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"Better to die of cancer than of hunger," are words you may well hear on Priolo beach in Sicily. In the shadows of the lovely city of Syracuse lies one of Europe's largest petrochemical complexes. 70 years after the arrival of the first refineries, the area seems to have been abandoned to its fate as poison taints the sky, water and land. Woven around fragments supplied by residents who resist, are resigned or choose to look the other way, the film Toxic Sicily sets out to tell the tale of a place sacrificed on the altar of progress, modernity and globalisation.

The Man in Gray is a 1961 Italian short documentary film produced by Benedetto Benedetti. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

A woman gives voice to a few collected fragments of her life on the shores of Sardinia.

Director Alessandro Comodin recounts for Fuori Orario the genesis of his two films, "Summer of Giacomo" and "Happy times will come soon" and reflects on his own conception of cinema: the need for escape and movement, the adolescence of moving bodies and the perception of passing time, the importance of locations and immersion in nature, the technical practice during filming, the approach to the cinematographic medium as a way to see better and to establish a relationship of sensory capture of reality, the relationship with the actors. With references to his favorite filmmakers, from Bresson and Monteiro to Wang Bing, and to the recurring images of his films: the hole and the labyrinth, the loop of time and epilogues, the fairy tale and metamorphosis.

Is a family with a disabled child a disabled family? For the last 16 years a group of parents have gotten together to talk about their routine and to find achievable and effective solutions to better the lives of their disabled children. The group has become a micro-society. The documentary allows itself to enter, to imagine and to share the reality of the world of disability.

A former professor finds no more reason to be in the world, so he takes a train to Genoa and arrives on the shore of an icy winter sea. At the end of his journey, he winds up in an ancient abbey of Boschetto where the desperately homeless live. Waiting for the warden to take him in he walks around the cloisters thinking about his life. Is it everything in our lives already written in the stars or it’s all a coincidence? Then he gradually meets the guests of a limbo that welcomes and does not judge them. Each of them tells him their stories: between them there is a carabiniere, a countess, a railroader, a ship's deckhand; a whole humanity in its colorful diversity as in the backstage of the world. At the end of the film, he feels better than before, and he left this place to live his last years.

Marisa is a film for Marisa, my mother, Marisa Rusconi who has been gone for a year. I wanted to tell this personal story, with vaguely biographical elements of Marisa and my sensations on detachment and life, using films from the Rai archive on the subject of migration. In this material, broad and open to the world, I found the elements with which I built the backbone of the film. Then I inserted images and sounds recorded by me in the last few months and fragments of Super 8 filmed by my father, Franco, in the 60s.

Victoria Fiore’s astonishing feature documentary debut is a surreal journey of a young boy’s final days of freedom before he is taken away from his family.

The documentary will feature interviews with contemporary theorists and practitioners who will share their insights on the concept of a chair.

Panorama is the first chapter of a trilogy about the city. A review of a polis extended over an infinite space without uninhabited places or borders to take refuge. A landscape without readmission for the excluded, like imaginary worlds in search of balance.

The world of videogames in Italy told through the personal stories of those who create them, those who play them at a professional level, and those who talk about them on streaming platforms.

The diary of an exploration in the private places of 8 protagonists of world architecture: Shigeru Ban, Mario Bellini, David Chipperfield, Massimiliano Fuksas, Zaha Hadid, Marcio Kogan, Daniel Libeskind and Studio Mumbai.

Memories and anecdotes of the making of "Padre Padrone"

“Farsi seme is silent. Silent like the plants that surround us. Silent like the seeds that I began to collect in places where I would go for a walk. Collecting blood, collecting seeds. The power of seeds represented the intersection of solidarity and singularity: it wasn’t only a no-longer-being-a-flower. There was a multiplicity of forms, a lushness, the intricate delicacy of their forms… I thought of translating venous and menstrual bloods into two different natural pigments, hematite and rubia tinctorum”. (Anna Marziano)

An American Dissident: un tributo a Frank Zappa is an Italian documentary that aired on the Videomusic channel on January 7, 1994. It includes footage from Zappa's Universe, Video From Hell, Does Humor Belong In Music?, Baby Snakes, The True Story Of 200 Motels, The Late Show, Zappa's May 17, 1988 show at Palacio de Deportes in Barcelona, Spain, The Dub Room Special, various other interviews and performances.

The main (super)hero of Beatrice Baldacci’s documentary is a person depicted as the sum of her memories. The story of the director and her family is told in the first person, with home VHS recordings that show both Beatrice’s mother and Beatrice as a child taking on the role of an agent of memory. Outdated technology transforms the events of twenty years ago into an archaeological object.

An account of the reign of Herod the Great, king of Judea under the rule of the Roman Empire, remembered for having ordered, according to the Gospel of Matthew, the murder of all male infants born in Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus, an unproven event that is not mentioned by Titus Flavius Josephus, the main historian of that period.

In Oliena, Sardinia, local legends seem to have disappeared from people’s memories. But the songs, the olive trees, and the fires of San Giovanni evoke them powerfully. Filmmaker Myriam Raccah thus decides to re-enact some of these stories with the help of the villagers, creating a marvellous fresco that unleashes the magic of storytelling and cinema.

Five Turin directors document the first edition of "Luci d'Artista": Christmas lights created by some artists and installed in the streets of Turin.

Documentary about the making of Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Canterbury Tales (1972), and particularly focusing on the many edits and cut scenes that were made before the film's release.

Portrait-conversation with the writer Jonathan Lethem.

Sicily, Granitola, 1955. At the first light of dawn, the fishermen set out in their boats for open water, timing the rhythm of their oars to murmured chants. They set their nets in the sea, regulate the cords, organize the boats in a square. The men’s work becomes increasingly harder as the tuna are hoisted onto the boats, wriggling, beating their tails until death arrives and the water is tinged with blood.

Cesare Maestri demonstrates rock climbing technique by making an ascent in the Sella Group in the Dolomites. Maestri starts by climbing a fourth and fifth grade route. Then he progresses through a sixth grade rock face, and ends climbing a roof using aid climbing techniques. Maestri, nicknamed the 'Spider of the Dolomites' is known for his solo repeats in the Dolomites, as the first climber in the world to ascend the sixty-year walls, and for the controversial first ascent of Cerro Torre in Patagonia.

A documentary which explores the life and the career of Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the greatest Italian directors, through archival footage and interviews.

"Io ho fissato il fuoco per sempre" is an investigation into the act of looking and being looked at, a history of the (not) archived gaze. The gaze of the filmed subject, that of the camera, and that of the spectator trigger a participatory obsession, made of eyes in action. Someone threatens or affects the quiet of our vision and taking your eyes off too early, you know, could be fatal.

30 real-life stories of American horror, based on true facts. A 3000 miles journey into a mysterious America, investigating true crimes and hideous happenings that eventually inspired famous horror films

The story of this documentary unfolds between 1954 and 1975, years during which Vittorio Nisticò was the head editor of the newspaper L'ORA (The Hour). Nisticò's words, interpreted by Pippo Delbono, make up the body of the film: on one hand, the battles against the powers and interests intertwined between the mafia and the political world, during a historically transformative time for Sicily; on the other hand, the generation of intellectuals and artists, including characters such as Sciascia, Consolo, Dolci, Guttuso, Caruso, all taking on the struggle of becoming interpreters for this social and civil shift, and choosing this small, daily publication from Palermo as the main channel and instrument of this great challenge. In a few short years, the newspaper becomes a beacon in the fight against the "mafia mentality". Nisticò becomes a master of journalism, and L'Ora a great school, a "news factory”.

Yom Al Ard is a portrait about the fragmentation of the land, the experience, and the people of Palestine, showcasing the systematic efforts to disperse, fragment, and destroy the audiovisual memory and collective identity of Palestinians. It is composed of rare footage shot in the Galilee (Nazareth, Deir Hanna, and Sakhnin) in celebration of the 5th Land Day Anniversary on March 1981 which has recently been restored and digitised.

News explodes like a bomb! Due to the genetic mutation, immigrants living in Italy undergo a noticeable change. Is this wonderful country in danger of sinking? A television reporter decides to go over this strange theory, and the news is on the agenda of the whole country. This fake documentary brings fake news, media, politics and harsh criticism about Italy.

I felt alone and unfulfilled. New Year's Eve turned into a time of confrontation and challenge.

The documentary recounts an important part of the history of this country, retracing a long journey that began on October 6, 1924, and continues to this day. On that day, radio took its first tentative steps into our homes, broadcasting a brief official announcement followed by the inaugural concert of Haydn's Quartet Op. 7. At that precise moment, we imagined that a child was born in a working-class neighborhood of the capital, whose voice would accompany us throughout this journey.

A collective work coordinated by Luca Mosso and Bruno Oliviero, on the victory of Giuliano Pisapia in the municipal elections in Milan.

ZERO: An Investigation into 9/11 has one central thesis: that the official version of the events surrounding the attacks on 9/11 cannot be true. This feature documentary explores the latest scientific evidence and reveals dramatic new witness testimony, which directly conflicts with the U.S. government's account.

"La Biennale di Venezia: il cinema al tempo del Covid" is a video diary, produced by the Venice Biennale in collaboration with Rai Cinema and the Istituto Luce Cinecittà, of what went on "backstage" at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, held under the restrictions imposed by the safety protocols required by the covid-19 pandemic.

The film reconstructs, using archive footage, some events from the Nazi occupation of Rome.

A Donatello award nominated documentary on writer and journalist Italo Calvino