovski Films and Impronta Films — confirms itself as a development and networking platform with a strong international vocation, bringing young filmmakers into dialogue with professionals, decision-makers, and European production entities. The selected projects will be supported until their final presentation at the Lago Film Fest.
Between industry appointments, cultural accessibility projects such as “Città aperta” (dedicated to culture for everyone), which will be a key project toward Pordenone Italian Capital of Culture 2027, and a constant focus on rights issues, the festival confirms its identity as a living and responsible organism. With dozens of national premieres and guests from all over the world, Pordenone Docs Fest 2026 proposes five days of necessary cinema: a space for “democratic,” free, and conscious vision, outside of commercial logic and “information overload,” capable of restoring to the gaze its critical function in a time dominated by an excess of images.