Discover the highlights in tomorrow’s programme!

Cinema Modernissimo – 7pm
Cinema Lesson: Asghar Farhadi
Every year the festival is enriched by meetings with leading figures of international cinema. Now it’s the turn of Asghar Farhadi, one of the most important contemporary Iranian directors. An author capable of transmitting a personal, profoundly coherent and multifaceted vision of his country’s society, Farhadi quickly established a name for himself and gained popularity outside of his homeland when he won the 2011 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with Jodāyi-e Nāder az Simin (A Separation) – it will be screened in Piazza Maggiore on Tuesday 1 July. Farhadi will also be the protagonist of a cinema lesson at Cinema Modernissimo and this year’s edition of the International Filmmaking Academy.

Cinema Jolly – 2pm and 9.30pm
Cinemalibero: O regresso de Amílcar Cabral, Mortu Nega and São Paulo, Sociedade Anônima
The day’s Cinemalibero appointments take us to unexplored territories, on the discovery of political struggles in Guinea-Bissau and the industrial boom in Brazil. O regresso de Amílcar Cabral, the first production by Guinean filmmakers following liberation from Portuguese colonialism, centres around the death of Guinean politician Amílcar Cabral, at a fundamental moment in the history of his country, while Mortu Nega is the story of a Guinean woman and her desire for freedom. The film will be introduced by director Sana Na N’Hada, who will also be the protagonist of a cinema lesson on Friday 27, in conversation with Aboubakar Sanogo and Cecilia Cenciarelli. São Paulo, Sociedade Anônima, on the other hand, recounts the social injustice, corruption and loneliness experienced in a Brazil overwhelmed by the economic changes of the 1960s, through the eyes of an office worker and his growing sense of bewilderment.

Auditorium – DAMSLab – 10am, 11am and 12 noon
On the trail of a forgotten Italian film: Ombre vive
A completely unknown film starring Eduardo De Filippo and Paolo Stoppa has returned to the light: made by Mario Baffico sometime between the late Forties and early Fifties, Ombre vive has never appeared in any filmography relating to the work of the great Eduardo. Now, thanks to material deposited at Cineteca di Bologna by Cristina D’Osualdo and her VIGGO, various takes and rehearsals for the mysterious work have been identified. Angelo Draicchio and Gian Luca Farinelli will discuss this incredible discovery at Auditorium DAMSLab. Other meetings on restorations during the day are dedicated to Konrad Wolf’s Sterne  and James Bidgood’s underground cult Pink Narcissus.

Recovered and Restored
Picking which Recovered and Restored film to watch always has a degree of Hamletic uncertainty to it: there is Preminger’s Saint Joan, debut of the Godardian Jean Seberg, the Michael Mann noir Thief, surrealism on an epic scale in The Saragossa Manuscript by Wojciech Has, the radical satire of the Mexican Redondo by Raúl Busteros and the hallucinatory and feverish nihilism of Sorcerer, William Friedkin’s cursed masterpiece. The deep, tragic and dreamlike Technicolor of Duel in the Sun by King Vidor will be presented by Paolo Mereghetti and introduced via video message by Martin Scorsese, while the screening of A History of Violence will be followed by an unmissable conversation with Peter Shuschinsky, the film’s cinematographer who supervised the restoration, in dialogue with Lee Kline.

Cinema Europa – 2.45pm | Auditorium – DAMSLab – 9.15am, 4.40pm and 5.30pm
Documents and Documentaries
Two very different characters, each of whom in their own way made cinema history, cross each other’s paths in Thursday’s documentaries: Paradjanov, le dernier collage recounts the Chagallian spirit of the innovative Armenian director, while Gene Kelly mène la danse is dedicated to the legendary leading man of the golden age of Hollywood musicals. Elsewhere, La spedizione Franchetti nella Dankalia etiopica is a remarkable document that bears witness to the colonial history of Fascist Italy. At Il Cinema Ritrovato a number of excerpts will be presented and discussed by the team that promoted and oversaw the recovery of the film. Don’t miss the screening of three restored shorts by Hungarian director Márta Mészáros, from which her grace in narrating the most fragile human experiences in new and unconventional ways emerges.

Piazzetta Pasolini – 7pm
Blu-ray & DVD Awards 2025 and second edition of the AVI Award
This annual event is dedicated to the best DVD and Blu-ray releases from all over the world, created with the goal of incentivising the home entertainment sector. The prizes will be awarded by a special jury made up of Lorenzo Codelli, Philippe Garnier, Pamela Hutchinson, Miguel Marías and Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, chaired by Paolo Mereghetti. Following that, the second edition of the AVI Award, awarded by Associazione Videoteche e Mediateche Italiane to the best Blu-ray or DVD release of interest to media libraries and audiovisual archives. Curated by Elena D’Incà, Gianmarco Torri and Anna Fiaccarini.

Sala Scorsese – 4.30pm
Small Great Gauge: London Calling
Our selection of music documentaries in 16mm takes a look at the English scene of the 1970s and some of the rebellious spirits that animated it. On one hand there is Who Is Poly Styrene?, a gem that gives us the opportunity to see X-Ray Spex in concert and to get to know Poly Styrene, a rare example of a female lead vocalist with a punk band and an outspoken artist and social critic. On the other, Dread Beat an’ Blood captures the reggae, dub and soundsystem scene while focussing on poet, musician and political activist Linton Kwesi Johnson. Shot in a Direct Cinema style, it is a vivid portrait of music and poetry as tools of empowerment and protest.

Auditorium – DAMSLab – 2.30pm | Piazza Maggiore – 9.45pm
The Gold Rush in Piazza Maggiore
An absolute comic masterpiece and a great tale of loneliness, The Gold Rush is ‘the’ film for which Chaplin would have liked to be remembered. It ultimately shared that destiny with many others, however the decision to take The Tramp to the roots (or the precipice) of American mythology makes it a work of unsurpassed, dizzying intensity. The Gold Rush will illuminate Piazza Maggiore, accompanied (in addition to laughter from the public) by the music Chaplin himself composed for the 1942 sound version, readapted and conducted by Timothy Brock and performed by Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. During the day, we shall also see the documentary that Chaplin’s granddaughter Carmen dedicated to the legendary character of The Tramp, “a shining symbol of hope in an often dark world”.