The Official Competition of LEFFEST is also a sensitive map of contemporary cinema. Eleven films, eleven singular voices, travel through geographies, forms and languages to explore the search for belonging, intimate wounds, shared memory and what still binds us in a fragmented world. One of these titles will be awarded the Grand NOS Award.
Four of these films inhabit the same emotional territory, the desire to find a place in the world. In Entroncamento by Pedro Cabeleira, presented in the ACID section of the Festival de Cannes 2025, Laura tries to start over in a town that is neither origin nor destination. Lost between odd jobs and petty crime, she crosses paths with a disenchanted and dream-hungry youth, in a raw and compassionate portrait of those living on the edge of survival and hope.
From Portugal to Iran, In the Land of Brothers by Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi follows three generations marked by exile and the feeling of never truly belonging anywhere. Winner of the Best Directing in Drama Award at the World Competition of the Sundance Film Festival 2024, it is a manifesto for a world without borders.
In Las Corrientes, Milagros Mumenthaler tells the story of Lina, who returns to Buenos Aires after an impulsive act in Switzerland. Her stability crumbles and her body becomes a mirror of a suspended identity, a sensory portrait of belonging, desire and the weight of appearances. In Olmo by Fernando Eimbcke, a summer in 1979 in New Mexico forces a 14-year-old boy to rediscover the place he always wanted to leave. Growing up, here, means learning to love what one once wished to escape.
Three of the selected titles were awarded at the Festival Internacional de Cinema de Veneza. The Sun Rises on Us All by Cai Shangjun is a luminous and wounded melodrama. Two former lovers meet again in a crowded hospital and, between scars, find the possibility of a late reconciliation. Xin Zhilei received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her performance.
In Songs of Forgotten Trees by Anuparna Roy, Thooya and Swetha, two women working at a Mumbai call centre, share a home and their silences. The city’s noise hides intimate wounds and sparks an unexpected bond. This poetic drama on empathy, solitude and female resistance won Best Director in the Orizzonti Competition. In Silent Friend by Ildikó Enyedi, two centuries and three interwoven stories revolve around a single tree that endures through time. Moving between science and mystery, the film explores the invisible language of the world. Luna Wedler received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role.
At the Quinzena dos Cineastas, Miroirs n.º 3 by Christian Petzold dives into the isolation of two women in a remote refuge where music and silence become emotional weapons, a delicate mirror game on memory and intimacy. The President’s Cake by Hasan Hadi, winner of the Caméra d’Or, turns the preparation of Saddam Hussein’s birthday cake into a biting satire of authoritarian absurdity, seen through the eyes of a child.
American cinema is represented by Blue Moon by Richard Linklater, a melancholic portrait of Lorenz Hart (played by Ethan Hawke) on the night he confronts time’s passage and the shadow of obsolescence. Andrew Scott was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the Festival Internacional de Cinema de Berlim.
The European premiere of Where to Land by Hal Hartley closes the line-up. Joseph Fulton, a retired filmmaker, decides to work as a gardener in a cemetery. His family interprets this gesture as a dark omen. The film’s tender melancholy and quiet humour make it a reflection on ageing, creating and staying. Its screening is part of a tribute to the American filmmaker.
From adolescence to old age, from resistance to love, from nature to memory, these eleven films offer more than a portrait of our time. They are also a living mirror of our shared humanity. At LEFFEST, these voices meet not only to compete for the Grand NOS Award, but to resonate in the dark of cinemas, where belonging still finds its most luminous form.