THE CALL FOR BELLARIA FILM FESTIVAL 43 IS NOW OPEN
The official call to participate in the 43rd Bellaria Film Festival opens on November 4.
You can enter your film through the FilmFreeway platform, with double deadlines: December 15, 2024 and February 9, 2025.
New sights, new languages and visions of cinema: to redraw the horizons and challenge the boundaries, along the routes of independent cinema.
The call is open for two sections: the Concorso Gabbiano and Special Events.
All information is available on the full 2025 call announcement:
Premio Gabbiano, a historic prize of the Bellaria Film Festival since its first editions, is dedicated to highlighting a shortlist of world or international premieres of films from the Italian independent scene, with no limit on format, genre or duration and with a focus on research and innovation of language, with a €3,000 prize for Best Film and a €2,000 prize for Cinematic Innovation.
The Special Events section is dedicated to national premiere films capable of giving form and content to new languages on the international scene and identifying intersections between Italian and foreign cinema.
Bellaria Film Festival is a renowned Italian festival dedicated to independent cinema, now in its forty-third edition, scheduled from May 7 to 11, 2025, under the artistic direction of Daniela Persico and the organizational direction of Approdi.
Originally conceived under the name “Anteprima per il cinema indipendente italiano,” the Bellaria Film Festival boasts a prestigious history among those present in Italy. It is one of the most influential film festivals in Italy, thanks in part to the prestigious Casa Rossa Prize, awarded over the years to Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, Silvio Soldini, Paolo Sorrentino, Matteo Garrone, Gianfranco Rosi, Pietro Marcello, Daniele Segre, Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco, Michelangelo Frammartino and many others.
After years in which the Festival was dedicated to documentary cinema, since 2022 it has reopened to welcome films of all formats and genres, aiming to support in particular works of linguistic research, young authors and new trends in cinema.
We look forward to discovering your routes, learning your perspective, hearing your voice – for the future of independent cinema.