The theatrical tour of the short films created during Laguna Film Lab 2025 is about to begin. Laguna Film Lab is an artistic residency dedicated to creative documentary filmmaking, curated by ZaLab in collaboration with Giornate degli Autori with the support of the 8×1000 funds of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai.
Five perspectives, five stories born along the Southern Lagoon of Chioggia, exploring the theme of Fatalità: coincidences, unexpected encounters, and unpredictable trajectories between people, places, and memories.
After premiering at Giornate degli Autori, within the framework of the Venice Film Festival, the films now arrive in cinemas across several Italian cities.
The Short Films
El Draa (The Dragoon) – Francesco Rubattu (Italy, 2025, 10’)
Beneath the modern port of Chioggia, memories of the last sea dragon make the lagoon vibrate. On the surface, a summer of labor and silence unfolds, over an increasingly exhausted sea.
Fammi la grazia (Grant Me a Grace) – Ludovico Polignano (Italy, 2025, 10’)
Robertino is 49 and still lives with his parents on the island of Pellestrina. When he discovers that an exhibition dedicated to Giorgio Foresto—a Milanese painter who once lived on the island—is opening in Chioggia, something stirs within him: the need to recover a lost fragment of his own story.
Gli anni blu (The Blue Years) – Jacopo De Falco (Italy, 2025, 10’)
Between the lagoon and the sea of Chioggia, Giulio, Puffo, and Riccardo fish for blue crabs. Summer is coming to an end—and with it, the innocence of their childhood.
Centro di gravità permanente (Permanent Center of Gravity) – Liliya Timirzyanova (Italy, 2025, 10’)
A nocturnal journey through the Venetian lagoon, where a wanderer encounters children, lovers, fishermen, and solitary figures.
A bocca chiusa (With Closed Mouth) – Sébastien Willem (Italy, 2025, 10’)
A filmmaker decides to tell Olivia’s story, but what begins as a simple portrait soon turns into a web of voices, memories, and conflicting versions. In this interplay of gazes and narratives, the boundary between reality and interpretation blurs, leaving an open question: is there really only one truth?
Tour Schedule
Palermo – Rouge et Noir
Every Monday, from February 2 to 23, 2026 7 PM, one Laguna Film Lab short film will be screened before the main feature as part of Non Ci Sto, a program curated by ZaLab and Fondazione Studio Rizoma.
- February 2: Centro di gravità permanente – Liliya Timirzyanova
- February 9: Fammi la grazia & Gli anni blu – Ludovico Polignano, Jacopo De Falco
- February 16: El Draa – Francesco Rubattu (director’s attendance to be confirmed)
- February 23: A bocca chiusa – Sébastien Willem (director in attendance)
Padua – Fronte del Porto
February 13, 2026 | 9:00–11:00 PM
With Ludovico Polignano and Francesco Rubattu
Bologna – Cinema Orione
February 19, 2026 | 9:00–11:00 PM
With Ludovico Polignano and Francesco Rubattu
Naples – Casa Cinema
February 24, 2026 | 9:00–11:00 PM
With Liliya Timirzyanova
Milan – Cinema Beltrade
February 26, 2026 | 7:30 PM
With Ludovico Polignano and Sébastien Willem
Rome – Nuovo Cinema Aquila
March 2, 2026 | 7:00–9:00 PM
With Ludovico Polignano, Liliya Timirzyanova, and Francesco Rubattu
During the screenings, the filmmakers will be present for conversations and discussions with the audience.
The Filmmakers
Sébastien Willem
Born in Liège, Belgium, on June 7, 2000, he currently lives in Zibreira, Portugal. He is a filmmaker who recently graduated from the Erasmus DocNomads program. Originally from Belgium, he is currently navigating a period of artistic and personal transition. His journey has also brought him to Italy, where he enthusiastically took part in Laguna Film Lab.
Liliya Timirzyanova
Born in 1995 in Tatarstan, she lives and works in Greece. A Tatar filmmaker, her award-winning debut ANIMA screened at numerous international festivals in 2021. In 2022, she left her country due to the political situation and settled in Greece, where she completed her second feature film PSYCHE AND AMOR, a reflection on love, exile, the injustice of war, and artistic freedom. Documentary cinema lies at the heart of her research, which she also develops through photography and videography during her travels.
Jacopo De Falco
Born in Castellammare di Stabia in 1992, he has lived between Naples and Paris. After earning a degree in Human Geography at the Sorbonne, he completed a Master’s degree in documentary filmmaking in Marseille, specializing in auteur documentary directing, cinematography, and editing. Alongside his filmmaking practice, he leads participatory film workshops in working-class neighborhoods, prisons, and in collaboration with film festivals in Marseille, where he lives and works.
Ludovico Polignano
Born in Milan in 1997, he lives in Rome. After graduating in New Technologies of Art with a focus on Video Design from IED Milan in 2020, he began working on independent film and advertising sets. He studied screenwriting and dramaturgy at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts “Silvio d’Amico.” Lacci is his debut short film.
Francesco Rubattu
Born in Brussels in 1995, he lives in Milan. Raised between auteur cinema and popular imaginaries, his path is shaped by a personal and ironic relationship with film culture. Drawing on heterogeneous influences and family memories, he develops a language that moves between storytelling, imagination, and the observation of reality.
Laguna Film Lab
Laguna Film Lab is an artistic residency dedicated to creative documentary cinema, curated by ZaLab. It begins in Chioggia as part of Laguna Sud – Il Cinema fuori dal Palazzo, reaches Giornate degli Autori, the independent section of the Venice Film Festival, and then continues through a selected circuit of cinemas across Italy.
More than just a residency, Laguna Film Lab is an immersive journey where cinema becomes a tool for investigation, encounter, and transformation. Creativity intertwines with place, giving rise to short films that offer authentic stories and new perspectives on reality. The experience weaves together social, ethical, and aesthetic reflection, engaging in dialogue with the Venetian outskirts—urban spaces, reclaimed lands, and bodies of water—and investigating the ancestral relationship between humans and water, understood as a circumscribed space: lagoon, lake, river, or artificial basin.
Each edition focuses on a central theme guiding the creative process, offering participants time and space to develop their vision. The resulting works are presented to the public in contexts dedicated to independent and auteur cinema.
Un progetto
Laguna Film Lab is a project by ZaLab and Giornate degli Autori, made with the support of the 8×1000 funds of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai, in collaboration with Fondazione Clodiense ONLUS, Pro Loco Chioggia-Sottomarina, and the Municipality of Chioggia.
