Florence November 3rd - 10th 2018

International documentary film festival

  • INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

    The film selection consists of 21 documentaries that are Italian premieres and is aimed to showcase the wealth of themes and the variety in styles that characterize contemporary documentary. The films in competition stand out for the originality of subject matter and the authors’ personal imprint recognizable in the storytelling.

  • ITALIAN COMPETITION

    This section is made of six feature-length documentaries that are World Premieres and reflect the 2018 Italian film production.

  • THE WORLD ON FIRE: The Cinema of Roberto Minervini

    A focus on one of the most surprising and innovative Italian contemporary filmmakers, Roberto Minervini. With his films, Minervini has proved to be able to combine original research in style and a poignant narrative approach to the lives at the margins of a forsaken America, rarely to be seen on the big screen. Realized with a stable, tight group of collaborators, Minervini’s films are the outcome of both an attentive, sensitive observation and of a shared experience: the journey that the filmmaker embarks on alongside his ‘characters.’ Both parties put themselves on the line, giving up pre-established scripts, to redefine their position in the world. The retrospective also marks the collaboration with IsReal - Festival del Cinema del Reale – which will replicate the event in its next edition. On Tuesday, November 6th, at the Santa Apollonia Auditorium, the film-maker will held a Masterclass entitled: "A Relational Cinema".

  • A LIVING LANDSCAPE - The Cinema of Dominique Marchais

    Festival dei Popoli, in collaboration with the Embassy of France, Istituto Francese Italia and Istituto Francese of Florence, pays homage to the cinema of Dominique Marchais, a film-maker who has developed over the years a consistent career and an approach in continuous evolution, based on an idea of cinema that is not only an explorer but also a creator of landscapes. In Marchais’ films, landscapes are not just lifeless backdrops to human stories but actual characters, mobile territories that allow different lifestyles to take shape opposed to mainstream ones. In his films Marchais goes through entire areas of French and European countryside with a gaze that manages to intercept dreams, hopes, utopias, and disillusionment of those who live there and are permeated by the place. On Wednesday, November 7th, Dominique Marchais will hold a Masterclass at the French Institute of Florence entitled “Landscape and Politics”.

  • DOC AT WORK - Laboratory of ideas reserved for audience and professionals

    Doc at Work presents meetings with directors to investigate some issues concerning the documentary cinema today and points of view and styles of the authors.

  • DOC AT WORK CAMPUS

    On its second consecutive year, Doc at Work is focused on the work done by Italian film schools, in the belief that their activity plays a strategic role as regards not only training, but also the entire audio-visual sector. We believe film schools are like outposts that offer a vantage point on the work done by young talents, as well as training grounds in which the new generations of film-makers are allowed to experiment. Doc at Work – Campus selected some of the films made in 2018 by students of Scuola Holden (Turin), the Civica scuola di cinema "Luchino Visconti" (Milan), the Centro FilmaP – Atelier di Cinema del Reale (Naples), and the Zelig – School for Documentary, Television and New Media (Bolzen). Moreover, this edition will have as Special Guest the FAMU Film and TV School of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (CZ), that will present the works of their young students.

  • KINDERDOCS - Documentary Screenings for Children and Young Audiences

    KinderDocs is a documentary festival of award-winning films made for children and teenagers, as well as their friends, teachers, and parents. Discover the magic of documentaries, explore new ways of communication, get inspired by stories we all care about, have fun. Each film is a story on teenage life – friendship, family, education, social media, creativity, art, music, dance, migration, environment – an opportunity to enter the colourful world of kids and teenagers. Founded in 2016 by Dimitra Kouzi, KinderDocs premiered for its third season in October 2018 in Greece, in collaboration with the Benaki Museum (Athens) and the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki).

  • HABITAT

    The planet we live in is at once an archive of the traces produced by our past and the horizon that outlines our possible future. The human animal seems to be the yardstick with which we measure it, but a good look at the things that surround us – from macro phenomena to the universe of the infinitely small – seems to point toward a reversal of point of view, exposing the continuity between the stuff we are made of and the world around us. This section, composed of 12 titles, aims to perform a survey in some particular areas to measure the state of health of our planet.

  • DOC EXPLORER

    The galaxy of documentary is constantly expanding. Festival dei Popoli proposes to explore its boundaries, venturing into those border areas – and here lies the meaning of this section - in which the language of documentary blends productively with other forms of expression and the (virtual or non) spaces created by technological innovation. Web doc, I-doc, Virtual Reality, Live documentary are new names and fresh concepts in which the ties with originality of ideas, authors’ creativity, and the dialogue with the world around us are still deeply felt. The tacit goal of these instruments, regardless of their various approaches, is the ambition to improve our capacity of understanding the real.

  • HIT ME WITH MUSIC!

    Festival dei Popoli boasts its great tradition in screening music documentaries, with a dedicated section. Five titles to get us closer to both new and legendary protagonists of the music scene worldwide, spanning across genres, countries, periods, and generations. The power of music and the force of images combined in an explosive mix that will enthral you into dancing and enjoying yourselves.

  • SPECIAL EVENTS

    The must-see screenings, films of certified entertaining value that address important topics, celebrating documentary cinema at its best.

  • OTHER EVENTS