NABA among the protagonists at Milano Film Fest 2025

From June 3 to 8, 2025, Milan will host the first edition of the renewed Milano Film Fest, under the artistic direction of actor and director Claudio Santamaria. The event aims to be a space for reflection and experimentation on contemporary audiovisual production, bringing together auteur cinema, TV series, photography, emerging technologies, and cross-media content. Among the main participants is NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, which will present its interdisciplinary vision of the audiovisual world through screenings, masterclasses, a round table, and institutional contributions. The educational core of the festival will be the Milano Film Fest Academy, scheduled from June 3 to 6, created in collaboration with the most important Italian academic institutions. NABA will be present with a rich schedule that showcases the Academy’s advanced and transversal teaching approach, with particular attention to innovation, sustainability, and narrative experimentation.

The first event will take place on June 3 at Anteo Palazzo del Cinema, where starting at 10:30 AM, three short films made by alumni of the BA in Cinema and Animation will be screened. These works have been awarded in prestigious cinematic contexts. “Maieti,” a thesis project by Daniele Caruso and Matteo Boscolo Gioachina, won the Best Short Film award Onde Corte – Panorama Italia in the Alice nella Città section of the Rome Film Festival. Following that, “At least I will be 8 294 400 Pixel” by Marco Talarico, winner of the Best Technical Contribution award at the International Critics’ Week – SIC@SIC, promoted by Fondazione Fare Cinema. The trilogy concludes with “Dòma” by Chiara Seveso, selected in 2022 for the Animation Focus of the MUBI Catalog during Alice nella Città. NABA will also enrich the program with two public masterclasses. On June 5 at 4:30 PM, in the Panoramic Room at Castello Sforzesco, the session “Bestiaries, Herbariums, Lapidaries: the Authorial Approach to Cinema and Archives” will be held with directors and NABA lecturers Martina Parenti and Massimo D’Anolfi, joined by professor Marianna Schivardi. The discussion will focus on the creative use of archives in film storytelling, starting from their latest documentary “Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari”, presented at the Venice Film Festival, awarded Best Direction at IDFA, and recently exhibited at MoMA in New York. The work, produced by Luce Cinecittà, explores the natural world through an encyclopedic perspective, with three chapters dedicated respectively to animals, plants, and minerals.

The second masterclass will take place on June 6, also at 4:30 PM, and will be led by Giovanni Visai, lecturer in the BA in Creative Technologies. The focus will be on “Virtual Filmmaking with Unreal Engine 5”, one of the most widely used game engines in the world, which is also revolutionizing cinematic language and technique. Also on June 6, at 6:00 PM, in the Rubino Room of Anteo Palazzo del Cinema, a round table will be held on the relationship between cinema, communication, and sustainability. The event will include the screening of the documentary “Tempesta”, created by students of the BA in Cinema and Animation in collaboration with the Department of Environment and Green Areas of the City of Milan. The short film deals with the theme of eco-anxiety, inspired by the extreme weather events that struck Milan in July 2023. Institutional representatives will speak, including Councillor Elena Grandi, along with several NABA faculty members such as Vincenzo Cuccia, Patrizia Moschella, Marianna Schivardi, and Stefania Carbonara, as well as the alumni involved in the project. But the Academy’s involvement goes beyond the festival week. Two thesis short films, “Lezioni di Ginnastica” by Gabriele Lippi and “Pharmakon” by Clara Rancatore, both winners of the 2025 edition of the NABA Cinema Awards, have been selected to participate in the Vertigo Film Festival, an international short film festival that will take place in Milan from July 3 to 6, 2025, at BASE.

NABA will also be present with an exhibition corner at Castello Sforzesco from June 4 to 6, a space dedicated to promoting the Academy’s educational and project-based activities. On June 4, it will also take part in the 2025 States General of Independent Cinema, as an official partner in collaboration with AIR3 – Italian Directors Association, contributing to the audiovisual documentation of the event and organizing the panel “NABA presents: learning by doing, education and innovation at the Academy”. Speakers will include director and alumnus Simone Bozzelli, lecturer Marianna Schivardi, Michele Aquila, Course Leader of the Master’s Programs in Media Design and New Technologies, and Emanuele Lomello, Media Lab Manager at NABA. Through its participation in the Milano Film Fest, NABA confirms its role as a talent incubator and innovation lab, capable of engaging with the world of cinema not only as a creative realm but also as a social and technological space, where visual culture meets present-day transformations and anticipates visions of the future.