31. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
22- 31 August 2025

A SNACK AMONG PASTURES AND SHEPHERDS

This family-friendly itinerary crosses pastures managed by Quelle Del Baito with electric fences and guardian dogs, teaching how to behave when encountering these “white protectors” who ensure coexistence between wild and domestic. The route continues to Malga Derocon, where Riccardo from Apicoltura dell’Orso works with transhumant high-altitude bees, with a tasting of cheese and honey. Start and end: Malga Maso. Length: 4 km. Elevation gain: 100 m. Duration: 3 hours. Difficulty: easy.

IL TORO

THE BULL

Carlo Mazzacurati / 105 min / 1994 / Hungary, Italy

Fired from a cattle farm in Northern Italy, Franco decides to steal a valuable breeding bull named Corinto and set off with his friend Loris toward Hungary to sell it. Mazzacurati crafts a bittersweet comedy that blends friendship, failure, the desire to escape, and the hope for redemption.

APERITIF WITH THE DIRECTORS

Learn about the day’s film programme and meet the filmmakers present at the Festival. At the end of the meeting there will be a tasting of products from small producers, with nonalcoholic cocktails and wines from Lessinia wineries. Organized by GAS (Social Purchasing Group) Lessinia.

FREERIDE IN C

Edmunds Jansons / 10 min / 2024 / Latvia

Snow falls on the mountains and the modern winter season begins: throngs of skiers crowd the turnstiles of the chairlifts and descend the mountains in a line, as if in a dance.

KINVA DA PATARAMOTSAPE

THE FROST AND THE LITTLE SCHOOLBOY

George Ovashvili / 18 min / 2024 / Georgia

A teacher introduces herself to her new class at a school in the Georgian mountains. She tells the story of a boy who had to walk a long way through the snow to get to his school of only two students. As the story unfolds, the fairy tale blends with the woman’s childhood memories.

CONTE SAUVAGE

WILD TALE

Aline Quertain / 15 min / 2023 / Belgium, France

A fantastic animal, halfway between a feline and a bear, befriends a bird, establishing a symbiotic relationship with it that will have an unexpected evolution.

AKABABURU: EXPRESIÓN DE ASOMBRO

AKABABURU: EXPRESSION OF ASTONISHMENT

Irati Dojura Landa Yagarí / 13 min / 2025 / Colombia

Kari, a member of the Embera ethnic group, is afraid to laugh. Thanks to the story of Kiraparamia, a legend of the elders, the young girl will find the courage to laugh and challenge the boys who bully her and her friends.

AMEN

Orphée Coutier, Bettina Demarty, Kimié Maingonnat, Laurène Perego, Louise Poulain, Avril Zundel / 7 min / 2024 / France

In the farmyard of a solitary monastery, on a cliff overlooking the North Sea, plump pigs graze. A monk approaches the animals and chooses the fattest one to lead into a dark and disturbing room. The epilogue seems obvious, but the intervention of Saint Anthony the Abbot, protector of animals, will overturn the situation.

Moni Ovadia
THE NATION OF EXILE

Moni Ovadia has raised a free and courageous voice in recent months to denounce the ongoing massacre in war-torn Palestine. He does so with the authority of an artist who has devoted his life to telling the story of a people—the Jews of the diaspora—who have lived beyond borders, as strangers among strangers. Moni Ovadia dialogues on the theme of borders with Alessandro Anderloni beginning with the historical events, culture, language and music of this people scattered around the world, and ending with reflections on the inhuman maelstrom of today’s wars.

LA FABULOSA MÁQUINA DE COSECHAR ORO

THE FABULOUS GOLD HARVESTING MACHINE

Alfredo  Pourailly De La Plaza / 77 min / 2024 / Chile, Netherlands

Totò is one of the last gold prospectors in Chilean Tierra del Fuego. After forty years working in the mines, he still hasn’t qualified for retirement. He is exhausted, and his health is at risk due to the grueling work that keeps him submerged in swampy mud for hours on end. His son, a young cowboy, wants to help him and dreams of building a “fabulous gold-harvesting machine” to free him from such hard labor.

BARAFTOO

WITHIN THE SUN

Sepideh Jamshidi Nejad / 28 min / 2025 / Italian premiere / Iran (Islamic Republic of)

In a salt mine nestled somewhere in the mountains, six elderly women work beneath a scorching sun that reflects off the rock and blinds them. Their faces are weathered by time, their hands worn from toil, their spirits resigned: the mine has shaped both their bodies and their souls. The salt seems to seep into their bones—until its white hue becomes that of falling snow, as if arriving to comfort them.

GLI ULTIMI

THE LAST ONES

Michele Sammarco / 70 min / 2024 / Italy

Don Antonio and his young helper, Agostino, go from house to house delivering the parish bulletin and offering blessings. They visit homes throughout the village of Faeto, but do not climb Monte Cornacchia—the highest peak in Puglia—where Assunta and Erminia, mother and daughter, live in isolation, tending to their livestock and to their crumbling home. Until, one day, the priest decides, despite the rough road, to go up there himself.

An evocative musical journey blending the rich heritage of Cape Verdean music with the colors of jazz and soul. Led by the warm and powerful voice of Karin Mensah, the quintet reinterprets the key styles of Cape Verde— morna, coladeira, and funaná — enhancing their authenticity with jazz-inspired arrangements that preserve their soulful essence. The lineup includes Karin Mensah (vocals), Roberto Cetoli (piano), Luca Donini (saxophone), Pier Brigo (double bass), and Ernesto Da Silva (drums and percussion).