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The fifth edition takes place from September 10 to 14, 2025, with nearly 40 screenings indoors and outdoors at Villa Medici!
Since its creation in 2021, Villa Medici Film Festival has explored the links between cinema and contemporary art. Artists’ films, essays, fictions, documentaries, shorts, medium-length and feature-length films: the festival welcomes a diversity of narratives that question our relationship with images.
The Festival is divided into three sections: International Competition, Focus and Piazzale Evenings.
The International Competition
The International Competition presents twelve recent films of all genres and lengths. At the end of the festival week, two prizes are awarded by the jury at a ceremony attended by the public and artists: the Villa Medici Prize for Best Film and the Special Jury Prize.
The Competition films
Focus
Alongside the official competition, the festival presents the Focus section, structured around Carte Blanche, Contrechamps screenings and Special screenings. The Carte Blanche screenings are entrusted to the jury members, who are invited to create a dialogue between their own work and that of other artists, or to explore a specific theme through a curated film selection. The Contrechamps screenings offer a cross-perspective between works by current residents and films—whether documentaries or fiction—from cinematic heritage or contemporary creation. For the 2025 edition, filmmaker Alice Diop will present her new short film as part of a Special Screening followed by a conversation with the director.
The Focus films
Piazzale Evenings
Every evening, in the Piazzale, between the gardens and the historic façade of Villa Medici, an additional outdoor screening is held, introducing the audience to a recent film, a preview or a restored classic.
The Piazzale films
The Program
+10K, Gala Hernández López
Italian premiere
11/09, 14 p.m
13/09, 14 p.m in the presence of the director
VO Spanish (Catalan), ST English, 33’
Pol, 21, lives with his grandmother. He dreams of moving to Miami and earning ten thousand euros a month. He attends personal development events, follows online coaches and invests in cryptocurrencies. All he knows is that one day he’ll get there.
(2025, France, Spain)
BONNE JOURNÉE, Pauline Bastard
Italian premiere
12/09, 15.30 p.m in the presence of the director
14/09, 14.00 p.m
VO French, ST English, 53’
In a second-hand store where objects are repaired and then resold, a small group of workers decides to showcase the exposed items through photography and video. Gradually, this initiative leads to an artistic practice that becomes a central part of their daily work.
Grand Prix of the French Competition at FIDMarseille in 2025.
(2025, France)
BURY US IN A LONE DESERT, Nguyễn Lê Hoàng Phúc
Italian premiere
11/09, 14 p.m
13/09, 14 p.m
VO Vietnamese, ST English, 62’
A burglar and the owner of a house he attempts to rob take a trip to the owner’s wife’s grave, accompanied by her papier mâché effigy. An unexpected bond forms between the soft-hearted burglar and his elder companion.
(2025, Vietnam)
CHILDREN OF DARKNESS, Haig Aivazian (fellow of Villa Medici)
Italian premiere
11/09, 14 p.m in the presence of the director
13/09, 14 p.m
VO Arabic, ST English, 19’
Haig Aivazian’s film, produced with the Beirut-based studio The Animation Collective مجمع التحريك, continues his exploration of artificial light. In a city lunged in darkness, the night is a contenious space, where its attempted colonisations by unknown forces are centered by escalating practices of escapism, fugitivity and confrontation.
(2025, Lebanon)
COMMENT ÇA VA?, Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel
12/09, 18 p.m in the presence of the directors
14/09, 11 a.m
VO French, ST Italian, 31’
In a world devoid of humans, eight animals live on a wild coastline and try to cure the ills caused by the contemporary life. Mixing cartoonesque aesthetics and real-life shots, the film explores feelings of disillusionment and existential turmoil in the face of the modern world.
(2025, France)
DIEU EST TIMIDE, Jocelyn Charles
Italian premiere
12/09, 15.30 p.m in the presence of the director
14/09, 14 p.m
VO French, ST Italian, 15’
On a train journey, Ariel et Paul are passing the time drawing their deepest fears, when Gilda, a mysterious passenger, intrudes on their privacy. Her experience of fear, however, does not seem as innocent as their drawings.
(2025, France)
FIUME O MORTE!, Igor Bezinović
12/09, 14 p.m
13/09, 14 p.m, in the presence of the director
VO Croatian/Fiumano/Italian, ST English/Italian, 112’
In 1919, the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, along with his legionaries, occupied Fiume. The inhabitants of the city, now Rijeka in Croatia, recount and reinterpret the story of the sixteen months of occupation of their city in a hybrid form merging documentary and punk fiction.
(2025, Croatia, Italy, Slovenia)
HEMEL, Danielle Dean
Italian premiere
12/09, 15.30 p.m
14/09, 14 p.m, in the presence of the director
VO English, ST English, 29’
Shot on 16 mm and performed by non-professional actors, the film paints a portrait of the town of Hemel Hempstead in England, where the director grew up. It weaves a personal narrative of Hemel’s as an urban prototype of the New Towns Act – an urban policy model developed in the United Kingdom after the Second World War.
(2024, United States, United Kingdom, Nigeria)
O RISO E A FACA, Pedro Pinho
Italian premiere
11/09, 14 p.m
13/09, 16.30 p.m
VO Portugese/Creole, ST English, 211’
Sergio works as an engineer in West Africa to build a road connecting the desert to the forest. He forms a bond with two locals and learns that an Italian engineer assigned to the same mission a few months before has mysteriously disappeared.
(2024, Portugal)
LLOYD WONG, UNFINISHED, Lesley Loksi Chan
Italian premiere
12/09, 18 p.m, in the presence of the director
14/09, 11 a.m
VO English, 29’
In the early 1990s, Chinese-Canadian artist Lloyd Wong began to document his life while living with HIV. This work, which remained unfinished, was resumed and edited thirty years after his death by director Lesley Loksi Chan. Raw and imperfect, the film explores the concept of incompletion.
Presented at Berlinale Shorts 2025.
(2025, Canada)
PARAFLU, Michela de Mattei and Invernomuto
12/09, 18 p.m
13/09, 11 a.m, in the presence of the directors
VO English, ST Italian, 23’
Paraflu traces the return of the wolf to northern Italy, a symbol of conflict and change. Combining 16 mm sequences and AI-generated images, the film alternates human and animal perspectives, blurring the boundary between research and fiction.
(2025, Italy)
THE HAND THAT FEEDS, Mtume Gant
World premiere presentation
11/09, 18 p.m, in the presence of the director
14/09, 14 p.m
VO English, ST English, 87’
In NYC, a Hip hop musician has chosen a life of seclusion. At a crossroads with the few relationships he has, a breaking point emerges and forces him to reconcile with how he wants to continue his life in a cold world that he feels alienated from.
(2025, United States)
Carte blanche Guslagie Malanda (jury)
14/09, 17 p.m
CLASSIFIED PEOPLE, Yolande Zauberman
When the apartheid laws were introduced in South Africa, Robert found himself classified as “mixed race” by the authorities, while his wife and children were recognized as “white.” Rejected by his family, he left this home to live with Doris, his second wife. Together, they describe the violence and absurdity of racial classifications.
(1987, France, 53′)
VO English/Afrikaans, ST French
LA FRONTIÈRE BLEUE, Dinis M. Costa
A clandestine ship sinks off the coast of a small Andalusian coastal town, without disturbing its routine. Shifting between cold surveillance and festive scenes, the film reveals the indifference to human distress.
(2025, France/Spain/Portugal, 29′)
VO Spanish/Portuguese/French/English/Bambara, ST French/English
Carte blanche Anri Sala (jury)
13/09, 18.30 p.m
LONG SORROW, Anri Sala
In a long, silent take of nearly 13 minutes, free jazz saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc improvises while suspended outside a window at the top of a residential building on the outskirts of Berlin – a building nicknamed “Long Sorrow.”
(2005, 13’)
1395 DAYS WITHOUT RED, Anri Sala
The film traces the daily life of a woman crossing Sarajevo, taking the infamous “Sniper Alley” during the 1,395 days of the siege (1992–1996). At each intersection, she hesitates, stops, then moves on, as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 – rehearsed by the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra – echoes in her mind.
First presented at the exhibition “Luogo e Segni” in 2019 at Punta della Dogana (Pinault Collection) in Venice.
(2011, 44’)
VO English, ST English
Carte blanche à Alain Guiraudie (jury)
MISÉRICORDE, Alain Guiraudie
Jérémie returns to Saint-Martial for his former baker boss’s funeral. He decides to stay with Martine, the man’s widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a strange priest make Jérémie’s stay in the village take an unexpected turn…
(2024, France, Spain, Portugal, 102’)
VO French, ST Italian
Contrechamp
12/09, 16.30 p.m
THE YELLOW SPEAKS, Thu Van Tran (Villa Medici fellow)
Shot on the site where the 1907 Colonial Exhibition was held in the Bois de Vincennes, the film focuses on statues by the French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Belloc. Filmed in close-up, the statues embody the “races” that contributed to the building of the French Empire. Like a letter to the absent, the narrative takes the form of a prosopopoeia: the silent figures appear to share their buried stories and thoughts.
(2017, France, 4’)
VO French, ST Italian
LET US PERSEVERE IN WHAT WE HAVE RESOLVED BEFORE WE FORGET, Ben Russell (Villa Medici fellow)
On the island of Tanna, in Vanuatu, an archipelago in the South Pacific, the “cargo cult” is still present: it blends a form of reverance for goods broughts by foreigners with the urgency of a return to the origins. Through an immersive and contemplative approach, Ben Russell explores the persistence of these cultural practices.
(2013, United States, 20’)
VO English, Ni-Vanuatu, ST English
LA SOUFRIÈRE, Werner Herzog
In 1976, following the annoucement of an eruption of the La Soufrière volcano, the island of Guadeloupe is evacuated. Herzog and his crew face the danger to meet a handful of residents who refuse to leave Basse-Terre.
(1977, Germany, 31’)
VO English, ST Italian
Contrechamp
11/09, 18 p.m
CENTRO DI PERMANENZA TEMPORANEA,
Adrian Paci
In an airport in California, a group of migrants files onto a boarding bridge. Paci captures their persistent feelings of anxiety and insecurity, weaving them together with his own experience of migratory flows between Albania and Italy in the 1990s.
(2007, Italy, 5’30)
BAB SEBTA, Randa Maroufi
BAB SEBTA is a studio reconstruction of scenes of daily life observed at the border of Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Moroccan soil. This place is the setting for a flow of low-cost goods, where thousands of people work every day.
(2019, France, Morocco, Qatar, Lebanon, 19’)
VO Arabic (maroccan dialect)/Spanish, ST English
DEUX FAISCEAUX BLANCS GROUPÉS ET ROTATIFS, Enrique Ramírez, Villa Medici fellow
At the Créac’h lighthouse, on the island of Ushant, the sea fluctuates between calm and storm: surges of foam slice through the darkness, a beam of light mechanically pierces the night sky while voices accompany this elemental choreography.
(2017, France, Chile, 24’)
VO SPanish/English, ST French
LES HABITANTS, Artavazd Peleshian
LES HABITANTS is Peleshian’s only film without humans on screen: herds and fleeing birds evoke the silent, near-invisible threat of human action, as the film reflects on the fragile balance of nature under the growing pressure of human presence.
(1970, USSR, 9’)
Contrechamp
12/09, 14 p.m
BINGO SHOW, Christelle Lheureux
On the set of a lottery show on Sarajevo’s national television channel, the hosts wait for the live broadcast to start. Time and lottery balls hang in suspension, while the lighting reveals a motionless, almost unreal, set.
(2003, France, 8’)
CHAQUE MUR EST UNE PORTE, Elitza Gueorguieva, Villa Medici fellow
1989 in Bulgaria. The Berlin Wall has just fallen. Drawing from her mother’s VHS recordings of television programs, the director delivers a chronicle of the revolution from a child’s perspective.
(2017, France, 58’)
VO Bulgarian, ST English
Special Screening, Alice Diop
13/09, 17 p.m, in the presence of the director
A member of the jury for the Villa Medici Film Festival in 2023, filmmaker Alice Diop will present her new short film FRAGMENTS FOR VENUS in a special screening on Saturday, September 13.
FRAGMENTS FOR VENUS, Alice Diop
In this short film, Alice Diop continues the meditations begun with “Saint Omer,” exploring the artistic and social reprensentations of Black women through time. She explores the artistic representation of women through art history at the Louvre Museum, before moving into contemporary life in the streets of New York. Alternating refined costumes with everyday attire, and the hushed spaces of the Louvre museum with the bustle of NYC, these worlds echo each other, intertwining historical inquiry with the pleasures of daily life.
(2025, USA, France, 21’)
VO French, ST Italian
Special Screening, Kleber Mendonça Filho
RETRATOS FANTASMAS (PICTURES OF GHOSTS) Kleber Mendonça Filho
A multidimensional journey through the landscape and history of Recife, combining archival material, fragments, memories, and a small dose of mystery.
(2023, Brasil 93’)
VO Portuguese, ST Italian
GRAND CIEL, Akihiro Hata
Roman premiere
10/09, 9 p.m
VO French, ST Italian, 92’
Vincent works the night shift on the construction site of a futuristic district. When a worker goes missing, Vincent and his colleagues begin to suspect that their superiors are covering up an accident. But soon, another worker disappears.
(2025, France, Luxembourg)
L’INTÉRÊT D’ADAM, Laura Wandel
Italian premiere with the support of CHANEL
11/09, 9 p.m
VO French, ST Italian, 73’
Adam, 4, is hospitalized for malnutrition. Lucy, the head nurse, bends the rules to help his distressed mother, who refuses to leave her son despite a court order.
(2025, Belgium, France)
THE MASTERMIND, Kelly Reichardt
12/09, 9 p.m
VO English, ST Italian, 110’
In a quiet sedate corner of Massachusetts circa 1970, JB Mooney (Josh O’Connor) an unemployed carpenter turned amateur art thief, prepares his first big heist. But when things go haywire, his life unravel.
(2025, United States)
ISLANDS, Jan-Ole Gerster
Italian premiere
13/02, 9 p.m
VO English/Spanish, ST Italian, 123’
Intriguing noir mystery. Tom, a one-time tennis pro and now coach at a holiday island resort, lives an endless summer filling emptiness with alchool, until a young couple of clients brings back color to his life.
(2025, Germany)
YAKUSHIMA’S ILLUSION Naomi Kawase
Italian premiere
14/09, 9 p.m
VO French/English/Japanese, ST Italian
Corry, a transplant coordinator, flies to Japan to save a child, but her partner Jin disappears, becoming a “jōhatsu.” In a country where organ donation is taboo, Corry faces a double challenge: saving a life and coping with the disappearance of the man she loves.
(2025, France, Japon, Belgique, Luxembourg)
Awards
The jury will award two prizes: the Villa Medici Prize for Best Film and the Special Jury Prize for a distinctive film that caught the jurors’ attention. These awards, endowed with 5,000 and 3,000 euros respectively, also offer the filmmakers the opportunity of a residency at Villa Medici. The awards ceremony will take place on Saturday 13 September at 8pm, before the screening of the film The Mastermind, directed by Kelly Reichardt.
Alain Guiraudie
Filmmaker, photographer, and writer. Since 1990, he has directed seven feature films, and between 2014 and 2024, he published three novels with P.O.L. His first photography exhibition was presented in 2019 at Le Fresnoy, followed by showings in galleries and art centers in France and abroad.
Guslagie Malanda
Actress and independent contemporary art curator. She rose to public prominence in 2014 and was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress in 2023. Her latest film was in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Alongside her acting carrer, she has curated exhibitions at DOC in 2021 and in Lima in 2024.
Anri Sala
Visual artist. In his work, image, sound, and architecture interact to transform our perception of time and space. Since 2000, his work has been the subject of solo exhibitions, he has taken part in major international events, and represented France at the 55th Venice Biennale.
The team
The selection committee
Every year, a committee selects the films in competition, adopting an approach that is as open as possible to diversity of practices and authors, be they filmmakers or visual artists. For the 2025 festival, the selection committee is made up of Lili Hinstin, Clément Postec, Nicolas Raffin, and Valentine Umansky.
Lili Hinstin is a festival programmer and artistic director. Having been in charge of film at Villa Medici between 2005 and 2009, she was programmer for the Cinéma du Réel festival from 2010 to 2013, then artistic director of the Belfort Film Festival (2013–18) and the Locarno International Film Festival (2018–20). She is currently director of programming for the Biarritz Film Festival – Nouvelles Vagues. She has been a member of the Villa Medici Film Festival Selection and Organizing Committee since 2021.
Clément Postec is an artistic director, exhibition curator and filmmaker. A graduate of Sorbonne Nouvelle University, the Institut d’Études Politiques de Strasbourg and Sciences Po (SPEAP), he has been involved for over ten years in developing projects at the intersection of film and contemporary art and deploying cultural spaces and organizations.
Nicolas Raffin is a film programmer based in London and has been in charge of the film department at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) since 2018. In recent years, he has launched important initiatives in response to the ever-changing landscape of film distribution, redefining particularly the ICA’s film programming around new series such as Off-Circuit, Long Takes and Celluloid Sunday. He has recently supervised major retrospectives devoted to Marguerite Duras, Hong Sangsoo, and Jacques Rivette.
Valentine Umansky is a curator at Tate Modern in London, having worked for several visual arts institutions. Between 2015 and 2020, she held positions in the United States at the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. She is also an exhibition curator and author.
Focus Section Programming :
Véronique Terrier-Hermann is a lecturer and program manager for research support (Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Institut pour la Photographie, Lille). She notably co-directed Jeux sérieux, cinéma et art contemporains transforment l’essai, Head/Mamco, 2015.
The organizing committee
Lili Hinstin, Director of Programming at the Biarritz Film Festival – Nouvelles Vagues
Mathilde Henrot, programmer and founder of Festival Scope Pro
Laurent Perreau, author and film director
Sam Stourdzé, director of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici
With Villa Medici’s team
Fulvia Gallo, coordinator of the 2025 Villa Medici Film Festival
Clotilde Parlos, cultural project manager at the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici
In collaboration with Véronique Terrier-Hermann, art historian, for the programming of the Focus section.
Practical information
September 10 to 14, 2025
Single ticket: 5€
3 Screenings Pass: 9€ (full rate) / 6€ (reduced rate*)
Pass Festival: 25€ (full rate) / 20€ (reduced rate*)
*Holders of VILLA MEDICI SOLO, DUO or TRIBU cards
Best practices
The historic garden of Villa Medici is a non-smoking area. Please respect this by using the smoking area and sorting your waste in the dedicated garbage cans.
Villa Medici does not have a checkroom on the premises.
Motorcycle helmets, bicycles, scooters, backpacks and pets are not allowed on the premises.
It is possible to attend the Villa Medici Film Festival with a small bag.
Our partners
Official partner of the 2025 Villa Medici Film Festival
Partners
Media partners
With the support of
Photo credits
Villa Medici Film Festival 2024 © Daniele Molajoli
Portrait d’Alain Guiraudie © D.R.
Portrait de Guslagie Malanda © Carole Bellaïche
Portrait d’Anri Sala © Wolfgang Stah
+10K © Don Quichotte Films, 15L Films
Bonne journée © Pauline Bastard
Bury Us in a Lone Desert © Gudtrip
Children of Darkness © Haig Aivazian
Comment ça va ? © 444 Films
Dieu est timide © Jocelyn Charles
Fiume o Morte! © Nosorogi, Restart, Videomante
Hemel © Danielle Dean Studio / Lono World
O Riso e a Faca © Uma Pedra no Sapato, Terratreme Filmes
Lloyd Wong, Unfinished © Lesley Loksi Chan
Paraflu © The artists
The Hand That Feeds © Mtume Gant
Classified People © Obsession
La frontière bleue © Furyo Films, Bro Cinema, Kinetika
Long Sorrow © Anri Sala, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
1395 Days without Red © Anri Sala, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
The Yellow Speaks © Thu Van Tran
Let Us Persevere In What We Have Resolved Before We Forget © Ben Russell
La soufrière © Werner Herzog
Centro di permanenza temporanea © Adrian Paci
Bab Sebta © Barney production – Randa Maroufi
Deux faisceaux blancs groupés et rotatifs © Enrique Ramírez 2017
Les habitants © Artavazd Pelechian
Bingo Show © Christelle Lheureux
Chaque mur est une porte © Lesfilmsdubilboquet
Fragments for Venus © Alice Diop
L’intérêt d’Adam © Laura Wandel
The Mastermind © Kelly Reichardt