Opening films on 29 April
10.04.2025 // In true Crossing Europe tradition, the beginning of the voyage of discovery into this year’s festival is signaled by four thematically and artistically different variations of European cinema. Moreover, there will be screenings of films from several program sections in the afternoon, prior to the official opening.
The Opening Films 2025:
ZIKADEN / CICADAS (DE/FR 2025)
directed by Ina Weisse, 100 min, Austrian Premiere
Program Section: European Panorama Fiction; Guest: Ina Weisse (requested)
Austrian Distribution: Filmladen, Cinema Release: 4 July 2025
Isabell’s life takes a turn when she realises that her elderly parents can no longer live independently. The search for carers is difficult and there are also complications in her marriage to Philipp. She shuttles between Berlin and her parents’ weekend house, a striking modernist building designed by her prominent father himself in better days. There, Isabell repeatedly encounters the enigmatic A
nja, a single mother who is struggling to make ends meet. An unexpected bond begins to form. The more Anja and her daughter Greta become part of Isabell’s life, the more uncertain she feels about the existence she has so carefully built for herself. Isabell senses the ground shifting beneath her feet as she increasingly loses control. (Berlinale)
MY DEAR THÉO (PL/CZ/UA 2025)
directed by Alisa Kovalenko, 90 min, Austrian Premiere
Program Section: European Panorama Documentary; Guest: Alisa Kovalenko
Alisa Kovalenko is a mother, soldier and filmmaker. When Russia invades Ukraine in the spring of 2022, she enlists as a soldier to defend her country. MY DEAR THÉO is structured as a series of letters to her young son Theo, sent from the frontline. The letters revolve around topics such as war, love and the most difficult choices in life. Through Alisa’s camera, we experience the harsh reality of the Ukrainian frontline, from the quiet moments of reflection and camaraderie, to the sudden chaos when the Russians attack. But most of a soldier’s time is spent waiting, and this is the time when the inner turmoil is greater than the ferocity of the battlefield. (CPH:DOX)
LUCE (IT 2024)
directed by Silvia Luzi, Luca Bellino, 95 min, Fiction / Austrian Premiere
Program Section: Tribute; Guests: Siliva Luzi, Luca Bellino
This is the Italian South, but not the way you’re used to seeing it: a grey winter in a small industrial town and a steel-coloured sea you prefer to stay away from. There, we meet a girl in her early twenties who remains nameless throughout LUCE, the new film by writer-director duo Silvia Luzi and Luca Bellino. A brunette who lives alone and is often told to smile more, the film’s beguiling protagonist seems like the kind of girl who doesn’t keep secrets. And yet, she does: she smuggles a flip phone into a prison with the hope that her father will call her from it. Luzi and Bellino have a sensitive and generous approach to storytelling: they let emotions lead. Thanks to the clever script, the film never tips into excessive sentimentality when showing a daughter’s relationship to her absent father solely through phone conversations. (Cineuropa)
REFLET DANS UN DIAMANT MORT / REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND (BE/LU/IT/FR 2025)
directed by Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani, 87 min, Fiction / Austrian Premiere
Program Section: Night Sight; Guest: Fabio Testi (requested)
John is 70 years old and lives in solitary luxury in a grand hotel on the Côte d’Azur. He becomes intrigued by the woman in the room next door who reminds him of his wild years on the Riviera in the 1960s, back when he was a debonair international spy. But when the woman mysteriously disappears, John is beset by flashbacks – or perhaps fantasies – of his glamorous and grotesque past, and the alluring women and dastardly villains who lived and died there. With imagery that pays affectionate homage to the 1960s Eurospy genre and is tinged with playful gore, John’s reality becomes fragmented as he seeks to unravel the puzzle of his past. Are there yet more conspiracies and treacheries waiting to be unmasked? Or has he simply been bewitched by the beautiful and dangerous lure of escapist cinema itself? (Berlinale)
Together with Saskia Rosendahl, Nina Hoss shines in the Berlinale entrant ZIKADEN / CICADAS by Ina Weisse, a gentle drama about parent-child-relationships, responsibility, care work within a family, and the unexpected bond between two women. Said film is part of the program section European Panorama and will be shown again in the context of “Crossing Europe goes…” at Spielboden Dornbirn in Vorarlberg on 15 and 30 May. In 2022, following the outbreak of war, Ukrainian documentary filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko volunteered to defend her country against the Russian troops. In MY DEAR THÉO, she weaves video footage from her five-month service in the field and messages to her little son into a powerful document on the reality of war. At the 2023 edition of Crossing Europe, Kovaleno won the Best Documentary award for MY NE ZGASNEMO / WE WILL NOT FADE AWAY. LUCE is the second fiction feature film by Italian writer-director duo Silvia Luzi and Luca Bellino, who are the subject of this year’s Tribute program section. Employing a sophisticated visual language, they tell the story of a nameless, melancholic assembly line worker, played by a sublime Marianna Fontana, to once again deliver a work at the edge between reality and fiction set in the working class. Luzi and Bellino are two-time award-winners from previous Crossing Europe editions. Another duo, a well-known one to fans of this particular program section, is responsible for the start to this year’s Night Sight: Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, who directed REFLET DANS UN DIAMANT MORT / REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND, a Eurospy extravaganza carrying as much punch as it is visually striking. The film had its world premiere at Berlinale and will stop by SLASH ½ (8–10 May) at the Vienna Filmcasino on the weekend after Crossing Europe.
The Opening Films 2025:
ZIKADEN / CICADAS (DE/FR 2025)
directed by Ina Weisse, 100 min, Austrian Premiere
Program Section: European Panorama Fiction; Guest: Ina Weisse (requested)
Austrian Distribution: Filmladen, Cinema Release: 4 July 2025
Isabell’s life takes a turn when she realises that her elderly parents can no longer live independently. The search for carers is difficult and there are also complications in her marriage to Philipp. She shuttles between Berlin and her parents’ weekend house, a striking modernist building designed by her prominent father himself in better days. There, Isabell repeatedly encounters the enigmatic A
nja, a single mother who is struggling to make ends meet. An unexpected bond begins to form. The more Anja and her daughter Greta become part of Isabell’s life, the more uncertain she feels about the existence she has so carefully built for herself. Isabell senses the ground shifting beneath her feet as she increasingly loses control. (Berlinale)
MY DEAR THÉO (PL/CZ/UA 2025)
directed by Alisa Kovalenko, 90 min, Austrian Premiere
Program Section: European Panorama Documentary; Guest: Alisa Kovalenko
Alisa Kovalenko is a mother, soldier and filmmaker. When Russia invades Ukraine in the spring of 2022, she enlists as a soldier to defend her country. MY DEAR THÉO is structured as a series of letters to her young son Theo, sent from the frontline. The letters revolve around topics such as war, love and the most difficult choices in life. Through Alisa’s camera, we experience the harsh reality of the Ukrainian frontline, from the quiet moments of reflection and camaraderie, to the sudden chaos when the Russians attack. But most of a soldier’s time is spent waiting, and this is the time when the inner turmoil is greater than the ferocity of the battlefield. (CPH:DOX)
LUCE (IT 2024)
directed by Silvia Luzi, Luca Bellino, 95 min, Fiction / Austrian Premiere
Program Section: Tribute; Guests: Siliva Luzi, Luca Bellino
This is the Italian South, but not the way you’re used to seeing it: a grey winter in a small industrial town and a steel-coloured sea you prefer to stay away from. There, we meet a girl in her early twenties who remains nameless throughout LUCE, the new film by writer-director duo Silvia Luzi and Luca Bellino. A brunette who lives alone and is often told to smile more, the film’s beguiling protagonist seems like the kind of girl who doesn’t keep secrets. And yet, she does: she smuggles a flip phone into a prison with the hope that her father will call her from it. Luzi and Bellino have a sensitive and generous approach to storytelling: they let emotions lead. Thanks to the clever script, the film never tips into excessive sentimentality when showing a daughter’s relationship to her absent father solely through phone conversations. (Cineuropa)
REFLET DANS UN DIAMANT MORT / REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND (BE/LU/IT/FR 2025)
directed by Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani, 87 min, Fiction / Austrian Premiere
Program Section: Night Sight; Guest: Fabio Testi (requested)
John is 70 years old and lives in solitary luxury in a grand hotel on the Côte d’Azur. He becomes intrigued by the woman in the room next door who reminds him of his wild years on the Riviera in the 1960s, back when he was a debonair international spy. But when the woman mysteriously disappears, John is beset by flashbacks – or perhaps fantasies – of his glamorous and grotesque past, and the alluring women and dastardly villains who lived and died there. With imagery that pays affectionate homage to the 1960s Eurospy genre and is tinged with playful gore, John’s reality becomes fragmented as he seeks to unravel the puzzle of his past. Are there yet more conspiracies and treacheries waiting to be unmasked? Or has he simply been bewitched by the beautiful and dangerous lure of escapist cinema itself? (Berlinale)
Together with Saskia Rosendahl, Nina Hoss shines in the Berlinale entrant ZIKADEN / CICADAS by Ina Weisse, a gentle drama about parent-child-relationships, responsibility, care work within a family, and the unexpected bond between two women. Said film is part of the program section European Panorama and will be shown again in the context of “Crossing Europe goes…” at Spielboden Dornbirn in Vorarlberg on 15 and 30 May. In 2022, following the outbreak of war, Ukrainian documentary filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko volunteered to defend her country against the Russian troops. In MY DEAR THÉO, she weaves video footage from her five-month service in the field and messages to her little son into a powerful document on the reality of war. At the 2023 edition of Crossing Europe, Kovaleno won the Best Documentary award for MY NE ZGASNEMO / WE WILL NOT FADE AWAY. LUCE is the second fiction feature film by Italian writer-director duo Silvia Luzi and Luca Bellino, who are the subject of this year’s Tribute program section. Employing a sophisticated visual language, they tell the story of a nameless, melancholic assembly line worker, played by a sublime Marianna Fontana, to once again deliver a work at the edge between reality and fiction set in the working class. Luzi and Bellino are two-time award-winners from previous Crossing Europe editions. Another duo, a well-known one to fans of this particular program section, is responsible for the start to this year’s Night Sight: Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, who directed REFLET DANS UN DIAMANT MORT / REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND, a Eurospy extravaganza carrying as much punch as it is visually striking. The film had its world premiere at Berlinale and will stop by SLASH ½ (8–10 May) at the Vienna Filmcasino on the weekend after Crossing Europe.
