06/06/2023 - Now at its 19th edition, the festival of life stories will unspool in Bologna between 9 and 19 June

Questions about the present and the role we play in society are at the forefront of the titles selected for this year’s Biografilm, the life stories festival, now at its 19th edition, which is bringing some of the biggest voices in contemporary documentary film to Bologna between 9 and 19 June, and offering up multiple perspectives on the female condition. 83 films are set to screen in the various sections of the festival’s Official Selection, set to be opened by Nicolas Philibert’s On the Adamant [+see also:
film review
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interview: Nicolas Philibert
film profile] (awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlinale): 60 in premieres, of which 17 world premieres, and 72 Europe-produced films. In all, 31 countries from around the world will be represented, with 62% of the works selected coming courtesy of female professionals.

Among the ten films screening in the International Competition, Apolonia, Apolonia [+see also:
film review
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interview: Lea Glob
film profile] by Lea Glob uses a meeting with painter Apolonia Sokol to reveal the ways in which patriarchal and capitalistic structures hinder the lives of women in modern-day society; Light Falls Vertical [+see also:
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film profile] by Efthymia Zymvragaki speaks of the violence women must suffer from a dual perspective: her experience as a victim and the story told by a perpetrator; and Is There Anybody Out There? [+see also:
film review
film profile] sees director Ella Glendining - who was born with a rare disability - depicting her daily struggle against discrimination. The competition also features Pure Unknown [+see also:
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film profile] by Mattia Colombo and Valentina Cicogna - taking us into the autopsy room of Doctor Cristina Cattaneo who receives the nameless bodies of homeless people, sex workers and migrants, and revealing what happens when the dead lose their identity - and The Gullspång Miracle by Maria Fredriksson, where two sisters buying an apartment in the Swedish countryside realise the sales agent looks a lot like their big sister who took her own life thirty years earlier.

Numerous European co-productions also appear on the Biografilm Italy agenda: screening in world premieres, Chutzpah – Qualcosa sul pudore [+see also:
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film profile] by Monica Stambrini probes the limits of privacy and how much filming and filming oneself is part of our lives and how it allows us to reflect upon ourselves; Devoti tutti by Bernadette Wegenstein combines animation and cinéma vérité to examine the trials of the martyr Saint Agatha of Catania through a personal, feminist lens; and Nota bene by Jeroen Poo meanders around a monumental graveyard on the outskirts of Genoa which is curiously lively for a place dedicated to death. Another world premiere comes in the form of Sebastiano Luca Insinga’s The Deceit, which homes in on an encounter between an ex-matador and a young torero to investigate the fears and expectations surrounding the controversial world of bullfighting.

The Contemporary Lives section, dedicated to the more pressing themes of the day, will offer up titles including After Work [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Gandini
film profile] by Erik Gandini, Bigger Than Trauma [+see also:
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interview: Vedrana Pribačić, Mirta Puh…
film profile] by Vedrana Pribačić, Blix Not Bombs [+see also:
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film profile] by Greta Stocklassa, Iron Butterflies [+see also:
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interview: Roman Liubyi
film profile] by Roman Liubyi, and Garçonnières by Céline Pernet, which takes an up-close, ironic look at contemporary masculinity based around a dating app. Last but not least, the Biografilm Art & Music section will be making a comeback, showcasing many different forms of love for art and, among other works, a doc on Erica Jong and Iggy Pop, as will Beyond Fiction, the section dedicated to hybrid fiction films, screening, among others, Houria [+see also:
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film profile] by Mounia Meddour and The Store [+see also:
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film profile] by Ami-Ro Sköld. This year’s tributes, meanwhile, include “Torre World”, dedicated to the versatile director Roberta Torre and his incredibly personal intertwining of the documentary form and fiction.

(Translated from Italian)