PALERMO -- The festival started on Monday in Palermo, Sicily and finishes on Sunday and features 50 screenings and 13 premieres, in addition to meetings with international directors and producers.

 The international festival was created by Lucia Gotti Venturato and is dedicated to the genre of realism. Every year in Palermo, it welcomes productions from all over the world and the event opened with the world premiere of “Talking with rivers” by Iranian director Mohsen Makmalbaf. 

 The out-of-competition titles also feature top films, such as winners of prestigious national and international awards. These include Sophie Chiarello's “Il Cerchio”, this year's winner of the David di Donatello for best documentary which will be screened on Thursday at 21:00 in the Conference Room of the Sant’Anna Complex. 

 On Saturday there will be a screening of both “Anaklia”, a short film by Elisa Baccolo and “Me entiendes?” a 31 minute film in Spanish and Arabic by Otto Lazić-Reuschel. This will start at 21:00 in the Sant’Anna cloister, followed by a meeting with the two directors at 21:45 in the same place. 

 One of the concluding events of the festival will be the award ceremony, taking place on Sunday, also in the Sant’Anna cloister at 20:30.

 This year’s festival pays particular attention to environmental issues, young emerging filmmakers and the social and geopolitical relationships of our current times. There are 19 documentaries in competition, including feature films and stories from Palestine to China and Italy to Ukraine. 

 Among the films making their national premieres are “Adieu Sauvage” by Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento (Belgium, 2022, 90'), the director’s first feature film about an initiatory search for his Indian roots which will be shown on Thursday. On Friday Jola Wieczorek is showing her film “Stories from the sea” (Austria 2021, 86'), a film about the Mediterranean as a place of desire seen through the eyes of three women who cross it for completely different reasons.

 The festival’s new location is the Sant'Anna Monumental Complex in Palermo, home of the GAM, the Gallery of Modern Art, which is hosting two open-air theatres and a third hall inside the monumental 15th-century building, transformed for the seven days of the festival into a fascinating cinema under the stars. 

 The festival is also a time to discover other places in the city: other activities running include talks, concerts and environmental creativity workshops for adults and children alike which are taking place at the Botanical Garden of Palermo. What's more, together with the Touring Club Palermo, festival-goers can participate in narrated tours of some of the city's churches. 

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