Section dedicated to nonfiction, and the most diverse hybrid and documentary forms. As in the case of the Competition, attention will be paid to the more non-conformist films of great masters and new talents, but also to works that are more politically engaged and attentive to the contemporary topical issues of their society.
RealeNonReale
RealeNonReale BFFB 39
“The BFFB programme gives ample space to all forms of documentary film. Within the framework of our festival, there are no hierarchies that dictate what can be considered ‘real cinema’. Everything is cinema. The BFFB competition makes room for fiction, documentary and all those formal approaches that ultimately need not – and should not – be defined. With the RealeNonReale section, we aim to highlight even more strongly the diversity of documentary forms, as well as the enormous variety of content, languages and formal identities. Five very different voices, five original works that have particularly impressed us, come from productions and co-productions involving countries in the Alpine region, even though the themes, locations and directors are of very different origins. The selection therefore includes an Austrian production by a Polish director (Magdalena Chmielewska), an intense diary about her relationship with her mother, as well as a Swiss production (by Gregor Brändli) about the colonial past of a country that never had colonies: Switzerland. Three further productions come from Germany: the autobiographical and decolonial work of a Berlin-based Anglo-American director (Cynthia Beatt) on her relationship with the Fiji Islands, featuring Tilda Swinton; the film by a German director of Russian roots (Yulia Lokshina) on the recent wave of emigration to Paraguay, mainly by German-speaking Europeans fleeing a continent that seems unable to guarantee them the freedom they desire, and the autobiographical film by a German-Brazilian director (Daniela Magnani-Hüller), who survived an attempted femicide fourteen years ago.” - Vincenzo Bugno
Elephants & Squirrels by Gregor Braendli
CHE 2025, 115 min. – Italian premiere
Heart of Light – eleven songs for Fiji by Cynthia Beatt
DEU/FRA 2026, 166 min. – Italian premiere
Im Umkreis des Paradieses by Yulia Lokshina
DEU 2026, 120 min. – Italian premiere
Teresa's Body (Teresas Körper) by Magdalena Chmielewska
AUT 2026, 76 min. – Italian premiere
Was an Empfindsamkeit bleibt by Daniela Magnani Hüller
DEU 2026, 91 min. – Italian premiere
Awards
The films selected for the RealeNonReale section will compete for the following awards:
– Trentino-Alto Adige Autonomous Region Award for Distribution Support of 10,000 euros;
– City of Bolzano Audience Award of the worth 2,000 euros;
– ZeLIG - Bolzano Film School Award worth 1,000 euros;
– Special Award “Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Site” worth 1,000 euros.
Participation guidelines
To participate in the RealeNonReale section, films:
– must be Italian, Austrian, German, Swiss or Slovenian productions or co-productions;
– must never have been presented in public in any form in the Trentino-Alto Adige region and must not have been distributed in commercial cinemas in Italy;
– must have a minimum duration of 60 minutes;
– must have been completed after 1 January of the year preceding the year in which the BFFB takes place.