As Filming Sardegna Italy gears up for its ninth edition, its founder Tiziana Rocca is putting opportunities for new filmmaking voices and women front and center. 

While the progressive Italian event officially kicks off tomorrow (June 25) at Sardinia’s Forte Village hotel, this year it opened up its programming early for students on the island, offering up screenings of a special section of titles from its 50-film program from June 18 at Notorious Cinemas Cagliari. The idea, says Rocca, is to give young people in the area a chance to see more films than they might get to pack in during the official four-day event at Sardinia’s Forte Village hotel. 

“Since its inception, the Filming Italy Sardegna Festival has aimed to build a bridge between international cinema and young people, offering students a concrete opportunity to meet industry professionals and deepen their cultural understanding,” says Rocca. “We believe that cinema continues to be an extraordinary tool for growth, knowledge and dialogue, capable of inspiring new careers and fostering critical thinking among future generations.” 

Guests such as Harvey Keitel, James Franco, Sveva Alviti, Elsa Zylberstein, Sofia Carson, Erin Moriarty, Franco Nero and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson will all touch down at the event this week and will participate in discussions, masterclasses and interactive sessions dedicated to the younger generation. Many will meet with students from the region’s Academy Cinema. 

The festival’s short film competition, which is organized in partnership with the University of Cagliari, is one of the event’s crown jewels. Dubbed ‘In Corto’, it gives young students an opportunity to promote their works not only in Italy but also in the U.S. Winning shorts are broadcast on Rai Cinema Channel on the festival’s MyMovies platform and will additionally be screened at Rocca’s Filming Italy – Los Angeles annual event next year. 

Zylberstein will lead the jury for the short competition while Franco, Samuel Arnold, Rosa Diletta Rossi and Ilenia Pastorelli are among the jury members. 

There is also a strong commitment to supporting female talents in its lineup, something that is particularly important to Rocca. This year, the festival renewed its partnership with Women in Film, Television and Media Italia, and is set to present four debut films by emerging female directors to the festival audience. These include: Emy Nails from director Camila Carè; L’estraneo from director Federica Corti; Ludovica Galletta’s Fiori cadono; and Blu silenzio from Anna Moncada. Part of the program also includes a panel discussion dubbed Superheroines: The Lesson of Ginger Rogers, which will see a host of Italian talent discuss the evolution of female voices in the industry. 

“We really try to highlight the power of women,” says Rocca. “Sardegna is very female-oriented. It can be very complicated for females in the industry because no one gives them a space. You have to take your space, and you have to do double the work to prove that you work well. It’s important to me that we understand how we can support each other and how we can make opportunities more equal in the movie business. Women [directors] still don’t have the same budgets in productions as male directors and I don’t know why this is, but at my festival, we will try to highlight women in any way that I can.” 

Bridging the gap between Italian and international cinema is also crucial and Rocca says that the festival works hard to be a place where conversations for co-productions can take place. “I think the festival is a good place for this. We can also highlight films that don’t have distribution and help them find distribution.” 

This directive feeds into Rocca’s Filming Italy – Los Angeles event, which ran its 11th edition in February earlier this year. That event focuses on building the “cultural bridge” between Italy and the U.S. and places a strong emphasis on promoting Italian cinema in the U.S. 

Earlier this year, Django star Franco Nero was honored at the L.A. event in tandem with his Hollywood Walk of Fame tribute. “This was a big milestone for Filming Italy as it was the third star dedicated to an Italian artist after Gina Lollobrigida in 2018 and Giancarlo Giannini in 2023.”

Filming Italy worked hard to promote the restoration of 1966 spaghetti Western classic Django, which she says is getting a select theatrical re-release in honor of the film’s 60th anniversary this year. 

“I think there are some cult movies that are never lost and are very important for the memory of Filming Italy in Los Angeles,” she says. “We try to keep the memory of these films alive, and we help a lot with the restoration of Italian movies because in the U.S., promoting Italian movies is not very important and it’s not easy to get restoration for many of these films. But it’s very important for the younger generation to see these significant films from the past.”