Edition 2026 – La Guarimba Film Festival

From August 7th to the 12th the 14th edition of La Guarimba International Film Festival took place in Amantea (CS), Southern Italy, bringing to town a temporary community of artists, directors, illustrators, musicians, photographers, journalists and people from all over the world, all sharing the same obsession: bringing cinema back to the people, and the people back to cinema.

Throughout the festival we screened more than 180 short films from 53 countries around the world, across fiction, animation, documentary, music video and experimental cinema, including the programme dedicated to La Grotta Dei Piccoli. Films that faced our present without fear: ridiculous wars and real tragedies, desire, bodies, revolutions, love, anger, absurdity and beauty.

This year the festival was once again hosted between Il Terrenito, our open-air cultural space managed by La Guarimba Cultural Association, the historic Cinema Teatro Sicoli, La Piccola Biblioteca di Amantea and the Lido Azzurro, transforming the beach, the alleys of the historic centre and the seafront into one continuous festival space for six days.

La Guarimba was born out of the need for more cultural spaces for the public and was a direct response to the negligence of local politicians.

La Piccola Biblioteca di Amantea, our small library with study spaces, a music studio and a conference room, continues to operate year-round. Between January and July 2026 alone, it hosted 52 activities and courses, with more than 560 participations: a four-part theatre course closed by a final performance, watercolour and music courses (MusicAnto), computer literacy courses for migrants, communication courses, weekly LEGO days, a monthly reading club and screenings for children, alongside the workshops and screenings of La Grotta dei Piccoli.

This edition took place under an African anticyclone, with a heatwave that made every day of the festival a real challenge for the whole team. Because of the extreme heat, the traditional afternoon walking tour of the historic centre was moved to midnight, and turned out to be one of the most beautiful moments of the week: a large group of guests and locals walking through the ancient fishermen’s houses of Amantea’s old town under the stars, instead of the summer sun.

This year Il Terrenito also got a small but meaningful upgrade: a new wood-effect flooring on the stage, making the space warmer and more welcoming for both performers and audience.

180+ short films, 78 guests and international team members from at least 23 countries, 15 illustrators’ work exhibited, 11 workshops, talks and labs, 1 concert and 2.187 total spectators across six days: each year the festival brings international cinema to Amantea and its inhabitants, creating a cultural hub for the town.

The 14th edition of La Guarimba International Film Festival was made possible thanks to the Patronage of the European Parliament, the Patronage of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Medal of Representation of the Senate of the Republic, the Representation Award of the Chamber of Deputies, the Patronage of the Province of Cosenza, UNICEF Italia and the Touring Club Italia; with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Calabria Film Commission.

The festival received international support from the Embassy of Austria, the Embassy of Germany, the Embassy of the Czech Republic, the Polish Institute, the Embassy of Norway, the Embassy of Australia, the Embassy of Ireland, the Embassy of the Netherlands and the Hungarian Academy in Rome.

Erling Hoem, Minister Counsellor of Norway, joined the festival team for lunch and took the stage at Il Terrenito for a moment of institutional greetings.

Partners include Caffè Guglielmo, Caribe Atómico Film Festival, Moleskine Foundation, F.lli Marano, with MyMovies.it as media partner and MyAirBridge as technical sponsor.

Inspired by the work of the Moleskine Foundation and the Creativity Pioneers Fund, of which La Guarimba is part, a Moleskine notebook travelled among our guests throughout the festival, carrying one question: “What does creativity mean to you?” Guests answered with drawings, reflections, collages and much more, leaving behind a collective, handmade portrait of what creativity means to this community.

THE PROGRAMME OF THE 14TH EDITION

In the words of festival director Giulio Vita: “The 14th edition of La Guarimba will bring to Amantea a temporary community of artists, filmmakers, illustrators, musicians, photographers, journalists and people coming from all over the world, united by the same obsession: bringing cinema back to the people and the people back to cinema. For one week, the town will change shape. We will meet on the beach, in the alleys of the historic centre, at Cinema Sicoli, inside the Library and at Il Terrenito Guarimbero. We will watch films under the stars, dance, eat together, stay up talking until late at night and transform cinema into something alive, messy and collective.”

“We wanted to build a festival that looked like the world as we wish it could be: open, chaotic, welcoming, curious, mixed and full of different people sitting next to one another. Because in this celebration, nobody is excluded!”

In the official press release, Giulio Vita added: “At a time when everything seems to push towards isolation, fear and war, we continue to believe in cinema as a collective, accessible and necessary space. At La Guarimba we will talk about collective creativity, about class and race, about the south and about slowness as both physical and philosophical places.”

This year’s selection made space for stories about war and its absurdity, desire, bodies, revolutions, love, anger and beauty, culminating in the anti-war programme Serato Sguerrato, where the audience was handed water guns to make fun of war and warmongers through play, getting soaked together while watching the final night’s animation programme.

FILM HIGHLIGHTS

Among the highlights of the international selection was Debí tirar más fotos, the work signed by Bad Bunny together with Arí Maniel Cruz Suárez, chosen by the Puerto Rican artist for its Italian festival premiere at La Guarimba: a poetic and surreal fable reflecting on memory and human relationships.

The programme also engaged with pressing political and social themes. The Palestinian short I’m Glad You’re Dead Now by Tawfeek Barhom follows two brothers returning to the places of their childhood, moving through memory and trauma in a context marked by violence and loss. Sixty-Seven Milliseconds reconstructs the path of a bullet through surveillance footage, turning contemporary conflict into a visual investigation of time and responsibility.

The festival also gave space to civil rights and the body as political territory, through works such as Abortion Party, an ironic and radical documentary on the right to abortion, and The Silence of Pomegranates, set in Calabria, where a woman breaks the silence around abortion in the region.

Animation held a central place in the programme too, from the psychedelic journey of Acid City, to the feminist echo of My Name is Lilith, to the ecological reflection of Sea Angels, where mermaids are forced to emerge from polluted oceans to ask humans for help.

OUR PROGRAMMERS

The Official Selection of this edition was made by our programmers Óscar Peña, Valeria Weerasinghe, Francheska Rodríguez, Mikel Murillo, Maria Francesca Cianciaruso, Marta Miquel and Giulio Vita. They worked to curate a selection of films that represent the complexity and richness of cultures, traditions and languages from all throughout the world.

THE FILMS IN THE COMPETITION

This year we received 1.031 films and our programming team watched and debated each one, selecting more than 180 films from 53 countries for The Official Selection. The categories in competition are Fiction, Animation, Documentary, Music Video and Insomnia, an experimental film category.

CINEMA TEATRO SICOLI

A special mention this year goes to the Cinema Teatro Sicoli, the historic little cinema of Amantea that seats more than 120 spectators. This year it hosted both the opening night’s midnight Insomnia experimental screening and the special Dance Films programme, bringing the festival back inside one of the town’s most meaningful cultural venues.

SPECIAL PROGRAMMES

The film festival began with an opening concert by the Orchestra di Fiati Mediterranea, conducted by guest conductor Maestro Giuseppe Gloria, dedicated to some of cinema’s most iconic soundtracks, including music from Police Academy, Il Postino and Pearl Harbor. 300 spectators filled Il Terrenito for the opening night.

Every night, the festival split its screenings into an All Ages programme and a 14+ programme at Il Terrenito. On the opening night, the programme continued at midnight with Insomnia, the experimental film selection screened at Cinema Teatro Sicoli, where audiences stayed until the early hours for the strangest and most unsettling films of the selection.

On the fifth night, the special Dance Films programme, billed on the programme as a secret-location screening, was held after midnight at Cinema Teatro Sicoli in front of 120 spectators, a selection highlighting the ability of the body to communicate through movement.

Caribe Atómico is a film festival in Caracas, Venezuela and is the sister festival to La Guarimba, dedicated to Caribbean and Latin American short films. This year, within the Caribe Atómico programme, we screened TODASANA, a short documentary about La Guarimba’s own response to the earthquake that struck Venezuela this year, at a moment when the connection between our two communities felt more important than ever.

On the closing night, Giampaolo Calabrese, director of the Calabria Film Commission, took the stage for the talk Bella Come Il Cinema, presenting the Fondazione Calabria Film Commission’s project that connects Calabria’s towns and most iconic locations through culture, cinema and territorial promotion. The festival was supported by the Fondazione Calabria Film Commission as part of this project.

Earlier that evening, at Lido Azzurro, journalist Sara Paolella (Scomodo) interviewed DJ Turbolenta for the talk Politics & Electronic Music, in front of 40 people, discussing the relationship between club culture, identity, migration and contemporary activism. Turbolenta then closed the evening with a DJ set for 60 people, blending Arab, North African and contemporary electronic sounds into a musical narrative between memory, resistance and club culture — a sunset aperitivo on the rooftop of Lido Azzurro, the day after the Dance Films screening at Cinema Sicoli.

The final special programme, Serato Sguerrato, was curated by the international collective Serato Animato: a programme born to make fun of war and warmongers through the wildest, most irreverent and experimental animation works produced by the collective, screened on the last night. During the screening, custom-made water guns were distributed to the audience, turning the room into a performative, participatory event in which spectators became an active part of the experience.

LA GROTTA DEI PICCOLI

La Grotta Dei Piccoli, held with the patronage of UNICEF Italy and curated by Valeria Weerasinghe, is our programme for children and youth. Every day at La Piccola Biblioteca, from the 7th to the 12th of August, the festival presented 100 animated short films from around the world, carefully selected to offer a rich, stimulating and engaging variety of styles, techniques and ways of storytelling. As always, the programme was split into two parts: one for younger children and one for older kids, each with its own screening slot, guaranteeing an experience tailored to every age group. This year the festival also introduced Teen Drama, a new section created specifically for teenagers, exploring what it means to grow up in a difficult world. The Cambur selection returned once again, presenting animated shorts that address environmental sustainability in a creative and poetic way.

Every day at 18:00, before the evening screenings, La Grotta dei Piccoli offered a free creative workshop: the Carbone Paper Photo Lab, dedicated to instant photography and visual experimentation through paper, light and images (19 participants), a collage lab with a session for children (21 participants) and one for adults (17 participants), the immersive Drawing Under Water World lab (12 participants), a free-drawing Doodle Space (17 participants) and, on the last day, an analogue magic lab led by artist Maria Degtiarenko (18 participants), where participants learned to tell a story with a single click.

On the closing night, before the awards, La Grotta dei Piccoli screened its own Best of La Grotta dei Piccoli 2026, a selection of the most loved short films of the week, chosen by the children themselves. La Grotta Dei Piccoli’s own jury, made up entirely of children, votes for their favourite film after every screening: this year’s Premio La Grotta dei Piccoli went to Line 12 by Sarah Schulz and Christopher Schmier.

FESTIVAL ACTIVITIES

Throughout the six days of the festival, we planned many activities to help foster community and connection, not just among the guests but also among the team, from labs and workshops, talks and a beach clean-up, to shared meals and moments of pure messing around.

WORKSHOPS & TALKS

Hate Subtitles? Let’s Talk!, held at La Piccola Biblioteca and led by Dr. Marta Miquel Iriarte, was a masterclass on the invisible craft of subtitling for 18 participants. It started with everyone’s complaints, as each participant shared what they really can’t stand about subtitles, before moving on to hands-on exercises and games that revealed just how much work and how many choices hide behind a few lines of text at the bottom of the screen. For La Guarimba, accessibility isn’t a detail: our subtitles aren’t just meant to be bilingual, but above all readable and understandable for everyone, which is why moments like this matter to us.

On the third day, the Oscar-nominated animation director João Gonzalez led the masterclass The Music as a Road to Film at La Piccola Biblioteca in front of 45 people, recounting the creative process that took him from the piano to the Academy Awards.

On the fourth day, at Lido Azzurro, Eileyn “La Negra” Ugueto, Venezuelan artist and researcher in Afro-Venezuelan traditions, led El Tambor del Caribe (Malembe: Venezuelan Drums), an experiential workshop for 70 people dedicated to rhythm as a collective practice, cultural identity and Afro-Caribbean memory, built around drums, song, movement and collective exercises: a small, magical moment shared by guarimberos, Amantea’s beachgoers and everyone who wandered over to join in.

During the festival, La Negra’s voice and drum were also recorded at La Piccola Biblioteca’s music studio, with our sound technician Fran Rousset. The chant Malembe, sacred within Afro-Venezuelan tradition, became the sound of this year’s closing video: a way to close the circle and embrace each other in this sacred chant.

THE MIDNIGHT TOUR OF AMANTEA

Each year we take our guests on a tour of the historical centre of Amantea to help them discover our town and community. This year’s tour was originally scheduled for the early evening, but because of the heatwave it was moved to midnight: 70 guests and locals walked together through the ancient fishermen’s alleys of the old town under the stars instead of the summer sun.

BEACH CLEAN-UP

On the morning of the fifth day, 40 members of our team and guests met at Lido Azzurro to clean the beach, taking care of the environment they are guests in and building a sense of community and responsibility.

LUNCHES AT LA GUARIMBA

This year we organised three shared meals during the festival. The first was a frisella lunch, a way to introduce our guests to Calabrian food culture. The second brought the whole community to the beach for panini, a swim and time together by the sea. The last was an arepada: 200 arepas made together to remember where we come from.

BEYOND THE FESTIVAL

ARTISTS FOR LA GUARIMBA

Artists for La Guarimba is our annual online and offline illustration exhibition, bringing together illustrators from around the world who reinterpret the festival’s slogan, “cinema to the people, and the people to cinema,” through different languages, signs and sensibilities. For this edition, 15 illustrators from different parts of the world were invited to reinvent our monkey in their own style: Mikel Murillo (Spain), Josh Simmons (USA), Alex Gamsu Jenkins (United Kingdom), Gaia Alari (Italy), Santa Gata (Bolivia), Juli Tudisco (Hungary), Jaan Roomus (Estonia), Marianne Gretteberg Engedal (Norway), Eva Rust (Switzerland), Alonso Galué (Venezuela), Chuu Wai (Myanmar), Hanson Akatti (Ghana), Shar Tui’Asoa (Hawaii), Shehzil Malik (Pakistan) and Precious Seronga (Tanzania). For the first time, this year’s exhibition welcomed artists from countries never represented before in Artists for La Guarimba, making the show more international than ever and turning Amantea into a playful meeting point of cultures, imaginaries and visual languages from across the globe.

ARTISTS IN RESIDENCY

This year we hosted two artists in residency. Maria Degtiarenko (USA), photographer and multimedia artist, led the Analog Magic workshop for the young jurors of La Grotta dei Piccoli, moonlighted as an instant-camera portraitist around the festival, and shot a new roll of her PANS project across this year’s edition. Alice Cerreto (Italy), photographer, dedicated her project to what she considers the heart of the festival: not just the short films, but the way people come together.

THE IMPACT OF THE FESTIVAL ON THE TOWN

What comes from the encounter between an international creative community and a Calabrian village full of history and beauty is unique, an exchange through which both communities find human wealth, social value and cultural diversity.

La Guarimba is proud to work in synergy with the Calabria Film Commission, this year as an official part of the Bella Come Il Cinema project, in order to deconstruct stereotypes about the region and make it a real centre of cultural attraction and artistic liveliness. The festival has no cost for the city of Amantea, but is financed with funds raised through regional, national and international calls, sponsors, embassies, donations and the sale of gadgets. This year, €22.067 were spent on hospitality alone, money that stayed directly within Amantea’s local economy.

THE COMMUNITY OF LA GUARIMBA

The 14th edition of La Guarimba International Film Festival hosted 78 guests and international team members. Based on where our guests travelled from, the festival brought together people from at least 23 countries: Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, France, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Lithuania, Croatia, Venezuela, Egypt and Denmark. For many of them it was the first time in Calabria, for some the first time in Italy. The idea of the festival has always been to create a community that lives a shared multicultural experience together, discovering Calabrian culture and the Calabro-Venezuelan identity characteristic of the festival.

THE AWARDS

The jury that awarded the prizes of the categories in competition was composed of three central figures of contemporary cinema: João Gonzalez, Portuguese director, animator and composer, Oscar-nominated for Ice Merchants; Gabrielė Cegialytė, director of the Vilnius Short Film Festival and Managing Director of Lithuanian Shorts; and Sara Jurinčić, Croatian filmmaker active between experimental cinema and documentary.

The awards were handed out on the closing night: the winners of the competition categories, the “Vitaliano Camarca” Audience Award and the Nonna Saveria Award, while the Premio La Grotta dei Piccoli was awarded in parallel at La Piccola Biblioteca.

THE AWARDED FILMS

BEST FICTION: Nobody Barks by Júlia Coldwell Serra

BEST ANIMATION: Acid City by Jack Wedge and Will Freudenheim

BEST DOCUMENTARY: Their Eyes by Nicolas Gourault

BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM “INSOMNIA”: December Rumbles by Ziyang Liu

BEST MUSIC VIDEO: Le goût du ciel by Pierre-Julien Fieux

“LA GROTTA DEI PICCOLI” AWARD (awarded by the Children’s Jury): Line 12 by Sarah Schulz and Christopher Schmier

NONNA SAVERIA AWARD (also known as Premio Nonnina): Filippo Berardone

Dedicated to the memory of Nonna Saveria and to the people who, year after year, sustain La Guarimba with their time, work and generosity, this year’s Nonna Saveria Award was given to Filippo Berardone, one of the driving forces behind the project throughout the year, recognised for his commitment, his willingness to get things done, and his generous, solution-oriented character.

THE “VITALIANO CAMARCA” AUDIENCE AWARD

Established to carry on the testimony of the great Amantean cultural programmer and cultivate the collective memory of the town, the “Vitaliano Camarca” Audience Award was once again voted by our public, who this year cast 210 votes to choose their favourite film.

The film most voted by the public was Time Flies by Tommaso Zerbi, who was present at the festival and received the award in person.

CREDITS

ARTISTIC DIRECTION
Giulio Vita

MONKEY/GRAPHICS/CATALOGUE
Mikel Murillo

INSOMNIA LOGO
Kerry Roper

PROGRAMMERS
Óscar Peña, Giulio Vita
Marta Miquel, Mikel Murillo
Valeria Weerasinghe, Francheska Rodríguez
Maria Francesca Cianciaruso

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
Lilibeth Bolívar

TRAILER
Patricia Rivero, Pedro Guerra

LA GROTTA DEI PICCOLI
Valeria Weerasinghe, Louca Francisco

PRESS OFFICE
Valeria Bonacci

PHOTOGRAPHY
Antonio Reda

VIDEO
Fortunato Valente

SAFETY PLAN
Salvatore Socievole

TRANSLATION & SUBTITLING TEAM
Project Managers: Marta Miquel Iriarte, Daniele Zuccalà
Quality Control: Sherin Abu-Taleb

INTERNS
Sabrina Mangione (ISTRAD)
Maddalena Pol (ISTRAD)
Sara Brambilla (ISTRAD)
Alessia Agosti (ISTRAD)
Martina Brunelli (ISTRAD)
Simona Costantina Cozzolino (UNIBO)
Lorenzo Costabile (Volunteer)
Juliette Regent (IAE de Lille)
Justine Esteves (Université de Lille)

PROJECTIONIST
Francheska Rodríguez

SOUND TECHNICIAN
Carlos García

SOUND ASSISTANT
Francisco Rousset

LIGHTING TECHNICIAN
Oscar Peña

VOLUNTEERS
Osmely José Piña Soto, Aurora Mercadante, Jelisaveta Bogetić

CONCERTS
Orchestra di Fiati Mediterranea, DJ Turbolenta

ARTISTS IN RESIDENCY
Maria Degtiarenko, Alice Cerreto

GUARIMBA BONUS

Watch the recap video of this year’s edition below, closed by La Negra Ugueto’s sacred chant Malembe, recorded during the festival at La Piccola Biblioteca’s music studio.

Our sound technician created a playlist for everyone to enjoy before the screenings, after and during the breaks. The Spotify link can be found here: