by MK
The Venice Film Festival, which opened on August 27, is only a week into its run, and Friuli Venezia Giulia has already left a mark on the Lido. Three films connected to the area have premiered, underscoring its growing role on the country’s cinematic map.
Out of competition, Paolo Strippoli’s La valle dei sorrisi draws on the stark, dramatic landscapes of the Friulian mountains to shape its unsettling atmosphere. A thriller that uses geography as much as character, the film showcases the region’s rugged terrain as a protagonist in its own right.
The festival’s Critics’ Week short film program will close with Confini, an animated piece by Simone Massi. Set in Gorizia’s symbolic Piazza della Transalpina — a square literally divided by the Italian-Slovenian border — the film meditates on identity and belonging in a place where national lines remain deeply personal.
Meanwhile, in the Orizzonti competition, Trieste-born filmmaker Laura Samani returns with Un anno di scuola, adapted from a 1929 novel by fellow Triestine writer Giani Stuparich. Produced by Nefertiti Film with Rai Cinema, the work revisits questions of generational change through the lens of Trieste’s literary heritage, positioning the city not only as a backdrop but as a cultural reference point.
For a region often better known for its borderland politics and Adriatic views, Friuli Venezia Giulia’s presence at Venice signals a cinematic identity taking shape — one that is at once rooted in its landscapes and alive to its layered histories.
interview: Viktor Toth, film critic from FVG
