by InTrieste
The Trieste Film Festival, Italy’s leading showcase for Central and Eastern European cinema, will return from January 16 to 24 with a program of premieres, master classes, and industry events that underscore its long-standing role as a bridge between East and West.
Now in its 37th edition, the festival will open with two major Italian premieres. Agnieszka Holland’s Franz, a biographical portrait of Franz Kafka and Poland’s submission for the 2026 Academy Awards, will inaugurate the event on January 16 at Teatro Miela. The film, which debuted in Toronto and San Sebastián, traces Kafka’s life from 19th-century Prague through the final years he spent in postwar Vienna.
A second opening screening will follow on January 20 at the Politeama Rossetti with Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Disappearance of Josef Mengele. Shown earlier this year in the Cannes Premiere section, the film examines the postwar escape of the Nazi doctor known as the “Angel of Death,” portrayed by August Diehl, as he attempts to build a new life in South America. Serebrennikov is scheduled to give a master class the following morning.
The festival will close on January 24 at the Politeama Rossetti with Silent Friend by the Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi. Presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival and shortlisted for the European Film Awards, the film tells a century-spanning story centered on a ginkgo tree in a German university town. Enyedi will meet audiences earlier that day in a public talk.
Across nine days, the festival will present feature films, documentaries, short films, and conversations with established auteurs and emerging filmmakers. Founded more than three decades ago, the Trieste Film Festival remains Italy’s primary platform for new cinema from Central and Eastern Europe and continues to highlight cultural and artistic exchanges between Europe’s eastern and western regions.
