CINEMA OF INCLUSION BETWEEN VISION AND EDUCATION 2026

Among the highlights of the 2026 edition of Isola Edipo is the return of Cinema of Inclusion – Between Vision and Education. Organized in collaboration with Giornate degli Autori and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, which has been a partner of this initiative for the past five years, it is dedicated to exploring the relationship between cinema and the contemporary world. This year’s edition is titled: “Memories for the future – How Sources Construct Individual and Collective Narratives in Cinema”.

The programme will bring together Lebanese artist and director Mohamad Abdouni, French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis, and Italian director Costanza Quatriglio, in conversation with Italian director Alina Marazzi.

This year’s conversation explores cinema as a medium capable of writing and rewriting both individual and collective histories and identities. Particular attention will be devoted to the role of sources – including archival materials, official historical records and oral testimonies – as well as the power of cinema to bring erased stories once erased back into the public consciousness and the dynamic relationship between personal experience and collective memory in the construction of narrative.

In an era increasingly defined by a culture of “post-truth” and relentless presentism, the discussion will examine the potential of cinema and its functions and responsibilities in shaping personal, familial, and communal portraits, highlighting the fundamental role that memory plays in this process.

Cinema of Inclusion between Vision and Education thus returns this year as a space for dialogue and critical reflection, bringing together some of today’s most significant filmmakers to discuss the relationship between cinema and some of the most pressing and essential issues of our time.

Conceived by Isola Edipo and developed in collaboration with Giornate degli Autori and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, the initiative continues to stand at the intersection of artistic vision and educational engagement.

Through screenings, discussions, and multidisciplinary encounters, Cinema of Inclusion aims to reaffirm the central role of art in imagining our shared future through a renewed awareness of the importance of both the stories art preserves and the stories we carry ourselves.

September 4th
6:00-8:30 pm
A conversation featuring Mohamad Abdouni, Alain Gomis, and Costanza Quatriglio, moderated by Alina Marazzi, interspersed with screenings of clips from the participating filmmakers’ works.

Over the course of September 3rd and 4th, 2026, the Sala Laguna will also host screenings of the following films:
September 3rd
11:00 am
TREAT ME LIKE YOUR MOTHER
Mohamad Abdouni
Lebanon, 2025, 76′
This photographic documentary brings to light the intimate experiences of four trans women from Lebanon, in stories that range from the pioneering gender-affirming surgery funded by Lebanon in 1997 to vanished safe spaces today. Together, Em Abed, Jamal Abdo, Antonella, and Mama Jad present a story untold, against the backdrop of what is arguably the first photographic archive of trans women in Lebanon.
Mohamad Abdouni is an artist, photographer, and filmmaker based in Beirut, and the Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director of Cold Cuts, a photo journal exploring queer cultures across the Swana region. His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, FOAM (Amsterdam), FOMU (Antwerp), Lafayette Anticipations (Paris), and the Lyon Biennale. His films have been screened at IDFA and BFI, among other international festivals. In parallel, he has directed narrative fashion films and music videos. His work centers on archival research, image-making, and the politics of representation, particularly in relation to queer histories in the Arab-speaking world. His long-term project Treat Me Like Your Mother: Trans Histories From Beirut’s Forgotten Past* has evolved into a film and live performance currently touring internationally.

6:30 pm
PLAY AND REWIND
Alain Gomis
France, Germany, 2022, 65′
December 1969, Thelonious Monk is in Paris. Before the evening concert, he records a television program for French television. The backstage footage reveals a Thelonious Monk trapped inside the violent machinery of stereotypes, desperately trying to break free from it. The film becomes the story of this great artist’s journey, and of a man who wishes to exist solely through his music. At the same time, it paints a negative portrait of a media mechanism that is as ridiculous as it is repulsive.
Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis made his directorial debut in 2002 with L’afrance, a film about the struggles of immigrants in France which won a Silver Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. His sophomore film Andalucia was shown at  Giornate degli Autori in 2012. His Aujourd’hui screened in competition at the Berlinale. Gomis returned to the Berlinale in 2017 with Félicité, which received the Grand Jury Prize. In 2022, Rewind & Play, a free archives-based film on the legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. In addition, in 2018 he founded the Yennenga Center in Dakar – a socio-cultural center and film school dedicated to developing film production and post-production in West Africa – which he has directed ever since. In 2026, Dao, his sixth feature film, premiered in competition at the Berlinale.

September 4th
8:30 am
IL CASSETTO SEGRETO
THE SECRET DRAWER
Costanza Quatriglio
Italy, Switzerland, 2024, 132′
A sentimental and adventurous journey into a now-unknown 20th century, unfolding through 8mm reels, photographs, sound recordings, and documents from a unique archive: that of journalist and author Giuseppe Quatriglio, who devoted his life to recounting history from the perspective of a universal Sicily inhabited by artists, poets, and intellectuals. The spark for the film is the intensive research undertaken by his daughter Costanza, ahead of her final separation from her father’s library, donated to the Central Library of the Sicilian Region.
Costanza Quatriglio is director and artistic director of the Palermo branch of the CSC – National Film School. After completing her legal studies, she graduated in directing from the CSC in 1999. She has always worked on the frontier between reality and fiction through strong expressive research. She made her debut with L’isola (Directors’ Fortnight, 2003). Among her most awarded films: Terramatta; (Giornate degli Autori, 2012); Con il fiato sospeso (Venice Film Festival, Out of Competition, 2013); Triangle (2014), 87 ore (2015); Sembra mio figlio (Locarno 2018); Il cassetto segreto (Berlinale 2024, nominated for the David di Donatello awards). For television, in 2007 she was the creative producer of the series Un posto al sole; she has also directed La bambina che non voleva cantare (2021); Il gigante innamorato (Rome Film Fest, 2025); and Sul cammino di Francesco (2026).

12:00 noon
UN’ORA SOLA TI VORREI
FOR ONE MORE HOUR WITH YOU
Alina Marazzi
2002, Italy, 2002, 55′
The film reconstructs the journey undertaken by the director in her personal search to capture her mother Liseli’s face, through the editing of old family footage. It is an attempt to bring her mother back to life, even if only on screen, and a way of celebrating her memory. Nostalgia permeates the narrative because that is the feeling needed to be able to overcome a loss; it is an essential condition for living.
Alina Marazzi is film and theater director, film programmer and lecturer. Female subjectivity and remembered images are at the core of her work. Her films include Un’ora sola ti vorrei, a portrait of her late mother created using home movies; Per sempre, a documentary on female monastic seclusion; Vogliamo anche le rose, an archival feature film on women’s stories and sexual liberation in the 1970s; Tutto parla di te, starring Charlotte Rampling, a feature film on the dark side of motherhood; Confini, an archival short film featuring poetic verses by Mariangela Gualtieri; Anna Piaggi, una visionaria nella moda, a portrait of the fashion journalist; and To Cut Is to Think, a portrait of artist Lucia Marcucci commissioned by Maison Dior. Marazzi is the artistic co-director of UnArchive Found Footage Fest.