The screening of the “Family Affairs” selection scheduled for Sunday, April 26
Ennesimo Film Festival remains deeply rooted in its local community, and for its eleventh edition—headquartered in Fiorano Modenese from April 26 to May 3—it proudly presents the Fiorano City Award. Originally born during the pandemic, this section has become a beloved tradition and stands today as one of the festival’s most prestigious honors. Defined by anthropology as the cornerstone of every society, the family serves as an inexhaustible narrative reservoir for cinema—a mirror reflecting both social transformations and intimate dynamics, often blurring the lines between the two.
This year’s short film selection explores this terrain with a truly international lens: from mother-daughter bonds tested by extreme circumstances to journeys of cultural and personal identity; from the search for a lost love for life itself to the ancestral ties between siblings and traditions rooted in the land. It is a mosaic where the family reveals its complexity through the eyes of directors dedicated to a profound exploration of humanity—not to teach lessons, but to reveal the truth. The award will be granted by the citizens of Fiorano Modenese, who are invited to cast their votes during the screening scheduled for Sunday, April 26 at 9:00 PM, on the festival’s opening day.
Admission is, as with all Ennesimo Film Festival activities, completely free. Ennesimo Film Festival returns to Fiorano Modenese from April 26 to May 3, with the Teatro Astoria as its home base. This edition reaffirms the festival’s dual mission: bringing cinema closer to the community and celebrating the short film as a genuine art form. Featured guests this year include Greta Scarano, Benedetta Porcaroli, and Carolina Cavalli, alongside Palestinian director Aesha Balaha, the protagonist of the Artist Residency, who will introduce The Voice of Hind Rajab on April 29. Ennesimo Academy, the educational program involving students from preschool to high school, also remains a central pillar of this edition.
The Fiorano City Award was born at a time when the festival needed to reconnect with its host community, and family was the most natural theme: there is nothing closer to people and, at the same time, more complex to narrate. In eleven years, we have seen how cinema can reveal aspects of family that daily life tends to make invisible. This is what we ask of the films in this selection: not to celebrate, but to look.