The 47th edition of the Efebo d’Oro Film Festival will have a double location. On the occasion of Agrigento Italian Capital of Culture 2025, the festival celebrates its origins by returning to Agrigento, the city where it all began in 1979, while at the same time renewing its bond with Palermo, the event’s beating heart since 2014. The Festival will take place in Agrigento from November 11 to 15 at Cinema Concordia and at FAM – Fabbriche Chiaramontane, and in Palermo from November 26 to 30 at the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, bringing audiences together to celebrate cinema, memory and new auteur perspectives. The 47th edition of the Efebo d’Oro Film Festival is part of the initiatives supported by the Regione Siciliana as part of Agrigento Italian Capital of Culture 2025.

The 47th edition of the Efebo d’Oro Film Festival is one of the initiatives supported by the Sicilian Regional Government as part of Agrigento’s designation as Italian Capital of Culture 2025.

In Agrigento, the Efebo d’Oro Film Festival will present five films in competition in its historic section dedicated to films adapted from literary works. The selection is rich in particularly original titles and genuine discoveries, two of which will be presented in their Italian premieres. The films will be judged by a jury comprising Alessia Cervini (Full Professor of Film Theory and History and Criticism of Cinema at the University of Palermo), Egle Palazzolo (journalist and writer), and Evelina Santangelo (writer and translator).
Agrigento will also host the “Film Palestine” Focus, an opportunity to reflect on the dramatic situation in Gaza and on its cinematic representation, through the work of director Stefano Savona Two of his films shot in Gaza, Piombo fuso (2009) and La strada dei Samouni (2018), will be screened. The Focus will also feature Iranian director Sepideh Farsi,who on Tuesday, November 11 at 8:30 pm will join the festival by video link from New York to introduce, in conversation with Savona and writer Evelina Santangelo, her Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk,a documentary about young Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona, who was killed in an Israeli missile strike on Gaza. At FAM – Fabbriche Chiaramontane, audiences will also be able to visit L’occhio di Gaza (The Eye of Gaza), a photographic exhibition featuring 15 images taken among the ruins of the city between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2025, bearing witness to the resilience and determination of those who seek to preserve a collective memory of this tragedy.

Also in Agrigento, the Efebo Extra section will welcome director Roberta Torre, who will introduce La notte in cui è morto Pasolini (2009), as part of a tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini on the 50th anniversary of his death. The tribute will also include a screening of La Rabbia (1964), introduced by film scholar Alessia Cervini. Torre will also present her latest fiction feature, Mi fanno male i capelli (2023).
The Efebo Extra programme in Agrigento will conclude with an extraordinary closing film by Costanza Quatriglio: the Sicilian premiere of Pirandello – Il Gigante Innamorato, a highly original docufiction made to mark the 90th anniversary of the death of Luigi Pirandello. Following its premiere at the Rome Film Festival, the film will bring the Efebo d’Oro Film Festival’s Agrigento programme to a close after the awards ceremony, scheduled for Saturday, November 15 at 8:30 pm at Cinema Concordia. All Efebo d’Oro Film Festival screenings in Agrigento will take place at Cinema Concordia.

In Palermo, the Festival will focus on the Efebo Prospettive competition for the best first or second feature, presenting five films, three of which will be shown in their Italian premieres. The films will be judged by a jury comprising Benni Atria (film editor), Alessandro De Filippo (Professor of Film and Video History and History of Photography and Reportage at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Catania), and Andrea Segre (director and screenwriter).

The 47th edition of the Efebo d’Oro Film Festival will award its principal honour, the Efebo d’Oro Lifetime Achievement Award, to director, screenwriter, writer and actress Catherine Breillat, one of the most original and fearless voices in contemporary French cinema. The award ceremony will take place on Wednesday, November 26 at 8 pm at Cinema De Seta – Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa. The Festival will celebrate Breillat with a dedicated focus featuring screenings of six of her feature films, as well as a masterclass exploring her remarkable career, on Thursday, November 27 at 11 am in the Sala Bianca of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa. The Festival will also present the Mestieri del Cinema – Città di Palermo Award to film editor Benni Atria, who will give a masterclass open to the public and to students on Friday, November 28 at 11 am. Two films edited by Atria will also be screened: Daniele Vicari’s Diaz – Don’t Clean Up This Blood (2012) and Andrea Segre’s L’ordine delle cose(2017).

A special focus will also be dedicated to director and screenwriter Andrea Segre, whose films and documentaries explore dialogue and encounters between different cultures. An in-depth presentation of his work will take place on Saturday, November 29 at 10 am at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Sala Bianca. The programme will also feature the Michele Mancini Award, presented to the best film in the Efebo Prospettive competition and selected by students from the film courses at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Palermo and the Sicily branch of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. The Festival will also award the A.N.D.E. Prize, dedicated to women’s cinema and to films exploring themes related to motherhood and female figures. The award is presented by A.N.D.E Palermo, a member of A.N.D.E – Associazione Nazionale Donne Elettrici.

A new feature of this year’s edition is the Efebo Doc section, presenting two films by directors who graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Sicily branch: Ewa – The Last Lesson by Andrea Mura and Federico Savonitto, in its first screening following its premiere at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, and Ore di veglia by Federico Cammarata and Filippo Foscarini, recently presented at the Critics’ Week of the latest Venice Film Festival. The section will also feature the world premiere of Il corpo è di tutte, made by two Palermo-based filmmakers, Mapi Rizzo and Martina Riina. All three films were produced in 2025 and made by young filmmakers connected to Palermo either through their training or their origins, offering further evidence of the creative vitality of this territory.

All screenings will be attended by the respective directors. As part of Efebo Extra, Palermo will also host screenings of Le roman de Jim by Jean-Marie Larrieu and Arnaud Larrieu (France, 2024) and Lotte in Weimar by Egon Günther (German Democratic Republic, 1975). The screenings are organised respectively in collaboration with Institut Français Palermo and Goethe-Institut Palermo.

In Palermo, the entire programme of Efebo d’Oro Film Festival events will take place across the various venues of the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa: Cinema De Seta, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Sicily branch, Institut Français Palermo, Goethe-Institut Palermo, Cre.zi Plus, and Accademia di Belle Arti.