Curated by CineAgenzia for Internazionale
Promoted by Assessorato alla Cultura di Roma Capitale and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo
Palazzo Esposizioni Roma is addressing major contemporary issues once again with a selection of documentaries chosen by CineAgenzia and Internazionale at the best festivals all around the world and presented in Rome after the journalism fest in Ferrara. Every year the retrospective recounts the complexity of our time using exemplary stories with no filters, stories that draw us in and concern us directly. The programme for the 2024 edition, in which five titles out of six are directed or co-directed by women directors, strikes a balance between current affairs and reflection, between emotion and analysis, focusing on courageous choices and on reaction to violence, injustice, breaches of rights and abuse of power.
The films on the slate this year take us: to Hungary, to recount resistance against Orbán’s nationalist, authoritarian government by three women in particular, a politician from the ranks of the opposition, a television journalist and an activist; to Japan, to talk about sexual violence in the shape of a case narrated in the first person by young journalist and film director Shiori Ito, in a country where denouncing such violence is still taboo; to India, to celebrate the determination and the unity of a farmers’ movement that staged the biggest protest in the country’s history against the laws and policies of Prime Minister Modi’s government; to Gaza, in Palestine, to discover the astonishing, tragic and extremely topical story of Dr. Izzeld Abuelaish, a candidate thrice proposed for the Noble Peace Prize and a man capable of choosing dialogue even in the face of the most horrible of tragedies; to Russia, to meet activists and journalists who have opposed and continue to oppose Putin’s regime and the war in Ukraine at the risk of repression, of imprisonment and even of losing their lives; and to the United States, to track the triumphant trade union battle waged by the staff of a giant Amazon facility, out in the forefront against the global exploitation of workers in the logistics industry.