Month: March 2026

The 19th edition of Pordenone Docs Fest concluded yesterday with its awards ceremony. From March 25 to 29, the festival brought the very best of international documentary filmmaking to Pordenone, transforming the city into a hub for dialogue, debate, and discovery.

For five days, the theaters of Cinemazero were infused with a vibrant, collective energy. Over 250 guests from around the world—including directors, authors, critics, exhibitors, and distributors—joined a massive turnout of students to animate every moment of the festival, fostering a continuous dialogue between the audience and the protagonists of “cinema del reale” (cinema of the real). Every evening screening was sold out, as were the talks, workshops, and in-depth sessions that made this edition particularly rich and engaging.

“Documentaries can change the world,” declared festival curator Riccardo Costantini. “That was the claim of this edition, and we received concrete proof of it over the last few days: over 6,000 people experienced the festival, engaging with it with curiosity and passion, helping to make it a vital, necessary space.”

The Award Winners

The Jury Grand Prix was awarded to A Fox under a Pink Moon by Mehrdad Oskouei. The international jury—composed of writer Esther Kinsky, director Igor Bezinović (winner at the 2026 EFAs with Fiume o Morte!), and presided over by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, one of the most influential figures in contemporary documentary—honored the film with the following citation:

“The film offers an authentic and direct look at the risks of embarking on a migratory route, a path marked by constant threats. It was filmed over five years using a simple mobile phone by the protagonist herself, providing an intimate and deeply personal perspective. The fact that the protagonist was still a teenager during filming makes this narrative even more powerful: we hope the film reaches a young audience, who are often distanced from the human and individual dimensions of migration.”

The jury also awarded a Special Mention to Peacemaker by Ivan Ramljak, describing it as “a precious work of collecting and enhancing archival materials, capable of constructing a portrait of a figure who deserves to be remembered,” while noting how the film powerfully reminds us that, today more than ever, impunity remains a crucial knot in contemporary conflicts.

The Green Documentary Award went to Supernature by Ed Sayers, which also won the Audience Award after receiving a warm and enthusiastic reception. The citation highlights how, “in an era marked by crisis and environmental neglect, the film is an invitation to open our eyes to the beauty that still endures. It is a call to action, to feel part of a collective narrative that unites humans, nature, and the elements into a single, shared story.”

The Young Jury, composed of students from across Europe alongside the Cinemazero Young Club, presented the Young Jury Award to 32 Meters by Morteza Atabaki. The jury praised its ability to sensitively portray the desire for freedom, growth, and self-discovery through the protagonists’ journey toward autonomy, authentically capturing their aspirations, fears, and determination to redefine their roles in society.

A powerful and timely signal also came from the DocsXR Audience Award, given to the immersive experience Under the Same Sky. The piece follows a Palestinian journalist documenting the horrors of the Gaza Strip, now reduced to rubble. It is a work capable of involving the viewer firsthand, transforming a vision into an experience and making the reality described feel even more urgent and tangible.

The winning works tell necessary stories—stories of change that challenge our gaze and open new perspectives. This drive toward a deeper, more conscious point of view served as the “fil rouge” (common thread) of the entire 19th edition.

On Friday, March 27, the Pordenone Docs Fest comes into full swing with a packed day of events exploring some of the most pressing issues of our time—from women’s rights to the memory of conflicts, from labor to environmental crises.

The morning opens at 10:30 AM with the Italian premiere of Girls Don’t Cry by directors Sigrid Angelika Klausmann and Lina Lužytė. The film explores what it means to be a teenager today through the stories of six girls from different countries and backgrounds, united by their determination to claim their right to self-determination. The event is organized in collaboration with Voce Donna ETS and is free of charge, also open to schools.

At the same time, another important screening will take place, aimed at younger audiences. While not a premiere, it has been included in this year’s program due to the relevance of its subject: Giulio Regeni – Tutto il male del mondo, the first documentary to reconstruct the judicial truth behind the abduction, torture, and killing of the Italian researcher found dead near Cairo on February 3, 2016. On this occasion, a yellow bench will also be inaugurated in front of spazioZero, as a permanent symbol of reflection on fundamental rights and the urgency of defending them.

Also in the morning, NIUDOC 2026 – Where Stories Begin! kicks off, a project dedicated to emerging documentary talents. The initiative offers young filmmakers the opportunity to present their ideas through pitching sessions and one-to-one meetings with producers from North-Eastern Italy and the Balkans. The goal is to foster cross-border collaboration and build a bridge between new voices and industry professionals. The project is promoted by Pordenone Docs Fest together with Lago Film Fest and CNA Cinema Audiovisivo FVG and Veneto, in collaboration with the Friuli Venezia Giulia Audiovisual Fund.

In the afternoon, at 2:30 PM in Sala Pasolini, the Italian Doc Future section focuses on rights and labor. First is The Trials by Marta Massa, which tells the story of Maja T., a non-binary activist detained in solitary confinement in Budapest and involved in the so-called “Budapest Complex,” a political trial linked to the repression of opposition movements in Hungary. This is followed by Macchina Continua by Ruben Gagliardini, which takes the audience to Fabriano, where for centuries the sound of the large F3 machine set the rhythm of life and work. When the plant shuts down, silence becomes a symbol of an Italy that has progressively dismantled its industrial fabric. Both sessions are moderated by filmmakers Alessandro Rossi and Michele Mellara.

At 3:00 PM, the program continues with the retrospective dedicated to the memory of the Spanish Civil War, featuring La vecchia memoria by Jaime Camino, a monumental 1977 documentary that reconstructs the history of the Republic and the conflict through an extraordinary composition of testimonies. At 6:00 PM, the focus shifts to the retrospective on the siege of Sarajevo, with a series of works created during the conflict. Ecce Homo by Vesna Ljubić is a moving urban symphony portraying daily life in the besieged city through sounds, gestures, and images; Les 20 heures dans le camp by Chris Marker tells the story of a group of refugees who create their own news program to reclaim access to information. The program continues with Sarajevo Film Festival by Johan van der Keuken, a reflection on filmmaking in a bombed city, and Waiting for Godot… in Sarajevo, documenting the historic 1993 staging of Beckett’s play directed by Susan Sontag as an act of cultural resistance. Alessandro Del Re will introduce the program.

At 3:15 PM, the Italian premiere of Confessions of a Mole by director Mo Tan will be presented, with the filmmaker in attendance. Returning to China for the New Year after years abroad, she finds herself immersed in family dynamics and her parents’ superstitions, until a breast cancer diagnosis turns the visit into an intimate and painful journey. Blending documentary and stop-motion animation, the film becomes a tragicomic reflection on family, fragility, and the possibility of reconciling with the past.

At 4:00 PM, spazioZero hosts the industry talk “Beyond Borders – Strategies, Co-productions and Opportunities for Documentary,” focusing on international co-productions and collaboration opportunities among filmmakers, producers, and institutions in the Adriatic-Balkan region.

Environmental themes—long central to the festival—take the spotlight with the Italian premiere at 5:15 PM of Melt by Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, who will be present at the screening. Presented in collaboration with Bolzano Film Festival Bozen and Legambiente Pordenone, the film uses stunning images shot around the world—from Antarctica to Iceland, from Canada to the Alps—to portray the slow yet relentless disappearance of ice, turning landscapes into a visual testimony of climate change. A majestic and deeply moving work that observes melting snow as an irreversible loss for future generations.

After the screening, the now traditional AperiDocs! gathering will take place at spazioZero, accompanied by the music of the Cuerdas Trio, blending classical and electric guitar with charango in a journey through Latin American musical traditions.

The evening continues at 9:00 PM with the Italian premiere of The Beauty of the Donkey by Swiss-Albanian director Dea Gjinovci, presented in collaboration with Amnesty International Italy. The filmmaker will be present alongside her father, the protagonist of the documentary. The film follows his return to Kosovo after fifty years of exile, as father and daughter revisit the village of his childhood, largely destroyed during the 1998 war, and engage the local community in a poetic act of reconstructing memory and confronting historical trauma.

The night then turns into a celebration with a special concert by Arbëreshë, who reinterprets Albanian folk songs through a dialogue between voice, guitar, and traditional instruments. Later, around 10:30 PM, the energy shifts to spazioZero with the vibrant sounds of the Kosovo Wedding Band, bringing the spirit of Balkan traditions to the stage in an irresistibly danceable collective experience.

Finally, the day closes with the Italian premiere of Edge of the Night by Estonian director Vladimir Loginov. The film captures an entire night in the city of Tallinn, following the lives of those who inhabit its quietest hours: crying newborns, street musicians, nurses, night owls, and urban solitude. A poetic and surprising mosaic that transforms the night into a space of dreams, desires, and shared humanity.

This year, the Images of Courage award at the Pordenone Docs Fest goes to Uyghur activist Kalbinur Sidik and the Dutch director who gave voice to her story in the film Eyes of the Machine. The award, dedicated to those who use cinema as a tool for testimony and the defense of human rights, will be presented on Thursday, March 26 at 6:00 PM at Cinemazero, following the national premiere of the documentary. Kalbinur Sidik, a survivor of re-education camps in Xinjiang, is now a refugee in the Netherlands. She and the director will be present to receive the award in collaboration with the National Order of Journalists and the Il Capitello Association.

After a sold-out opening day, which even required additional screenings to meet demand, one of the most anticipated events of the festival’s second day takes place at 9:00 PM: a special event combining cinema, history, and live music. A Nord! Nobile, successi e cadute presents rare footage from the LUCE-Cinecittà Archives, dedicated to the polar expeditions of Umberto Nobile in the 1920s, particularly the historic 1926 mission with Roald Amundsen (the first to fly over the Pole by airship), accompanied live by vibraphone music from Luigi Vitale. This is followed by the national premiere of Ice Grave by Robin Hunzinger, a compelling archaeological thriller reconstructing the mysterious 1897 expedition of three explorers traveling by airship to the North Pole. Decades after their disappearance, the ice returns their bodies and photographic film, revealing moments from the final days of that legendary mission. Blending history, science, and memory, the film reflects on the fragile balance of the Arctic in an era marked by climate change, as well as on renewed expansionist ambitions toward those lands.

National premieres begin in the morning at 10:30 AM with The Longer You Bleed by British director Ewan Waddell, in collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières. The screening is also dedicated to students. In an age dominated by scrolling, war risks becoming fast-consumption content. Some young Ukrainian refugees in Berlin watch their homeland burn through Instagram: trauma is transformed in the digital era, and people risk becoming dangerously desensitized to pain. Surreal humor remains the only possible shield against a reality that risks normalizing horror. The director and the film’s protagonist and producer Liubov Dyvak will attend the screening.

At 4:30 PM, the national premiere of Cinema Kawakeb by Jordanian director Mahmoud Al Massad offers a poetic and captivating portrait of the oldest movie theater in Amman, which survives—along with the stories of those who inhabit it—amid debt, abandonment, and political tensions, as protests over the war in Gaza intensify.

The Pordenone Docs Fest also hosts several industry events for professionals. At 10:30 AM in the Mediateca, new ways of exploring reality will be discussed, focusing on documentary and immersive experiences in the age of Extended Reality. At 2:30 PM, also in the Mediateca, the session “Formare lo sguardo – educare al documentario tra scuola e politiche culturali” will take place, an international discussion on strategies for bringing documentary cinema into educational pathways. Organized in collaboration with the Italian Association of Videotheques and Mediatheques within the National Cinema and Images for Schools Plan, the panel brings together Italian and European experiences that have integrated documentary into school curricula through festivals, archives, and educational platforms, reflecting on how to build visual literacy capable of shaping informed citizens.

The rich program also includes, at 6:00 PM in Sala Modotti, a screening of Homo Sapiens as part of a tribute to Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, president of the jury for the 19th edition of the festival. The film depicts a world in which humanity has disappeared and nature slowly reclaims abandoned urban and industrial spaces, transforming the ruins of civilization into a silent and unsettling landscape.

At 2:45 PM, the Italian Doc Future! section begins, showcasing emerging talents of Italian cinema with Il Castello Indistruttibile by Danny Biancardi, Stefano La Rosa, and Virginia Nardelli. In the Palermo neighborhood of Danisinni, three young girls transform an abandoned kindergarten into a secret refuge where they imagine a different future: their “Castle,” a space of freedom and complicity.

The festival’s two retrospectives also continue. For “Sarajevo, the Siege: 1992–1996,” curated by Alessandro Del Re, Senior Programming Manager for MUBI, the 2:30 PM screening features Serbian Epics by Paweł Pawlikowski, made in 1992, offering an unsettling look behind the lines of Serbian nationalists led by Radovan Karadžić. This is followed by Les Vivants et les Morts de Sarajevo by Radovan Tadic, filmed between 1992 and 1993, presenting the perspective of the city’s besieged inhabitants.

At 5:00 PM, the second event of the retrospective on the Spanish Civil War, curated by Federico Rossin, features a special guest, leading Spanish film historian Esteve Riambau, and the screening of Le due memorie by Jorge Semprún, made in 1972. Through interviews filmed between France and Spain, often semi-clandestinely, the writer and intellectual explores the difficult relationship between political amnesty and collective amnesia, questioning the role of memory in the construction of democracy.

From 7:30 PM, AperiDocs! returns at spazioZero, accompanied by electronic music from Gullidanda and Al Sagor, blending industrial influences, psychedelia, and techno rhythms.

Finally, throughout the festival, visitors can immerse themselves in DocsXR, the section of the Pordenone Docs Fest dedicated to new narrative technologies. Eight works presented as national premieres invite audiences to “experience” other lives and worlds. These immersive experiences are available free of charge at two locations: the glass pavilion in Piazza XX Settembre and the Mediateca on Via Mazzini 3.

On Wednesday, March 25, the 19th edition of the Pordenone Docs Fest opens at Cinemazero. One of the most highly anticipated events kicks off the retrospective “Sarajevo, the Siege: 1992–1996”: at 6:00 PM, the Italian premiere of the striking documentary Sarajevo Safari brings to light the chilling story of foreign snipers who paid to shoot civilians in the besieged city. The screening, organized in collaboration with Kinoatelje and EMERGENCY, will feature director Miran Zupanič, Andreina Di Sanzo, and Andrea Paco Mariani from OpenDDB.

At 9:00 PM, for the opening night, the focus shifts to Iran with the unexpected story—also an Italian premiere—of a very young artist, Soraya, fleeing first Afghanistan and then Iran. The delicate A Fox Under a Pink Moon, by Iranian director Mehrdad Oskouei, arrives in Pordenone after winning the prestigious award for Best Film at IDFA, the Amsterdam festival that is a key reference point for documentary cinema in Europe. The director and the protagonist Soraya Akhalaghi will be present; she contributed to the film as director of photography, sound technician, and co-director. The screening is in collaboration with Voce Donna.

The second retrospective of the festival is dedicated to the Spanish Civil War: ¡No pasarán!, curated by film critic Federico Rossin (starting at 3:30 PM with Viva la Spagna! by José María Berzosa, made in France in 1976 and considered one of the most lucid and devastating analyses of the Franco regime ever produced), along with the photographic exhibition “Homage to Robert Capa and Gerda Taro. Photography, Love, War”, in collaboration with CAMERA – Italian Center for Photography. The exhibition opening at spazioZero at 7:30 PM will be accompanied by AperiDocs and a concert by Club d’Heritage, offering a musical journey that blends cinematic atmospheres, dreamlike soundscapes, and elegant vibrations. The exhibition celebrates two key figures of 20th-century photojournalism, who captured the Spanish Civil War through the intensity of their images. The exhibition path highlights the narrative power and courage of their gaze: photographs that depict life on the front, civilian resistance, and the human complexity of war, transforming field documentation into historical memory and civic awareness.

Not only images: as always, the Pordenone Docs Fest also hosts discussions on cultural topics in all their forms. At 5:30 PM, the Cinemazero Mediatheque will host the public meeting “Open City: Round Table for Safe, Inclusive and Accessible Cultural Spaces”, a moment of dialogue focused on the role of culture in building welcoming communities. In view of Pordenone’s candidacy as Italian Capital of Culture 2027, the festival and Cinemazero—together with the social organizations involved in drafting the project—launch with this event the “Open Cities” initiative: an ongoing dialogue with cultural institutions, associations, and citizens to collectively imagine and work toward a Manifesto for safe, inclusive, and accessible cultural spaces.

Participants include Graziella Bildesheim, president of EWA Network with over thirty years of experience in the European audiovisual sector, particularly in gender equality; journalist and writer Jennifer Guerra, whose work focuses on feminism, cultural journalism, and public outreach; lawyer Roberta Parigiani, specialized in the protection of civil and personal rights; and philosopher and trainer Sofia Righetti Nottegar, engaged in issues of disability and diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

The Cinemazero festival is held under the high patronage of the European Parliament, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Municipality of Pordenone, and Fondazione Friuli, as well as the backing of CGN Servizi, ITACA Social Cooperative, and GEA – Ecological and Environmental Management S.p.A. Once again this year, it presents a program that weaves together cinema, history, rights, and contemporary culture.