Visioni private
In the spirit of expanding the program, which is taking place in the run-up to the European Capital of Culture GO! 2025, and with the desire to bring innovative authors to our region, we expanded the program in 2023 with the Visionaries section which showcases contemporary European film production. The goal is to highlight bold and innovative works by European directors. We aim for each film in this section to represent the pinnacle of contemporary European film production.
Francesco Sossai
The Last One for the Road - Slovenian premiere
d. Francesco Sossai, 2025, 98'
7. 10. 2025, Kulturni dom Nova Gorica (Nova Gorica), 18.00—20.30
Synopsis
Carlobianchi and Doriano, two broke fiftysomethings with a “never skip the last drink” philosophy, meet Giulio, a shy architecture student adrift in life. What starts as a chance encounter turns into a chaotic road trip through the Venetian plains — where bad advice, hangovers, and unexpected friendship redraw Giulio’s plans for life and love.
Tara Najd Ahmadi
Productive Frustration (2016)ناکامی پربار
Tara Najd Ahmadi, Iran, USA, 13′
10. 10. 2025, Hiša filma – Palazzo del Cinema (Gorizia), 20.00
Synopsis
Productive Frustration is a short experimental film that investigates an artist’s ongoing, everyday struggle – both conscious and subconscious – to remain creatively productive in an exasperating atmosphere. Combining various media, textures, and modes of expression, such as stopmotion animation, video, 16mm film, still images, and voiceovers, the film juxtaposes thoughts and memories from both examined and unexamined pasts, the present, and a possible future.
A Week with Azar (2018)یک هفته با آذر
Tara Najd Ahmadi, Slovenia, USA, Austria, 11′
10. 10. 2025, Hiša filma – Palazzo del Cinema (Gorizia), 20.00
Synopsis
A Week with Azar is a short experimental documentary film, based on the story of Azar, an Iranian computer engineer based in the United States, who in the winter of 2017 failed to see her ill sister in Isfahan (Iran) for the last time because of Executive Order 13769, commonly known as the travel ban. According to this ban, the nationals of seven countries, including Iran, could not enter the USA. The film’s fragmented narrative structure and aesthetic (juxtaposing 16mm film, digital video, and still frames) reflect the fragmented life of an immigrant in a non-sequential montage.
Surfacing Images (2023)تصاویر آشکار
Tara Najd Ahmadi, Serbia, Iran, 5′
10. 10. 2025, Hiša filma – Palazzo del Cinema (Gorizia), 20.00
Sinopsis
Surfacing Images is a short experimental documentary about film preservation and the destiny of images that are left on their own. From the works of Dušan Makavejev and Bojana Marijan to found-footage videos from the streets of Iran, this film portrays the irresistible urge of images to resurface and be seen.
Palestinian films
Upshot
Maha Haj, Palestine, Italy, France, 2024, 34’
10. 10. 2025, Hiša filma – Palazzo del Cinema (Gorizia), 20.00
Synopsis
A Palestinian film about a couple who retreat to an isolated farm, where they devote themselves to working the land and to passionate debates about the choices of their five children – until one day a stranger arrives to reveal a heartbreaking truth.
"Upshot is a story that takes place in no place. The landscape, a farm in a valley veiled by thick mist, cannot be found on any map. It probably lies somewhere at the edge of a dream. It is the place I imagined for my characters, a husband and wife in their sixties who have endured the irrepressible." – Maha Haj
yfwb100yo (Your father was born 100 years old, and so was the Nakba)
Razan AlSalah, 2017, 7’
10. 10. 2025, Hiša filma – Palazzo del Cinema (Gorizia), 20.00
Synopsis
Oum Ameen, a Palestinian grandmother, returns to her hometown Haifa through Google Maps Streetview, today, the only way she can see Palestine.
Mahdi Amel in Gaza
Mary Jirmanus Saba & Tareq Rantisi, Lebanon, Palestine, 2024, 16’
10. 10. 2025, Hiša filma – Palazzo del Cinema (Gorizia), 20.00
Synopsis
Assassinated Lebanese intellectual Mahdi Amel - often dubbed "the Arab Gramsci'' - famously said: "he who resists is never defeated." What use is his thought to us today, and what is our responsibility as imagemakers, to Gaza?