Matera does not watch cinema. It listens to it. It experiences it. It lives it.
Every November, when the lights go down on the Sassi and the alleys fill with the echo of footsteps, the city becomes a natural set where stories, faces, and visions meet. This is how the sixth edition of the Matera Film Festival, directed by Dario Toma and Nando Irene, came to a close: an edition that not only celebrated cinema but also made it resonate as a collective, emotional, and necessary experience.
The final evening at the Cineteatro Comunale Gerardo Guerrieri was a journey into the narrative power of the films in competition, illuminated by guests who made this edition unique: Claudio Bisio, with his irony and depth; Riccardo Milani, the lucid voice of Italian cinema; and Arisa, who brought her intense and gentle presence.
And then there were the international masters and visions: Terry Gilliam, Yoshitaka Amano, Gabriele Mainetti, the cast of Un posto al Sole, and many others who transformed Matera into a crossroads of talent and imagination.
Cinema that Restores Meaning
The award for Best Feature Film went to Le città di pianura by Francesco Sossai, a film that caresses the soul with the delicacy of stories that speak to the heart without asking permission.
A story that is at once a journey, a wound, and redemption; a portrait of humanity that moves between bars at dawn and endless plains, becoming a metaphor for a changing Italy. The jury called it “an exercise in depth and lightness”: cinema that does not shout, but leaves traces.
A Special Mention was awarded to the intensity of When the Walnut Leaves Turn Yellow by Mehmet Ali Konar, which brings the distant noise of a war that never stops burning into the silence of a family. A film that hurts, but enlightens.
Documentaries: the courage of truth
The Best Documentary Award was unanimously awarded to Fratelli di culla by Alessandro Piva.
Not just a simple story: a return to the origins. A collective memory pieced together through archive footage, testimonies, and the delicacy that belongs only to true stories. The orphanage in Bari thus becomes a universal symbol of the most fragile and essential bond: that with our roots.
The jury was also impressed by Kickoff, which received a Special Mention: a film that transforms a soccer tournament into a hymn to women’s freedom.
From the heart of Kyrgyzstan comes a story that transcends borders and cultures, reminding us that change is possible, even when the world around us seems immobile.
Short: the energy of the short form
In the short film section, the winner was the Turkish film The Surrogate Girl by Onur Guler, a breathtaking work.
A story about the body, identity, and choice. A tale that preserves the power of the unsaid and the vulnerability of suspended lives.
Among the shorts, Matteo Burani’s Playing God is also exciting, a small visual universe that questions the power of creation and the need to leave a mark.
Matera as a crossroads of cultures
November 16 brought works, meetings, dialogues, screenings, and moments of discussion to the screen: from Phobos by Pietro Crozza Signoris to the short films INNER, IL PESCATORE, MAMMA, and the feature film HEY BABY.
Each film had its own color. Each voice was a new nuance of the same question: what is cinema today?
Matera did not just host the Festival. It welcomed it as part of its very breath.
Thanks to the collaboration with institutional, cultural, and commercial partners, the city once again showed its brightest side: the one that combines history, creativity, and contemporary vision.
Rai Radio2 – the Festival’s official radio station – brought its voice to the Sassi with special episodes of Ottovolante and Radio2 Safari, giving sound to an event that thrives on encounters, discoveries, and shared magic.
A Festival that grows. A city that inspires.
The Matera Film Festival 2025 was not just cinema.
It was a bridge between cultures.
It was a breath between the past and the future.
It was a declaration of love for stories that deserve to be told.
And Matera, with its millennial beauty and its nights suspended between light and silence, remains the perfect setting to continue searching for, discovering, and celebrating that fragile and necessary miracle we call Cinema.
For information and updates:
Email: materafilmfest@gmail.com
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