Three genre-defying Italian documentaries, acclaimed at Sundance, Venice, and IDFA, will screen with filmmaker Q&As on July 5-6, 2025
London’s prestigious Bertha DocHouse will present the 4th CINECITTÀ ITALIAN DOC SEASON on July 5-6, 2025, featuring three remarkable Italian documentaries that have garnered international acclaim at major festivals including Sundance, Venice, Amsterdam’s IDFA, and Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX.
The bi-annual season showcases bold, genre-defying works that challenge traditional documentary filmmaking expectations. According to the organizers, the program comprises “an epic and enthralling docu-encyclopaedia exploring life’s essential elements, a powerful yet simply done human-interest story, and a beautifully inobtrusive observational documentary.”
Festival-Acclaimed Programming
Enrico Bufalini, director of Archivo Luce-Cinecittà, emphasized the growing international recognition of Italian documentary cinema: “The Italian documentary, in all its different creative and productive forms, has become one of the most emerging original genres in our country, conquering festivals worldwide with a new generation of authors. A new generation of filmmakers has reinterpreted the legacy of great Italian realism, leading it into a more contemporary and visionary dimension.”
Each screening will feature post-film Q&A sessions with the filmmakers, providing audiences direct access to the creative minds behind these acclaimed works.
Three Distinctive Documentary Approaches
THE CASTLE (UK Premiere)
Saturday, July 5 at 15:30
Directors: Danny Biancardi, Stefano La Rosa, Virginia Nardelli (Italy/France)
This CPH:DOX Award-nominated observational documentary follows four 11-year-olds living in a struggling Palermo neighborhood. The children transform an abandoned, supposedly haunted kindergarten into their secret hideaway—a safe space where they can escape judgment, share fears, and let their imaginations flourish.
GEN_ (London Premiere)
Saturday, July 5 at 18:00
Director: Gianluca Matarrese (Italy/France/Switzerland)
Written by: Donatella Della Ratta, Gianluca Matarrese
A Sundance “World Cinema: Documentary Grand Jury Prize” nominee and Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival champion, this powerful film follows a maverick Milan hospital doctor who champions both fertility treatments and gender transitions, defying government restrictions and corporate interests to help patients realize their true selves.
BESTIARES, HERBARIA, LAPIDARIES (UK Premiere)
Sunday, July 6 at 15:00 (includes 15-minute comfort break after act two)
Directors: Massimo d’Anolfi, Martina Parenti (Italy/Switzerland)
This Venice and IDFA premiere presents an epic docu-encyclopaedia divided into three acts—animals, plants, and stones. Each segment pays tribute to different documentary filmmaking genres while exploring life’s essential elements through distinct storytelling approaches, from scholarly animal behavior analysis to reflections on stones’ roles in war and commemoration.
Celebrating 100 Years of Istituto Luce
The season coincides with the centenary celebration of Istituto Luce (1924-2024), whose film and photographic archive is registered by UNESCO in their “Memory of the World Programme.” Each screening will be preceded by rare archive footage and behind-the-scenes photographs—including The School Dance, The Singing Babies, and The Salamander—specially selected to complement the main features.
The source material draws from first-person interviews and precious archive material from the Istituto Luce collection, preserved and curated by Cinecittà.
Industry Recognition and Collaboration
Jenny Horwell, Bertha DocHouse director and programmer, expressed enthusiasm for the continued partnership: “We’re excited to continue celebrating Italian non-fiction through this now well-established collaboration with Cinecittà. The upcoming 4th edition represents a rich programme of empathetic, observational cinema and extremely fine filmmaking, which we think audiences will love discovering.”
Bufalini noted Cinecittà’s mission as “the leading producer and distributor of Italian documentaries” to promote Italian documentary work internationally, calling the Bertha DocHouse collaboration “a significant documentary review, bringing to the British audience a selection of documentaries focused on the diversity and vibrancy of Italian reality cinema.”
Event Details
Venue: Bertha DocHouse, Curzon Bloomsbury
Address: London WC1N 1AW
Dates: July 5-6, 2025
Special Features: Filmmaker Q&As following each screening, rare archive footage presentations
The season represents what organizers describe as “poetic, absorbing, and genre-defying works of nonfiction” that collectively challenge conventional documentary filmmaking concepts while showcasing the new wave of Italian independent cinema.
