It’s with an exhortation to look beyond the historic times that we’re currently living in and the significant challenges that come with them, that the Isola del Cinema Festival - a long-standing film event which has unfolded every summer on the banks of the Tiber River – is launching its special online edition, intitled “Let’s Take Back Our Future”. On the agenda are eleven days of online screenings, showcasing Italian and foreign films, running from 18 to 28 March and accompanied by presentations, interviews and video messages from directors and actors, which will all be broadcast on MyMovies, free of charge.

It’s a forward-looking approach which can also be detected in the attention the festival will be paying to the natural world around us, which is to be protected and defended, working in tandem with younger generations. A film dedicated to this very topic is set to open the festival, in a national premiere, within the “Fuoco sul reale” (lit. “Focus on Reality”) section: Sustainable Nation by Israeli director Micah Smith, a title examining three projects by as many Israelis who are looking to find sustainable water solutions for an increasingly thirsty planet, and which stresses how the resolution of this enormous challenge could help people rid themselves of poverty and disease.

Other documentaries featuring in the line-up are: A Rifle and a Bag [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Cristina Haneș, Arya Rothe and Isabella Rinaldi (India/Romania/Italy/Qatar), which revolves around the difficult daily life of a pair of ex-guerrillas who fought for the rights of tribal Indian communities in the 1960s, but later gave up, and The Childhood Experience by Valentina Olivato, which, in these times of Covid-induced remote learning, tells the story of four children who are being home-schooled, and investigates how the choice to stay home from school influences their present world and defines their future. There’s also Venetian Molecules [+lire aussi :
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interview : Andrea Segre
fiche film] by Andrea Segre (the pre-opening film at Venice 77), Shooting the Mafia [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Kim Longiotto, Isola [+lire aussi :
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interview : Elisa Fuksas
fiche film] by Elisa Fuksas (presented at Venice’s Giornate degli Autori in 2020), All Together [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Marco Simon Puccioni and Nessun nome nei titoli di coda [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Simone Amendola.

Seven titles will compete for the Groupama Insurance Prize for First and Second Works, which is dedicated to new talent in the Italian film world: Sole [+lire aussi :
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interview : Carlo Sironi
fiche film] by Carlo Sironi, Bangla [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Phaim Bhuiyan, Thou Shalt Not Hate [+lire aussi :
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interview : Mauro Mancini
fiche film] by Mauro Mancini, Paradise [+lire aussi :
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interview : Davide Del Degan
fiche film] by Davide Del Degan, Flesh Out [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Michela Occhipinti, Nevia [+lire aussi :
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interview : Nunzia De Stefano
fiche film] by Nunzia De Stefano, and Sow the Wind [+lire aussi :
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interview : Danilo Caputo
fiche film] by Danilo Caputo.

Rounding off the programme, we find an abundant selection of short films, the Isola Mondo line-up offering titles hailing from Japan and Brazil, masterclasses and, last but not least, tributes paid to Masters of Film, including one such homage to the director, screenwriter, editor and philosopher Silvano Agosti.