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24.05 — 20.06.2026
Nel 2026 il River Film Festival giunge alla sua ventesima edizione, con la consapevolezza di un evento culturale che gli spettatori hanno imparato ad apprezzare per l’originalità e l’autorevolezza delle sue scelte.
La Giuria
Golden River Award
Il premio: Osella dei maestri vetrai di Murano con foglia d’oro 24K raffigurante il logo del River Film Festival.
I Vincitori
Lungometraggi
Feature films
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
Premio del Pubblico – RiFF 2026
BEYOND THE SKIN
Alessandra Usai | Italia 2025 / 60 min.
La violenza che marchia, l’impegno che cura. Un medico friulano salva le donne sfregiate con l’acido. La sua missione è restituire il sorriso a donne che a causa di una violenza brutale hanno perso tutto: volto, ruolo, dignità.
Violence that scars, commitment that heals. A doctor from Friuli saves women disfigured by acid. His mission is to restore a smile to women who, due to brutal violence, have lost everything: their faces, their roles, their dignity.
Alessandra Usai
Alessandra Usai is a director, documentary filmmaker, and producer. She holds a degree in Literature with a specialization in Film History and trained in documentary filmmaking at the Scuola Civica di Milano. Her work explores human rights, social justice, and women’s stories, with a poetic perspective and an anthropological approach. She has been engaged in social issues since 2008, when she made “Vrindavan”, a documentary on the right to education, and she continues to investigate civic and environmental themes.
Realtà virtuale
Virtual reality
Solo premio del Pubblico
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
TOWARD ENTROPY 360
Jaewook Lee | Stati Uniti 2025 / 15 min.
“Toward Entropy 360” è un’esperienza filmica immersiva a 360° che invita il pubblico a entrare in un mondo dove i gesti monumentali della land art incontrano la silenziosa persistenza della natura. Quest’opera reimmagina opere di land art storicamente significativi non come monumenti statici, ma come ecologie in evoluzione e fragili, modellate dal tempo, dal clima e dalla memoria. Le piante si riappropriano del terreno, l’acqua sale e le forme familiari si dissolvono, mettendo in discussione la permanenza dell’ambizione umana.
“Toward Entropy 360” is an immersive 360° film experience that invites audiences to step into a world where land art’s monumental gestures meet the quiet persistence of nature. This work reimagines historically significant earthworks, not as static monuments, but as evolving, fragile ecologies shaped by time, weather, and memory. Plants reclaim the ground, water rises, and familiar forms dissolve, questioning the permanence of human ambition.
Jaewook Lee
Jaewook Lee is a new media artist whose practice uses video games as an artistic medium, alongside 3D/CGI animation, virtual reality (VR), and interactive installations. His work explores speculative histories and immersive ecologies. Through computational worlds, he treats interaction as a critical artistic method, examining cultural, ecological, and social questions. Lee’s solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (2024), the Museo de Antofagasta at the SACO9 Contemporary Art Festival in Chile (2020), and the SVA–NYC Art Platform in Shanghai (2017, 2019).
Scuole di cinema
Film schools
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
NICE GUY
Philip Schafferhans | Germania 2025 / 30 min.
Michael, trentenne e cronicamente single, trascorre il suo tempo tra un lavoro senza prospettive e le chat con Lana_69 su un sito di webcam per adulti. Nei fine settimana, lui e il suo migliore amico Tom vanno nei locali, sperando di conoscere delle donne. Quando Tom trova una fidanzata, Mia, Michael si affida a consigli online, finendo sotto l’influenza dell’influencer della manosfera Adrian e scivolando in misoginia, mascolinità tossica, autodenigrazione e inceldom.
Michael, 30 and chronically single, spends his time at a dead-end job or chatting with Lana_69 on an adult webcam site. On weekends, he and his best friend Tom go to clubs, hoping to meet women. When Tom finds a girlfriend, Mia, Michael turns to online advice, falling under the influence of menosphere Influencer Adrian and spirals into misogyny, toxic masculinity, self-hatred and inceldom.
Philip Schafferhans
Born 1994 in Castrop-Rauxel, Germany he discovered his love for film in kindergarten, when he was introduced to flipbooks. He began studying film at FH Dortmund in 2016, specializing in writing and directing. In his films he covers topics such as social status, extremism, identity and history.
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
JUST SAY HI
Olga Smelova | Russia 2025 / 15 min.
Vanya è segretamente innamorato di Masha. Il suo amico cerca di organizzare per loro un incontro perfetto, ma quando Vanya vede Masha, sprofonda nel mondo delle proprie fantasie.
Vanya is secretly in love with Masha. His friend is trying to arrange a perfect acquaintance for them, but when Vanya sees Masha, he falls into the world of his own fantasies.
Olga Smelova
I was born in 1988 in Moscow. I graduated from MPGU in 2011 with a degree in culturology. I can sew, draw, cross-stitch, create and write different stories. My whole life is connected with art. I worked as an assistant director, assistant costume designer. I had a business of producing plush postcards. Since 2023 I have been studying in Moscow film school.
Sguardi Veneti
Venetian gazes
Solo premio del Pubblico
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
L’OSPITE
Alberto De Grandis | 2025 / 20 min.
L’anziano Giuseppe, un’anima solitaria, vive una vita monotona nel suo rifugio isolato sull’Altopiano di Asiago. Tutto cambia una sera quando Vittorio, un viandante infreddolito, bussa alla sua porta portando con sé una storia inaspettata che svela un legame indissolubile tra i due: entrambi hanno combattuto in una delle battaglie più cruente della Prima Guerra Mondiale.
The elderly Giuseppe, a solitary soul, leads a monotonous life in his secluded refuge on the Asiago Plateau. Everything changes one evening when Vittorio, a cold and weary traveler, knocks on his door, bringing with him an unexpected story that reveals an unbreakable bond between them: both fought in one of the bloodiest battles of World War I.
Alberto De Grandis
Born in Mestre (Venice) in 2001. In 2020, he earned a diploma in set design, contributing to the production of performances at the Teatro Goldoni in Venice. He graduated in directing and screenwriting in 2022 from STUDIO CINEMA INTERNATIONAL, studying under the guidance of Pupi Avati, Daniele Costantini, Giancarlo Scarchilli, Emanuela Morozzi, Tommaso Avati, and Luca Verdone. He attended advanced film training courses on the “Stanislavski System – character study” and “Character analysis and composition” led by Maria A. Listur. As a director, L’Ospite (The Guest) is his fourth work.
Sguardi italiani
Italian gazes
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
LA MACCHINA DI RENATO
Andrea Orsenigo | 2025 / 18 min.
Stefano accompagna il padre Renato, affetto da una grave malattia degenerativa, verso la Svizzera, per aiutarlo a sottoporsi al suicidio assistito. Tutto pare già deciso, tranne il destino dell’utilitaria di famiglia: la vecchia Fiat Panda guidata dal ragazzo.
Stefano drives his father Renato, suffering from a serious degenerative disease, to Switzerland to help him undergo assisted suicide. Everything seems already decided, except the fate of the family car: the old Fiat Panda driven by the son.
Andrea Orsenigo
Born on 2000 in Lombardy, in 2019 he attended the three-year course at the Civica Scuola di Cinema Luchino Visconti in Milan, specializing in screenwriting. He currently lives in Milan where he works as a screenwriter for several independent and non-independent short films. Renato’s Car is his first short film as director and producer.
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
GOODBYE BAGHDAD
Simone Manetti | 2025 / 20 min.
Marzo 2005. Giuliana Sgrena viene rilasciata a un mese dal suo sequestro avvenuto a Baghdad ad opera di un gruppo jihadista. Nicola Calipari, alto dirigente del SISMI, dopo aver condotto personalmente le trattative si occupa della sua liberazione. Un viaggio in auto verso la salvezza e attraverso silenzi, preoccupazioni, timori e speranze.
March 2005. Giuliana Sgrena is freed one month after her abduction in Baghdad by a jihadist group. Nicola Calipari, a senior officer of SISMI, personally led the negotiations and managed her release. A car journey towards safety, filled with silences, worries, fears, and hopes.
Simone Manetti
Born in Livorno in 1978, Simone Manetti is an Italian director and documentary filmmaker whose work has established him as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary non-fiction cinema. Over the years, he has developed a strong authorial approach, combining investigative depth, emotional sensitivity, and a sharp attention to the social, political, and human dimensions of his stories. With Goodbye Baghdad, Simone Manetti takes his first step into narrative filmmaking.
Orizzonti internazionali
International horizons
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
TOO FAR, TOO LATE
Reza Daghagh | Iran 2025 / 15 min.
Morteza e suo padre stanno cercando delle medicine per la madre malata quando Morteza scopre che è morta. Sua sorella lo esorta a riportare il padre in ospedale, ma Morteza, incapace di dargli la notizia, continua la ricerca insieme a lui. Durante il loro viaggio, vecchi conflitti e ricordi li riavvicinano, finché Morteza trova finalmente il modo di dire al padre della morte della madre, attingendo a un ricordo d’infanzia legato alla perdita.
Morteza and his father are searching for medicine for his sick mother when Morteza learns she has passed away. His sister urges him to bring their father back to the hospital, but Morteza, unable to share the news, continues the search with his father. As they journey together, past conflicts and memories bring them closer, until Morteza finally finds a way to tell his father about their mother’s death, drawing on a childhood memory of loss.
Reza Daghagh
Born in 1988 in Mashhad, Iran, Reza Daghagh has resided in Tehran since 2016. He graduated in 2012 with a degree in Cinema, focusing on film editing, from the University of Applied Science and Technology. He began his career as an editor in 2006. He has also directed music videos and TV commercials. In 2016, he directed his first short film, Death Time. His second short film, Middle Eastern Stories: Father, completed in January 2022, involved his roles as director, producer, and writer. This film has received recognition through various international awards.
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
FULL FAT
Amir Honarmand | Iran 2025 / 20 min.
Durante una rapina notturna, una giovane donna riconosce inaspettatamente il suo aggressore come un ex compagno di università, trasformando un incontro teso in una riunione imbarazzante.
During a late-night mugging, a young woman unexpectedly recognizes her assailant as an old college classmate, turning a tense encounter into an awkward reunion.
Amir Honarmand
Amir Honarmand is an Iranian-Canadian award-winning writer, director, and producer. His work explores moral contradictions, personal bias, and the hypocrisies that shape human behavior, often through dark humor and grounded, character-driven storytelling. His short films, including Silkworm and Full Fat, have screened at international festivals such as Tirana, Brussels ISFF, Vancouver, and Short Shorts, receiving top honors at multiple international festivals. He has contributed to major studio productions as a Technical Director at Sony Pictures Imageworks.
Documentari
Documentaries
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
THE LAST PUESTERO
Belle Casares | Stati Uniti 2025 / 28 min.
The Last Puestero è un documentario che racconta la storia di Adonai, un gaucho — ovvero un cowboy argentino — che trascorre gran parte delle sue giornate in solitudine in un remoto avamposto della Patagonia, proteggendo il bestiame da bracconieri e puma. Sebbene sia profondamente orgoglioso del suo lavoro e delle abilità che esso richiede, egli si trova a dover affrontare la solitudine derivante dall’essere lontano dalla moglie e dai figli, che vivono in città.
The Last Puestero is a short documentary that tells the story of Adonai, a gaucho -or Argentine cowboy- who spends most of his days alone in a remote Patagonian outpost, protecting cattle from poachers and pumas. While deeply proud of his work and the skills it demands, he struggles with the loneliness of being away from his wife and children in town.
Belle Casares
Writer, producer, and director originally from Colorado. She studied documentary filmmaking at The New School in New York and screenwriting at the University of Miami. Her work explores cultural identity, personal transformation, and the essence of masculine and feminine energies, reflecting the complexities of finding one’s place in an ever-changing world. The Last Puestero is her debut film as a producer-director.
Antropocene
Anthropocene
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
ICE ICE BYE BYE
Sebastien Abdelhamid Godelu | Francia 2026 / 10 min.
Los Angeles, una mattina ordinaria si frantuma quando un uomo apparentemente comune è costretto a fuggire all’arrivo dell’ICE, che riduce una vita a un numero di pratica e la routine a sopravvivenza.
Los Angeles, an ordinary morning shatters when a seemingly ordinary man is forced to flee as ICE arrives, reducing a life to a case number and routine to survival.
Sebastien Abdelhamid Godelu
Sébastien Abdelhamid is a French director based in Los Angeles. His work explores contemporary social tensions through intimate, character-driven storytelling. Ice Ice Bye Bye is his latest short film.
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
UN’AMICIZIA OLTRE IL CONFINE
Antonio Collesei | Italia 2026 / 2 min.
Un pallone sgonfio tra le macerie, nel silenzio di un mondo in bianco e nero. Tra le crepe della desolazione si nasconde la luce di una realtà differente che attende solo un gesto per essere riconosciuta.
A deflated ball among the ruins, lost in the silence of a monochrome world. Within the cracks of desolation lies the light of a different reality waiting for a single gesture to be recognized.
Antonio Collesei
Born in Padua in 1993, Antonio Collesei is a Bioinformatician with a PhD who also has a long-standing passion for filmmaking. He started out in 2013 joining the crew Hidden Embers and has since been part of several successful projects, including winning several Jury Prizes at the renowned Padovaciak Film Festival.
Animazione
Animation
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
RUKELI
Alessandro Rak | Italia-Svezia 2025 / 6 min.
Con la promulgazione delle leggi razziali, viene privato del titolo, separato dalla moglie e dalla figlia, sottoposto a castrazione chimica e imprigionato nei campi di concentramento di Wittenberge e Neuengamme, dove morirà a 37 anni.
With the enactment of the racial laws, he is stripped of his title, separated from his wife and daughter, subjected to chemical castration, and imprisoned in the Wittenberge and Neuengamme concentration camps, where he will die at age 37.
Alessandro Rak
Born in Naples, Rak studied animation at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Returned in his hometown, in 2001, he founded with Andrea Scoppetta the animation studio Rak&Scop. After collaborating to several music videos and creating the comic series Ark and Zero or One, in 2007 he had his breakout with the comic series A Skeleton Story, co-created with Scopetta.
QUEER/LGBQTIA+
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
SANTE
Valeria Gaudieri | Italia 2025 / 20 min.
Bianca ha dodici anni quando viene scelta per interpretare l’angelo nella festa del paese, simbolo di purezza e grazia. Mentre si prepara a sollevarsi in volo, l’incontro con Ginevra incrina la superficie dell’infanzia e apre una crepa da cui filtra un desiderio nuovo e destabilizzante. In un tempo e uno spazio sospesi, il film attraversa il passaggio impercettibile ma radicale tra purezza e consapevolezza del corpo, tra infanzia ed età adulta.
Bianca is twelve years old when she is chosen to play the angel in the village festival, a symbol of purity and grace. As she prepares to take flight, her encounter with Ginevra cracks the surface of childhood and opens a fissure through which a new and unsettling desire begins to seep. In a suspended time and space, the film traces the subtle yet radical passage from purity to bodily awareness, from childhood to adulthood.
Valeria Gaudieri
Valeria Gaudieri (1995) was born in Naples. After earning a degree in Philosophy, she began working as a camera assistant. In 2020, she completed a Master’s in Cinematography at Goldsmiths, University of London, under the artistic direction of Steve McQueen. In 2021, she was admitted to the directing program at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, where she directed No Place Like Home (Giffoni 2025) and Sante, her graduation short film.
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
UNIFORMED (FARDADO)
Dan Biurrum | Brasile 2025 / 25 min.
Poliziotto militare e gay, Gustavo vive due realtà che sembrano inconciliabili. In un ambiente in cui essere in uniforme significa essere destinato a non dichiararsi, vede la propria natura essere schiacciata dalla paura. Ma fino a che punto il silenzio protegge, e quando diventa un’arma?
A gay police officer, Gustavo lives two irreconcilable realities. In a world where the uniform condemns him to hiding, he feels his true nature being crushed by fear. But for how long is silence a shield, and when does it become a weapon?
Dan Biurrum
With a degree in Film, Dan Biurrum seeks to create narratives that echo life. From Vitória da Conquista, Bahia, the scarcity of opportunities led him to advertising, and it was in this field that he found a creative laboratory to hone his vision for cinematic language. With Uniformed, Dan celebrates his film debut.
Fantascienza
Science fiction
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
CANDIDO
Giorgio Clementelli | Italia 2025 / 14 min.
2049. Candido ha 79 anni e da 50 anni è sposato con Serena, l’amore della sua vita. Pur sentendosi un uomo “analogico”, Candido non ha più la forza di lottare contro i nuovi strumenti tecnologici e vi si adegua controvoglia. Per rimanere al passo coi tempi ed accontentare i suoi familiari, ora si trova di fronte alla scelta più importante della sua vita…
2049. Candido is 79 years old and has been married to Serena, the love of his life, for 50 years. Although he feels like an “analog” man, Candido no longer has the strength to resist new technologies and reluctantly adapts to them. To keep up with the times and satisfy his family, he now finds himself facing the most important decision of his life…
Giorgio Clementelli
Born in Rome in 1973. After graduating from Law School, he obtained a Master’s degree in Television and New Content from the Mediaset Film School and began working in 2001 as a director for the most important Italian networks (Rai, Mediaset, Sky). He has directed two feature films on American horror (TRUE AMERICAN HORROR vol. 1 and 2), a docufilm in verse on the pandemic awarded by the Lazio Film Commission (S.P.Q.R.), a comedy series for TV, numerous corporate videos, shorts, an internationally awarded web series (FIRPO).
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
TANTI AUGURI
Samuel di Marzo | Italia 2025 / 15 min.
Bruno è un anziano padre che vive da solo. Il compleanno di suo figlio Sergio si avvicina e l’uomo non riesce a contenere l’entusiasmo per l’evento. Organizza la festa nei minimi dettagli, impaziente di rivedere suo figlio. Ma la realtà lo travolge in pieno quando l’utilizzo di un’intelligenza artificiale svela un drammatico ricordo ormai sepolto.
Bruno is an elderly father who lives alone. His son Sergio’s birthday is approaching, and the man can hardly contain his excitement for the event. He meticulously organizes the party, eager to see his son again. But reality hits him hard when the use of an artificial intelligence reveals a dramatic memory long buried.
Samuel di Marzo
Samuel di Marzo, born in 1997, developed an interest in screenwriting and directing from an early age. After completing classical studies, he graduated from the Artithesi directing academy while also earning a degree in audiovisual communication from the University of Salerno. In 2018, he directed Tutte le strade, a short film that earned him the Silver Star at the Italian Film Festival. In 2022, he competed at Cortinametraggio with “La virtù dell’innocenza”.
Intelligenza artificiale
Artificial intelligence
Premio della Giuria – Golden River 2026
SILENT ECHOES
Carlo De Togni | Italia 2025 / 20 min.
Cinque attori di una commedia perduta di Mack Sennett del 1926 sono intrappolati senza regista, sospesi tra le immagini dell’epoca muta e un backstage digitale disturbato da glitch. Discutendo su come finire il film, ognuno incarna una diversa relazione con la tecnologia: vanità, auto-moltiplicazione, furto creativo, cieca dipendenza e aperta resistenza. Il loro conflitto rivela dove finisce l’autore umano e inizia l’algoritmo.
Five actors from a lost 1926 Mack Sennett comedy are trapped without a director, caught between silent-era footage and a glitching digital backstage. Debating how to finish the film, each embodies a different relationship with technology: vanity, self-multiplication, creative theft, blind dependence, and outright resistance. Their conflict reveals where human authorship ends and algorithmic collaboration begins.
Carlo De Togni
Carlo De Togni is an Italian filmmaker and founder of Mondo Novo, an independent production studio. A pioneer in the use of generative AI as an expressive medium, he has made several short films that draw on the visual and expressive languages of the past to interrogate the present. His work has screened at Academy Award-qualifying festivals including Cinequest and Tehran ISFF, won Best Animation Audience Choice at Beverly Hills Film Festival 2025, and received the Honoree Award at Runway AI Film Festival 2024.
Premio del pubblico – RiFF 2026
I DON’T TRUST ARTISTS
Salvatore Frisina | Italia 2025 / 8 min.
In un futuro prossimo in cui gli artisti sono perseguitati come streghe, Euridice, la mitica musa di Orfeo, narra un mockumentary surreale. Dal suo punto di vista, ripercorre gli aspetti più controversi dell’arte, dell’amore e dell’ossessione, commentando immagini tratte dai sogni restaurati di Orfeo. Il film si muove tra il poetico e il provocatorio per interrogarsi sul ruolo degli artisti, delle muse e della creatività in un mondo che ha deciso di cancellarli.
In a near future where artists are persecuted like witches, Eurydice, the mythical muse of Orpheus narrates a surreal mockumentary. From her perspective, she revisits the most controversial aspects of art, love, and obsession, commenting on images drawn from Orpheus’ restored dreams. The film moves between the poetic and the provocative to question the role of artists, muses, and creativity in a world that has decided to erase them.
Salvatore Frisina
He teaches Mass Media Communication at the University of Padua, and works as a filmmaker for the Department of General Psychology, producing research-based and narrative audiovisual projects. As a writer and director, he has made several short films, including E-Lena, which screened in competition at the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival. His short film A Good Idea won the Best Screenplay Award at the Oblivion Frames Film Festival (Lisboa).