The Mediterrane Movie Pageant in Malta is returning for its third version with greater than 40 movies from over 20 international locations. Working from June 21-29 within the island’s capital, Valletta, the competition has set programming for its Competitors, Out of Competitors and Mare Nostrum sections.

Competitors movies will embrace Uberto Pasolini’s “The Return,” starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche; Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut, “Scorching Milk,” “For the Love of a Girl” (Per amore di una donna) from Italian director Guido Chiesa; “Harvest” from Athina Rachel Tsangari; and Maltese director Joshua Cassar Gaspar’s “The Theft of the Caravaggio.”

Out of competitors particular screenings will embrace Ira Sachs’ “Peter Hujar’s Day” with Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Corridor, the Malta-set erotic thriller “Compulsion” by Neil Marshall, “4 Letters of Love” with Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter and Gabriel Byrne and “Time Journey is Harmful,” narrated by Stephen Fry.

A sidebar part with FilmItalia will have a good time new Italian ladies filmmakers, with alternatives together with “Diva Futura,” “Gloria!” and “Love and Glory – The Lengthy Deledda.”

The Mare Nostrum part, that means “Our Sea,” returns with six movies exploring the local weather disaster and environmental themes together with “Lowland Youngsters,” “How Deep is Your Love” and “Transamazonia.”

Elli Griff, Rick Carter and Catherine Hardwicke are among the many jury members who can even take part in Masterclasses in the course of the competition together with director Joe Carnahan, producer Jeremy Thomas and Glenn Gainor, head of bodily manufacturing at Amazon Unique Films.

The Golden Bee Awards on June 29 will have a good time 100 years of cinema in Malta, held on the historic 18th century Fort Manoel. The competition is led by the brand new inventive group of Pageant Director Ray Calleja and Pageant Curator Mark Adams, and the theme of this yr’s occasion is “We Are Movie.”

See the complete movie program under:

MAIN COMPETITION

The Return (dir. Uberto Pasolini)
Uberto Pasolini’s The Return reunites The English Affected person co-stars, Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes and Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche in a powerfully authentic and psychologically revealing adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey. After 20 years away, Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has returned from the Trojan Warfare, however a lot has modified in his kingdom. His beloved spouse Penelope (Binoche) is a prisoner in her own residence, hounded by suitors vying to be king and planning the loss of life of Telemachus, the son he by no means knew. Shattered by his expertise of struggle, Odysseus should rediscover his power with the intention to win again all that he has misplaced.

Scorching Milk (dir. Rebecca Lenkiewicz)
Tailored from the acclaimed novel by Deborah Levy, this directorial debut by Rebecca Lenkiewicz sees Sofia and her ailing mom, Rose, journey to the Spanish seaside city of Almería to hunt the assistance of Dr. Gómez, an enigmatic healer who might maintain the important thing to Rose’s mysterious sickness. As long-buried tensions simmer between them, Sofia finds herself drawn to the magnetic and free-spirited Ingrid.

For the Love of a Girl (Per amore di una donna) (dir. Guido Chiesa)
Written and directed by Guido Chiesa: A robust and impartial lady who hides a painful previous.

Harvest (dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari)
Athina Rachel Tsangari’s (Attenberg, Chevalier) putting adaptation of Jim Crace’s acclaimed novel finds an idyllic rural group coming below risk from outsiders. Over seven hallucinatory days, a village with no title, in an undefined time and place, disappears. Townsman-turned-farmer Walter Thirsk and befuddled lord of the manor Charles Kent are childhood pals about to face an invasion from the surface world: the trauma of modernity.

The Theft of the Caravaggio (dir. Joshua Cassar Gaspar)
Orpheus wakes to find a priceless Caravaggio portray stolen from St. John’s Cathedral in Valletta whereas below his watch. With town on edge, a detective is introduced in from Washington to help the native police in fixing the case.

The place The Wind Comes From (dir. Amel Guellaty)
Amel Guellaty’s long-awaited function debut is a strong and cinematic feast. The Tunisian-born director, screenwriter and photographer, who directed the critically acclaimed brief Black Mamba follows rebellious 19-year-old Alyssa and shy 23-year-old Mehdi who dream of escaping their actuality. Upon discovering a contest providing an opportunity to flee, they embark on a street journey to southern Tunisia, overcoming obstacles alongside the best way.

Fiume o Morte! (dir. Igor Bezinovic)
Winner of the IFFR 2025 Tiger Award, director Igor Bezinović’s meta documentary restages a weird episode in Rijeka’s historical past, when it was positioned below nationalist occupation by the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio. On 12 September 1919, a troop of some 300 troopers below the management of the flamboyant struggle loving poet D’Annunzio swooped into the port city of Fiume, now Rijeka, eager to annex town to Italy. Over the course of 16 months, throughout what’s thought to be some of the weird militant sieges of all time, his official pictures group captured over 10,000 photographs. A century later, Rijeka-born filmmaker Igor Bezinović, together with some 300 residents, orchestrates a direct-action historical past lesson centered on the siege and its modern-day implications.

The Wound (dir. Seloua El Gouni)
Leila, a younger Moroccan lady who simply entered the workforce, tries to pursue her passions and ambitions whereas navigating the thorny societal constraints imposed on ladies below the guise of custom and cultural normalcy. Winner – Finest Debut Function Movie on the Athens Worldwide Artwork Movie Pageant, Greece

Reflection in a Useless Diamond (dir. Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani)
John D, a septuagenarian residing in a luxurious lodge on the French Riviera, is intrigued by his feminine neighbour who reminds him of the wild occasions spent there in the course of the Nineteen Sixties, when he was a spy in a altering world filled with promise. In the future, his neighbour mysteriously disappears and leaves John to face his demons once more: are his former adversaries again to sow chaos in his idyllic world?

8 (dir. Julio Medem)
Octavio and Adela have been born on the identical day, April 14th, 1931. Throughout the next 8 many years, their lives will intertwine by intense encounters and misunderstandings in 8 episodes. A passionate love story between a courageous and preventing lady and a person confronted together with his contradictions. They should face coming from households on opposing sides of a rustic slowly heading in the direction of a Civil Warfare, together with the historical past of Spain and Europe as a background.

OUT OF COMPETITION

Peter Hujar’s Day (dir. Ira Sachs)
Primarily based on a richly cinematic rendering of a dialog recorded in 1974 between photographer Peter Hujar and author Linda Rosenkrantz the movie, starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Corridor, re-imagines their discuss that day in a single 24-hour interval within the lifetime of Hujar, the good and famously uncompromising artist who was some of the vital figures in downtown New York’s legendary cultural scene of the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties.

Compulsion (dir. Neil Marshall)
On the island of Malta, two ladies turn out to be concerned in an intense affair, a lethal sport of cat and mouse and a string of horrifying murders.

4 Letters of Love (dir. Polly Steele)
A heartfelt adaptation of Niall William’s bestselling novel, starring Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter and Gabriel Byrne. Nicholas (Fionn O’Shea) and Isabel (Ann Skelly) have been made for one another however how will they ever understand it? As future pulls them collectively, household, ardour, and religion drive them aside. They comply with their very own particular person journeys of heartache and misplaced love, earlier than destiny contrives to drag the threads of their lives collectively. Once they meet, it would turn out to be a miracle.

Time Journey is Harmful
Actual-life finest pals Ruth and Megan run a classic store in Muswell Hill. Once they stumble throughout a time machine, they begin taking brief journeys into the previous to ‘borrow’ distinctive objects to promote within the current. They’re not out to vary historical past or rob banks — simply on the hunt for the right classic lamp… all whereas making an attempt to keep away from the terrifying time-space vortex often called the Unreason. Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson play themselves, with their precise classic store, Cha Cha Cha, featured within the movie. The movie options an all-star British comedy forged, together with Johnny Vegas, Jane Horrocks, Sophie Thompson, Mark Heap, Brian Bovell, Tony Manner, Man Henry, and Tom Lenk — and is narrated by Stephen Fry.

The Extraordinary Miss Flower (dir. Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard)
The Extraordinary Miss Flower brings to life the outstanding story of Geraldine Flower and the invention of a suitcase filled with passionate, heartfelt letters of affection despatched to her within the 60s and 70s that impressed acclaimed Icelandic singer/songwriter Emilíana Torrini to return to the studio and document a complete album of latest songs. Half movie, half theatre, half fever dream, the movie takes the type of a sequence of specifically designed performances of those songs by Emilíana and her band, mixed with dramatic scenes and readings from the letters by well-known actors and musicians (together with Caroline Catz, Nick Cave, Alice Lowe and Richard Ayoade).

The Marriage ceremony Banquet (dir. Andrew Ahn)
Greater than only a remake of the 1993 hit film, The Marriage ceremony Banquet is a joyfully loving and contemporary reimagining of a traditional comedy of errors a couple of household navigating cultural identification, queerness, and household expectations as they stay, love, battle and make up once more. Pissed off together with his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris and working out of time, Min makes a proposal: a green-card marriage with their lesbian buddy Angela in change for her companion Lee’s costly IVF. Elopement plans are upended, nevertheless, when Min’s grandmother surprises them with an extravagant Korean marriage ceremony banquet… With a pitch-perfect multigenerational forged that features the nice Lily Gladstone, The Marriage ceremony Banquet boils over with humour and coronary heart and a reminder that being a part of a household means studying to each settle for and forgive.

Diva Futura (dir. Giulia Louise Steigerwalt)
In Eighties-Nineties Italy, Riccardo Schicchi’s company Diva Futura turns free love into porn, making stars of Ilona Staller, Moana Pozzi and others. Their fame results in Cicciolina’s election and Pozzi’s mayoral run.

Gloria! (dir. Margherita Vicario)
In singer-songwriter Margherita Vicario’s stunning and rousing musical movie, a bunch of confined younger ladies in 18th century Venice use their musical skills to interrupt free. Gloria! is a hovering feel-good musical reimagining of historical past a couple of group of younger ladies musicians who invent pop music in Baroque-era Venice. Set in a convent boarding college, the movie follows Teresa who has visionary musical skills however whose reward stays unsung. Forward of a go to to the convent by the Pope, Teresa helps to create a musical rebellion and leaps throughout the centuries to defy the dusty outdated regime by inventing a rebellious, gentle, and trendy music: pop!

Love and Glory – The Younger Deledda (L’amore e la gloria – La giovane Deledda) (dir. Maria Grazia Perria)
Screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Maria Grazia Perria’s narrative function directorial debut is a delicate, clever and arresting biopic of the formative years and creative struggles of Sardinian novelist Grazia Deledda. The primary Italian lady to obtain the Nobel Prize for Literature, she is portrayed right here with no small quantity of ardour by Marisa Serra.

The Ballad of Wallis Island (dir. James Griffiths)
The Ballad of Wallis Island follows Charles (Tim Key), an eccentric lottery winner who lives alone on a distant island and desires of getting his favourite musicians, McGwyer Mortimer (Tom Basden & Carey Mulligan) again collectively. His fantasy turns into actuality when the bandmates and former lovers settle for his invitation to play a personal present at his house on Wallis Island. Outdated tensions resurface as Charles tries desperately to salvage his dream gig.

This Metropolis is a Battlefield (Perang Kota) (dir. Mouly Surya)
Isa, a taciturn college trainer working for the resistance, is tasked with finishing up an assassination with the assistance of Hazil, a captivating insurgent who finds himself falling for Isa’s spouse, Fatimah. An beautiful interval thriller that marries sensual romantic drama with propulsive motion spectacle, Mouly Surya’s fifth function recreates life in Jakarta below colonial occupation in fastidious element, unveiling it in all its seductive and brutal textures.

A few Hero (dir. Piotr Winiewicz)
After an area manufacturing unit employee named dies below mysterious circumstances, Werner Herzog travels to Getunkirchenburg to analyze his perplexing loss of life. However Herzog, our narrator, will not be who he appears, and the movie will not be what we count on. A few Hero is an adaptation of a script written by AI, skilled on Herzog’s physique of labor. Opening the distinguished 2024 Worldwide Documentary Movie Pageant Amsterdam (IDFA), and co-starring Vicky Krieps and Stephen Fry, the documentary is paradoxically self-reflective. Because the thriller unfolds, director Piotr Winiewicz intertwines the narrative with a sequence of ‘actual’ interviews with artists, philosophers and scientists reflecting on the notion of originality, authenticity, mortality and soul within the age of AI.

MARE NOSTRUM

How Deep is Your Love (dir. Eleanor Mortimer)
Scientists discover the mysterious deep sea to gather and title undiscovered species. As they uncover mesmerizing creatures and ecosystems thriving in darkness, a looming risk emerges: the prospect of deep-sea mining on this untouched wilderness. British director Eleanor Mortimer’s movie weaves surprise with urgency, difficult us to stability the drive for sources with the intrinsic worth of an ecosystem. As we journey by this breathtaking realm, we’re left to ponder – how deep is our love?

Transamazonia (dir. Pia Marais)
Within the eerie quiet of the huge, verdant Amazon jungle, a younger lady stirs to life. Rescued by the native Indigenous tribe, the kid, Rebecca, is the one survivor of a airplane crash. Years move, and Rebecca (Helena Zengel) has turn out to be one thing of an area movie star after her father (Jeremy Xido), an American missionary, has forged {the teenager} as a religion healer able to miracles. Simply as Rebecca is starting to have a will of her personal, doubting her father and the position by which she’s been forged, one other disaster emerges when unlawful loggers encroach on the land, threatening the livelihoods of the native tribe, and forcing emotional, familial, and racial reckonings. South Africa–born director Pia Marais has usual a mesmerizing, entrancingly photographed ethical story with no simple solutions that can also be a singular coming-of-age fable.

Black Butterflies (dir. David Baute)
David Baute’s superbly animated movie tells the person tales of Tanit, Valeria and Shaila, three ladies from very totally different components of the world who face the identical drawback: local weather change. They may lose the whole lot due to international warming results and they are going to be pressured to to migrate to outlive.

Miyazaki: Spirit of Nature (dir. Léo Favier)
A documentary exploring the life and influential works of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, recognized for movies like My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, specializing in his ardour for animation and advocacy for the pure world.

Solely on Earth (dir. Robin Petré)
Spain’s Southern Galicia is likely one of the most wildfire-prone zones in Europe. Wild horses have roamed these mountains for hundreds of years and play a vital position in hearth prevention by maintaining flammable undergrowth low. However their numbers are dwindling. Petré’s movie takes the viewers on an immersive and visually putting journey into the most popular summer time on document whereas inextinguishable forest fires rage for days. Solely on Earth is in regards to the fragile stability of our pure world and the connection between people and animals.

Lowland Youngsters (dir. Sandra Winther)
The movie follows the story of the final two youngsters and their uncle—on Louisiana’s as soon as thriving Isle de Jean Charles: their strikingly stunning ancestral house that’s now being swallowed by the ocean. A part of the group deemed America’s First Local weather Refugees, they face an unsure future because the U.S. authorities makes an unprecedented effort to resettle their whole group earlier than the island succumbs to the ocean. The movie is directed by Danish filmmaker Sandra Winther and govt produced by Darren Aronofsky.