Edition 2026
PROGRAM – ARTISTIC DIRECTION – JURY – HOST – FILM AWARD
Corto e Fieno is coming back!
The 17th edition will take place on 9–10–11 October, and this year we’re moving to Orta San Giulio (NO) in the enchanting setting of Palazzo Ubertini.
This year’s cover art was created by Andrea Guerzoni, in which smaller, seemingly marginal forms – such as lichens and fungi – take centre stage and are elevated to the status of art.
This is precisely what Corto e Fieno aims to do with its short films and its focus on lesser-known worlds and communities.
As always, admission to our screenings will be free, but you can support the festival through donations, by purchasing our merchandise, or simply by spreading the word and inviting your friends to Corto e Fieno.
The films will be shown in their original language with English and Italian subtitles to make them accessible to everyone interested in participating.
A new venue, a new cover and, above all, lots of new short films waiting for you!
Follow our website and social media pages so you don’t miss any updates.
Trailer
Corto e Fieno 2026
Palazzo Ubertini - ORTA
7 PM
Welcome Cocktail
8 PM - 9 PM
Focus: Samuel Suffren
Presented in full for the first time in Italy, Samuel Suffren’s work comes to Corto e Fieno as part of a special focus on the emerging Haitian director, whose first three short films were selected for Locarno, Sundance and Cannes respectively.
A trilogy dedicated to his father and centred on the theme of migration, these short films immerse us in a dreamlike atmosphere, where the boundaries between rural Haiti and the sea blur, taking us on a journey through memories, necessities and hopes that may never come to pass.
Agwe, Samuel Suffren | 2021 | Haiti | 17’
Dreams like Paper Boats, Samuel Suffren | 2024 | Haiti | 19’
Blue Heart, Samuel Suffren | 2025 | Haiti, France | 15'
9.30 PM - 11 PM
Frutteto section
Have a Good Trip
Journeys to and from, explorations and discoveries that frighten us, yet also teach us something about ourselves: travelling is a central theme for human beings, and in the first module of Frutteto we will explore the relationship between this and the rural world.
A Bear Remembers, Zhang + Knight | 2025 | Regno Unito | 20’
Dog Alone, Marta Reis Andrade | 2025 | Portogallo, Francia | 13'
The Stream XV, Hiroya Sakurai | 2025 | Giappone | 11’
Air Horse One, Lasse Linder | 2025 | Svizzera, Belgio | 21’
La controra, Collettivo Bar Titanik | 2026 | Italia | 19’ (directors present at the screening)
Orta San Giulio
10 AM
Breakfast and Rural walk to Sacro Monte d’Orta
With La Controra directors
Palazzo Ubertini - ORTA
3.30 PM - 4.15 PM
Germogli section
Cloud Fish, Noé Garcia | 2025 | Francia, Belgio | 6’
Piccolo Piccolo, Marta Gennari | 2025 | Francia, Svizzera | 9’
A Pain in the Butt, Elena Walf | 2025 | Germania, Croazia | 5’
World I Live In, Ester Kasalová | 2024 | Repubblica Ceca | 7’
Bobel's Kitchen, Fiona Rolland | 2024 | Belgio | 10’
4.30 PM - 5.30 PM
Multidisciplinary workshop: ‘A Story in the Woods’, led by Anita Arpaia (artist and trainee art therapist)
What happens when imagination meets nature? Let’s try creating a piece of art together that tells a unique story.
Aimed at families (children must be accompanied by an adult)
6.00 PM - 7.30 PM
Chilometro Zero section
A new section of Corto e Fieno dedicated to the films that best embody the spirit of the festival and its focus on the voices of Italian rural cinema.
Lo sguardo basso delle bambine, Astrid Ardenti | 2025 | Italia | 7’
Cravariola - L'alpe della dote, Marzio Bartolucci | 2025 | Italia | 30’ (director present at the screening)
Into Hibernation, Raffaele Trasatti | 2025 | Italia, Regno Unito | 11’ (director present at the screening - Italian premiere)
Moving Mountains, Andrea Costa | 2025 | Italia | 30’ (director present at the screening)
9.30 PM - 11 PM
Frutteto section
Rural community
The concept of community is central to rural life. In an increasingly urbanised world, however, the boundary between rural and urban is becoming blurred and, with it, the very meaning of ‘rural community’ is also changing. From a village in Africa to a small village in France, from a tiny garden to contemporary cities, in this segment of Corto e Fieno we will focus on the concept of rural community and its various manifestations.
Zohra on the Road, Pierre-Loup Docteur | 2026 | Francia | 15' (Italian premiere)
Vanished Past, Anna Maria Dutoit | 2025 | Canada, Germania | 16'
Guardian of the Well, Bentley Brown & Tahir Ben Mahamat Zene | 2025 | Chad | 6’
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing, Theo Panagopoulos | 2024 | Regno Unito | 2024 | 17’
Weeds, Pola Kazak | 2024 | Repubblica Ceca | 14’
Bad for a Moment, Daniel Soares | 2024 | Portogallo | 15’
Palazzo Ubertini - ORTA
11 AM - 12.30 PM
Frutteto section
Individualità
In the latest section of Frutteto, the focus is on individuals: different personalities that are constantly evolving. The encounter with nature becomes a catalyst for personal development, the centre of which remains – as always – the rural world.
Nobody Barks, Júlia Coldwell Serra | 2025 | Spagna | 20’
The Quiet Shadow, Qiqi Hou | 2026 | Italia, Cina | 9’ (Italian premiere)
Marc Page and the Round Goat Cheese, Margot De Buyser, Emma Vaucher, Sam Geyer, Louna Coulot, Nacim, Léa Atlan, Anna Wang | 2025 | Francia | 8’
Rezbotanik, Pedro Goncalves Ribeiro | 2025 | Brazil, Portugal, Spain | 18’
When the Tiger Roars, Lam Can-Zhao | 2025 | Cina, Svizzera, Malesia | 15’
3 PM - 4.30 PM
Chilometro Zero section
Nel Bosco, anthology film | 2026 | Italy | 64' (Italian premiere)
Event attended by the directors and students from the IT Leonardo Da Vinci in Borgomanero and the Convitto Nazionale Carlo Alberto in Novara, who made the short films
Four episodes, four directors (Fabio Bobbio, Francesco Clerici, Riccardo Palladino, Filippo Ticozzi), around fifty students aged between sixteen and eighteen.
The stories share neither characters nor plot: they share a location and a condition. The woods — sometimes as a real setting, sometimes as a state one finds oneself in without realising it — is the point at which each protagonist ceases to be who they were before.
4.30 PM - 5.00 PM
Award Ceremony
Artistic Direction
Cristian Cerutti
Cristian Cerutti holds a Master's Degree in Cinema, Arts, and Media from the University of Turin. Since 2022, he has been working with several international film festivals and currently collaborates with the Locarno Film Festival, Visions du Réel, and Festival dei Popoli. Since 2025, he's the Artistic Director of Corto e Fieno
Jury
James Berclaz-Lewis
Ludovica Fales
Elio Sacchi
Selezionatori
Francesco Clerici
Thomas Horat
Riccardo Palladino
Cristian Cerutti
Host
Floriano Negri
Floriano Negri was born in Borgomanero on September 4, 1968. He attended the A. Vivaldi Conservatory in Alessandria and the Filodrammatici Academy in Milan. He perfected his skills with Nola Rae and Carlo Boso. Over the years, he has collaborated with many theater associations, including the Gianni e Cosetta Colla puppet company, Tag Teatro in Vicenza, and I Guitti in Brescia. He is president of the Somsi theater in Gozzano.
Film Award
The Flowers Silently Stand, Witnessing by Theo Panagopoulos
For managing to start from absence, from what cannot be seen within the image, with the intention of bestowing dignity upon faces and bodies often pushed to the margins or systematically erased from their own land. For its ability to uncover the seeds of complicity embedded in the constructed images of historical Palestine and to adopt a decolonial gaze on archival images, that reveals to us a flourishing, rich land which exploitation, war and genocide have concealed from view. A film that through its kaleidoscopic perspectives, layers of time and space, surprised, touched and made us realize the daunting task still ahead of us to re-establish an honest relation to image and territory. With the greatest pleasure we assign the Frutteti Award to The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing by Theo Panagopoulos.
A Pain in the Butt by Elena Walf
For the delicacy, charm, and profound simplicity with which – through an instantly accessible visual language, soft and harmonious lines, and a gentle sense of humour – it addresses the theme of mistrust between different cultures and the importance of collaboration and cooperation through the budding and ultimately realized bond between the dog and the hedgehog and a gentle comedy of errors; and for the remarkable talent demonstrated by the team behind the film, to whom we wish a long and fulfilling career, it is with great pleasure that we award the Germogli Award to A Pain in the Butt by Elena Walf.
Zohra on the road by Pierre-Loup Docteur
Sono fin troppo rari i film che abbracciano i tratti salienti della commedia popolare, ribaltandone al contempo con sottigliezza gli stereotipi. Siamo rimasti affascinati dall’impegno incrollabile della sceneggiatura nel confondere le nostre aspettative: sugli archetipi rurali, sulle dinamiche generazionali, di genere ed etnico-culturali nella variegata campagna francese. Aggiungeteci una meccanica comica finemente calibrata e un nucleo emotivo che si rivela inaspettatamente tenero, e la nostra decisione era presa. È con grande piacere che assegniamo il Premio della Giuria a Zohra, sans permis di Pierre-Loup Docteur.
Nobody Barks by Júlia Coldwell Serra
For the clarity with which, with very few brushstrokes, it portrays the world of a small village where relationships seem deteriorated, and where, through faith in the imaginative power of the connection between nature and human beings, it manages to point toward a path that allows people to rediscover the deep humanity of children and their instinctive understanding of the secret and magical bonds between plants, human beings, and animals, it is with great pleasure we award the Special Mention in the Frutteto section to Nobody Barks (Ningú Borda) by Julia Coldwell Serra.
Rezbotanik by Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro
For its ability to blend different identities, and sensibilities within an original and eccentric filmic form, from which a natural, primordial, and deeply fascinating sensibility emerges right within the urban context, redefining the boundary between humanised space and interior landscape. For its ability to offer a political and filmic reflection on the relationship between all of us and the surrounding environment, with great pleasure we award a Special Mention to Rezbotanik by Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro.
ex aequo:
Moving Mountains by Andrea Costa
Weeds by Pola Kazak
Zohra on the road by Pierre-Loup Docteur
Air horse one by Lasse Linder
For the Bestia Award, and perhaps surprisingly to those who will have followed the competition as a whole, we elected to pick the animal with the least screen time but, to our minds, the most unforgettable presence. In a documentary of razor-sharp irony, a mere two shots of this bemused dog deliver a burst of humour and sentiment that only cinema could conjure. The award goes to Air Horse One by Lasse Linder.