9:00 am
THE HONEY FESTIVAL
In the Church Square, the honey and hive-product markets open, featuring apiary visits, children’s workshops, and live music for the 42nd Lessinia Beekeeping and Honey Festival, organized by the Veneto Regional Beekeepers’ Association in collaboration with the Pro Loco and the Municipality of Bosco Chiesanuova.
9:30 am
Book Ticket
WAXED PAPER
Beeswax is a natural substance, insoluble in water, ideal for storing honey inside the hive. Participants also discover that, among its many ingenious uses, wax can be used to make practical, eco-friendly food wraps. With the Regional Beekeepers’ Association of Veneto and co-funding from the European Union. Participants can take home the personal wax wrap they create.
9:45 am
Book Ticket
GUIDED TASTING OF ITALIAN HONEY
There’s honey and then there’s honey. But which honey best enhances and balances the characteristics of different cheeses? Participants learn this with the Veneto Beekeepers’ Association through a tasting of four Italian honeys paired with cheeses from Lessinia, led by Marco Filippozzi, member of the National Register of Honey Sensory Analysis Experts.
10:00 am
Buy Ticket
LA MURAILLE
THE OTHER WORLD
Callisto McNulty / 65 min / 2025 / Italian premiere / France, Switzerland
In Campell, in the mountains of southeastern Spain, a great wall separates two worlds: that of the healthy and that of the sick. The Fontilles sanatorium was built in 1905 to house people suffering from leprosy. The wall surrounding it was meant to prevent the sick from escaping and to keep them from coming into contact with the outside world. Today, patients and staff at the still-functioning sanatorium describe it as both a prison and a place of refuge.
U VETRA NET HVOSTA
WIND HAS NO TAIL
Ivan Vlasov, Nikita Stashkevich / 60 min / 2024 / Italian premiere / Russian Federation
Nika is one of three sisters in a reindeer herding family from the Yamal Peninsula, deep in Siberia. Their life is marked by the customs of nomadic peoples and the long fairy tales told by their mother and grandmother. But the time to go to school is approaching. A teacher prepares the girls for the moment when a helicopter will separate them from their yurts on the icy tundra to take them to the classrooms of a boarding school.
10:30 am
Davide Poggi, Giuseppe Fornari
WHERE THOUGHT BREATHES: ZAMBONI IN BOSCO AND NIETZSCHE IN RECOARO
Two philosophers found in the Lessini Mountains a privileged place for their reflections and speculations: Giuseppe Zamboni from Verona, who spent his final years in Bosco Chiesanuova, and Friedrich Nietzsche who, due to health problems, spent his last summers in Recoaro Terme. In conversation with their colleague Giorgio Erle, Davide Poggi and Giuseppe Fornari, professors at the University of Verona, talk about the “need for mountains” of two great voices of philosophy, to nourish the “parts of the mind”, as Plato called them.
11:00 am
A CONVERSATION WITH MARCO PAOLINI
Marco Paolini’s connection with the mountains has been evident since Il racconto del Vajont (The Story of Vajant). The mountains return in his works dedicated to Luigi Meneghello, Mario Rigoni Stern, and Jack London, and appears in the theater in Bestiari, in the Appunti and in the Filò, as well as in projects like Fén. With Marco Segato, Paolini he had already recounted the Dolomites in La pelle dell’orso; he now returns in Mar de Molada to talk about water. The guest of honor at this year’s Festival, Paolini converses with Alessandro Anderloni.
2:00 pm
Buy Ticket
LA STRADA DI PODESTARIA
THE ROAD TO PODESTARIA
Giorgio Oppici, Aldo Ottaviani / 18 min / 2025 / European premiere / Italy
In 1915, the Triestine writer Carlo Stuparich was assigned as an officer to oversee the construction of the military road of Podestaria. From up there, he wrote many letters to his brother Giani. After Carlo’s death, Giani returned to that place, like a pilgrim, and wrote the short story La strada di Podestaria. Through his words, the film commemorates the Stuparich brothers and paints a portrait of the high pastures, celebrating the beauty of Lessinia.
MOVING MOUNTAINS
Andrea Costa / 29 min / 2025 / Italy
The hutof Rita, a South Tyrol farmer, becomes a new home for Moussa, a young man who arrived in Italy from Guinea. Through the daily rhythms of work and faith, the two search together for a new balance in life. A shared need for family brings them close. But for Moussa, there is also a strong desire to spend time with friends from his homeland, so as not to lose touch with his roots.
VIENTRE DE LUNA
MOON BELLY
Liliana K'an / 30 min / 2024 / Italian premiere / Mexico
In a small village on the Chiapas highlands in Mexico, a young Tzotzil girl is about to give birth for the first time. By showing her fears and struggles, the film explores the theme of motherhood through the memories of women who have experienced it before her and reveals how this experience is lived within her indigenous community.
3:00 pm
Cristina Bellemo
NIGHT STORIES
“What's inside the night outside of me?” Falling asleep requires an act of faith, to move from seeing to dreaming. What happens during sleep is uncontrollable and sometimes remains secret. Cristina Bellemo, author of Poesie notturne (Topipittori, 2025) and Amelia (Il Castoro, 2020), is aware of this. The latter is the story of a sheep who is enchanted by the first evening star and, distracted, remains outside the barn. What will she discover about the night that scares her a little? What will she learn about herself?
3:30 pm
Buy Ticket
MAR DE MOLADA
Marco Segato / 78 min / 2025 / Italy
Mar de Molada is the title of the show staged by Marco Paolini in the autumn of 2024. Weaving together storytelling, science, and poetry, the artist aimed to raise awareness around the sustainable management of water resources. The documentary follows the creative process behind the show and highlights the deep connection between theater, civic consciousness, and the land of the Veneto that has always been at the heart of Paolini’s work.
4:00 pm
Manuel Panarotto
BEYOND THE LESSINIA PASTURES. IN THE REALM OF WILDERNESS
The landscapes of the Lessini Mountains are well known and often photographed—but what about its animals? In Oltre i Pascoli della Lessinia. Nel Regno della Natura Selvaggia (Beyond the Lessinia Pastures: in the Realm of Wilderness, wabisabi books, 2025), Manuel Panarotto reveals an extraordinary world of wildlife that only those with the patience and sensitivity to give it time can truly discover. The special guest is Ottavio, the inseparable dog who joins Manuel on every watch. Marta Bic
6:00 pm
Buy Ticket
THE ICE BUILDERS
Francesco Clerici, Tommaso Barbaro / 15 min / 2024 / India, Italy
Life in the remote Zanskar Valley in Ladakh is closely tied to the presence of glaciers, which provide the water necessary for cultivating the fields. Global warming, which is also causing the ice tongues to retreat even at these altitudes, poses serious challenges to local communities. To adapt, they have revived an ancient tradition: building ice stupas—frozen towers designed to conserve precious water.
MY SWEET LAND
Sareen Hairabedian / 86 min / 2025 / France, Ireland, Jordan, United States
Eleven-year-old Vrej dreams of becoming a dentist. He grew up and lives in Artsakh, a region of Nagorno-Karabakh. When yet another war breaks out in this mountainous region of the post-Soviet Caucasus, Vrej is forced to flee with his family. In exile, he waits, in vain, for victory. Upon returning to his village, like his peers he must prepare for a future as a soldier: a fate that seems inevitable, as if already written.
9:00 pm
Buy Ticket
ANNGEERDARDARDOR
THE THIEF
Christoffer Rizvanovic Stenbakken / 20 min / 2025 / Denmark, Germany
Kaali’s dog has gone missing, and the young boy is heartbroken. He suspects it’s been stolen and, together with a friend, searches desperately through the streets of Tasiilaq, in eastern Greenland. The adults have no time to help, and his peers mock him. When he finally finds his beloved dog in the yard of another house and manages to free it and take it away, Kaali will discover that the bitter truth is something else entirely.
LA ROUTE
HIMALAYAN ROAD: A NEW FRONTIER
Marianne Chaud / 85 min / 2025 / European premiere / France
A new road in the Zanskar Valley will soon connect one of the most inaccessible regions on the planet to the rest of the world. Locals have sold their land and herds to become laborers. Smiling women work on the construction sites, children play, unaware of the transformation that will soon disrupt their homeland. With the arrival of the road, what will become of the delicate balance that has endured for millennia in this remote corner of Ladakh, in the heart of the Himalayas?
