Screenings

Monday, October 13 2025, 20:00 c/o Sala dei 146

Glorious Summer, by Helena GANJALYAN and Bartosz SZPAK (Id., Poland, 2025, 90’)

Three girls live in isolation in a secluded villa. Nothing is denied to them—on one condition: they cannot leave. Their days pass between leisure and rituals, while in secret they devise an escape plan.

Tuesday, October 14 2025, 20:00 c/o Sala dei 146

Ghost Killer, by Kensuke SONOMURA (Gousutokiraa, Japan, 2024, 105’) - Italian Premiere

A young woman, uncertain about her future, becomes possessed by the spirit of an amoral killer. What follows is a wild blend of action and comedy—a gleeful, clattering collision of genres.

Wednesday, October 15 2025, 20:30 c/o Sala dei 146

Monkey’s Magic Merry Go Round, by Aidan LEARY (Id., USA, 2024, 91’) - Italian Premiere

James is the host of a children's TV show, surrounded by a lively crowd of puppets. But the playful mood – filled with songs and dance routines – gradually slips into a delirious atmosphere.

Thursday, October 16 2025, 21:00 c/o Sala dei 146

Body of Light, by JANG Gun-ho (Bitgwa mom, South Korea, 2024, 105’) - Italian Premiere

Inspired by the Buddhist concept of karma, Jang Gun-ho weaves a story of intertwined destinies: that of a young woman searching for her roots, and that of an elderly man seeking the love of his life.

Friday, October 17 2025, 20:00 c/o Sala dei 146

The Black Hole, by Moonika SIIMETS (Must auk, Estonia/Finland, 2024, 115’) - Italian Premiere

The intertwined stories of the friends Sirje and Maret, of Uma and Marillis, and of poor Jüri are united by a shared quest for happiness – a pursuit that collides with utterly improbable fantastical beings.

Saturday, October 18 ottobre 2025,12:00 c/o Auditorium

Cielo, by Alberto SCIAMMA (Id., UK, 2025, 109’) - Italian Premiere

In a vividly colored rural Bolivia, a young girl performs seemingly chilling rituals to save her mother. The long-awaited return of the director of La lengua asesina (1996) and Black Plague (2002).

Saturday, October 18 2025, 14:30 c/o Auditorium

A Whale, by Pablo HERNANDO (Una ballena, Spain/Italy, 2024, 108’) - Italian Premiere

Ingrid is a flawless assassin. No one knows who she is, but she’s connected to something unfathomable and distant. A cosmic neo-noir with unexpected flashes of the fantastical.

Saturday, October 18 2025, 16:30 c/o Auditorium

Mr. K, by Tallulah H. SCHWAB (Id., Netherlands/Belgium/Norway, 2024, 94’) - Italian Premiere

Crispin Glover takes center stage in this surreal parable with echoes of Kafka. A night in a hotel spirals into a claustrophobic nightmare with increasingly astonishing twists.

Saturday, October 18 2025, 18:30 c/o Auditorium

The Other Side of Summer, by Vojtěch STRAKATÝ (Na druhé strane léta, Czech Republic, 2025, 85’) - in collaboration with Alice nella Città (Rome)

Summer holidays among lakes and forests: two teenage girls become friends, but one of them has discovered a place both enchanted and unsettling. A tale of friendship and coming of age.

Saturday, October 18 2025, 20:30 c/o Auditorium

The Wolf, the Fox and the Leopard, by David VERBEEK (Id., Netherlands/Croatia/Taiwan/ Ireland/Luxembourg, 2025, 120’) - Italian Premiere

Raised among wolves, a young girl is brought back to civilization – only to be kidnapped by a pair of environmentalists and confined to a platform in the middle of the sea, awaiting the end of the world.

Conceived and curated by Riccardo Caccia and Rocco Moccagatta, professors of Film History at IULM University, the retrospective of the fourth edition of Sognielettrici aims to revisit the roots of Italian science fiction cinema. One could say that 1965 marked year zero for Italian sci-fi—a genre that was never truly native to Italy and largely neglected by local producers, failing to gain lasting traction with domestic audiences. The four films featured in this year’s retrospective return to that brief yet extraordinary season, joyfully balancing highbrow cinema with low-budget practices, blending pop culture influences with often brilliant craftsmanship, and oscillating between visions of the future and subtle reflections on the present. It’s a moment where emerging auteurs like Elio Petri meet genre-defining masters such as Mario Bava, Antonio Margheriti, and Lucio Fulci. As is often the case with Italian genre cinema, these works found more fertile ground in the international collective imagination and continue to resurface in unexpected places. Planet of the Vampires casts its shadow behind Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979); The 10th Victim remains one of the most dazzling examples of cinematic pop art; The War of the Planets anticipates many of the lavish space operas that Hollywood would later produce; and 002 Operation Moon already flirts with absurdist comedy before it had a name.

Monday, October 13 2025, 15:30 c/o Sala dei 146
Planet of the Vampires, by Mario Bava (Terrore nello spazio, Italy/Spain, 1965, 88’)

Tuesday, October 14 2025, 11:30 c/o Sala dei 146
The War of the Planets, by Antonio Margheriti (I diafanoidi vengono da Marte, Italy/USA, 1966, 97’)

Thursday, October 16 2025, 19:00 c/o Sala dei 146
The 10th Victim, by Elio Petri (La decima vittima, Italy/France, 1965, 92’)

Saturday, October 18 2025, 10:00 c/o Auditorium
002 Operation Moon, by Lucio Fulci (002 operazione Luna, Italy/Spain, 1965, 90’)

Monday, October 13 2025, 11:30 c/o Sala dei 146

SHORT FEATURES #1 | An Infinite Quest

Absent, by Cem Demirer (Turkey, 2024, 23’30’’) - Italian Premiere

Häppchen, by Nelly Schmidtlein (Germany, 2025, 11’) - Italian Premiere

The Same Color, by Arash Seifi (Iran, 2024, 24’) - Italian Premiere

S’erme solu, by Sebastiano Costa (Italy, 2024, 12’) - Italian Premiere

A Lost Night, by WANG Nanzhao (Zhi huan yu shizhen, China, 2025, 12’) - World Premiere

End, by Rita Casdia (Italia, 2025, 2’30’’) 

Butterfly Kiss, by Zohar Dvir (Germany/Israel, 2024, 10’) - Italian Premiere

Tuesday, October 14 2025, 9:30 c/o Sala dei 146

SHORT FEATURES #2 | Unruly Futures

Happy People, by Balázs Budavári (Boldog emberek, Hungary, 2025, 15’) - Italian Premiere

Skroll, by Marten Visser (Netherlands, 2024, 6’30’’) - Italian Premiere

Dos, by Domiziano Cristopharo (Spain, 2025, 3’30’’) - Italian Premiere

The End Was Just the Beginning, by Antonio Aleixo (O fim era apenas o início, Portugal, 2024, 17’) - Italian Premiere

House at the End of the World, by Lampros Kordolaimis (Greece, 2025, 8') - Italian Premiere

Terakhir, by Akmal Zakhwan (Malaysia, 2025, 15’) - European Premiere

The Golem Smashes All Walls, by Nathan Meltz (USA, 2025, 9’) - Italian Premiere

The Age of Flowering Plants, by Magaly Ugarte de Pablo (La era de las plantas con flor, Mexico, 2025, 18’) - Italian Premiere

Wednesday, October 15 2025, 18:30 c/o Sala dei 146

SHORT FEATURES #3 | Between Worlds

A Good Death, by Kaz PS (USA, 2025, 11’) - European Premiere

Harvest, by Donata Mustać (Jematva, Croatia, 2025, 23’30’’) - Italian Premiere

Leave the Island, by Chen Wu (Taiwan, 2025, 11’30’’) - Italian Premiere

Lixivious, by Sébastien Auger (Spain, 2025, 9’) - Italian Premiere

Man of the House, by Soren Harrison (UK, 2025, 25’30’’) - Italian Premiere

FEATURE FILM JURY

Daniele Brolli was born in Rimini. In the 1980s, he co-founded the Valvoline project group alongside Mattotti, Igort, Jori, Carpinteri, and Kramsky. As an illustrator, comic book writer, and critic, he has contributed to numerous periodicals, including Linus, Frigidaire, Vanity, Rockstar, Il Manifesto, Gazzetta dello Sport, Harper’s, The Face, Pulp, Emporio Armani Magazine, Diabolik, Topolino, and Il Giornalino. He has conceived and occasionally directed magazines such as DolceVita, Cyborg, Alphaville, and the Italian editions of Isaac Asimov’s, Analog, and Heavy Metal. He has served as a consultant for Bompiani, Einaudi, Mondadori, and Hobby & Work. Brolli has authored several books, translated others, and curated anthologies—including Gioventù cannibale. He currently writes the spy series for SBE featuring Magnus’s iconic character Lo Sconosciuto.

Gabriella Giliberti is a film and television critic, writer, and content creator. From 2015 to 2022, she was both a contributor and public face of the website Lega Nerd. She collaborates with both online and print publications, and regularly appears as a correspondent, moderator, and speaker at major festivals and conventions. In 2023, she published her first essay, Love Song for a Vampire – The Ethology of the Vampire from F.W. Murnau to Taika Waititi (Bakemono Lab, 2023). She also contributed to the anthologies Emozioni da giocare (Poliani, 2021) and Moondance – Tim Burton, un alieno ad Hollywood (Bakemono Lab, 2023).

Dario Tonani, born in Milan and holding a degree in Political Economy from Bocconi University, is a professional journalist and the author of a dozen novels and over 120 short stories published in Italy and abroad. His work has appeared in newspapers, anthologies, and leading genre magazines such as Wired, Urania, Giallo Mondadori, Segretissimo, Millemondi, and Robot. For Urania, he wrote Infect@ (2007), L’algoritmo bianco (2009), and Toxic@ (2011), but his most acclaimed work is the Mondo9 Cycle, which began with Cronache di Mondo9 (2015)—the first Millemondi volume entirely dedicated to an Italian author. In 2018, he became the first Italian writer to be published with an original novel, Naila di Mondo9, in Mondadori’s Oscar Fantastica series. In 2022, Mya di Mondo9 and a reprint of Cronache di Mondo9 were released as part of Urania’s 70th anniversary collection, distributed with Il Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta dello Sport. In 2023, he published Il trentunesimo giorno with Oscar Fantastica, an eco-dystopian novel exploring climate change and extreme weather events. He was awarded the Premio Europa for Best European Science Fiction Writer in 2017. Official website: www.dariotonani.it

SHORT FILM JURY

Fabrizia Malgieri teaches the course Video Games: Technology and Art at IULM University in Milan. Since 2013, she has collaborated with the Department of Communication, Arts and Media “Giampaolo Fabris” at the same institution, contributing to research projects, workshops, and events focused on video games. She is the author of several essays on gaming and television seriality, published in books and academic journals, including the collective volume Videogioco: Femminile, plurale (Ledizioni, 2024). She has written for magazines covering film, video games, and media, directed the Italian branch of the international network Gamereactor for nine years, and since 2018 has contributed to Il Corriere della Sera, focusing on video game culture. She describes herself as a passionate serial gamer, a devourer of films and TV series—and above all, a geek.

Together with students from the master's degree course in Television, Cinema and New Media at IULM University: Gaia Berisso, Enrico Borghesio, Giulio De Gaetanis, Stefania Filace, Elena Mascellani, Claudio Recenti, Lorenzo Sanchini, Giorgia Seber.