The Garden-in-Movies Film Festival, born in 2017 as part of the international landscape festival Radicepura Garden Festival (Giarre, Catania), will return in 2027. Its fifth edition took place on 2 October 2026 at Radicepura Botanical Park in Giarre (Catania), with an evening dedicated to cinema, memory and nature. Through the language of cinema, it explores the garden from a broad perspective, embracing nature and landscape alongside ecology, sustainability, education, culture, human rights, social commitment and respect for the environment.
The fifth edition in 2026 featured an evening of conversations, encounters with guests and screenings, bringing together cinema, memory and nature. Reflections on the present and on conflict were accompanied by a focus on the new generation of Italian cinema, with Valentino Picone, Roberto Di Bella and Alessandro Sperduti joining the conversations.
The 2026 Festival took place at Radicepura Botanical Park in Giarre, where art and nature create a setting for dialogue about our communities and the world we share. The garden became a place of encounter, care and coexistence, where beauty takes on cultural and civic meaning.
Created and directed by journalist and film critic Ornella Sgroi, Garden-in-Movies is organised in collaboration with the Radicepura Foundation.
Through cinema, Garden-in-Movies celebrates nature, landscape and the environment as sources of development, care and creative exchange. Its vision reaches beyond the garden as a physical space, opening it up as a metaphor for life and for the cultural, political and social values we cultivate. All in the name of Beauty.
The international short film competition Garden-in-Movies/ShortFilmFest is targeted at all those works that, through the language of cinema, enhance nature, environment, landscape, ecology and environmental sustainability as engines of development and contamination. But the “garden” also serves as a metaphor for any place, context, dynamic, relationship capable of fostering cultural, political, social and artistic values. Therefore, short films that express the concept of “garden” from this perspective are also eligible for selection.
Click here to download the call for applications for the 4th edition and check the admission requirements.
6:00 PM โ Conversa ons in the Garden
The Mafia in Cinema. Between Mythmaking, Memory and Challenging Stereotypes.
A conversation with Valentino Picone, actor, screenwriter and director, and Roberto Di Bella, President of the Juvenile Court of Catania. Together they explore how cinema has portrayed the mafia, between mythmaking, collective memory and the need to challenge stereotypes. Picone is known for his artistic partnership with Salvo Ficarra, with whom he has made films including La matassa and Lโora legale. Di Bellaโs work on Liberi di scegliere has inspired stories for cinema and television.
7:00 PM โ New Italian Cinema
An interview with Alessandro Sperduti.
An encounter with the actor and composer, whose career began at a young age and includes the popular television series I liceali. He has worked with Ermanno Olmi, the Taviani brothers, Nanni Moretti, Ivan Cotroneo and Pupi Avati, for whom he also composed a theme for Lโorto americano (2024). His recent work includes the Netflix series Il Gattopardo alongside Benedetta Porcaroli. In 2026, he has worked on Mel Gibsonโs latest film and, at the time of the press release, is filming a new series directed by Pupi Avati.
9:00 PM โ Cinema โ Screenings
Giardino dโinverno, directed by Monica Felloni โ Italy (2023), 12 min.
A silent yet intense dialogue between two characters, told through images and music in a setting suspended between nature and architectural space. The programme announced the attendance of director Monica Felloni and lead actresses Angela Longo and Gaia Santuccio.
Il mio giardino persiano.
Directed by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha โ Iran/France/Sweden/Germany (2024), 97 min.
An unexpected encounter between a lonely woman and a lonely man, tender and wry against the backdrop of a declining Iran, becomes an unforgettable story.
Feature Film: “Il mio giardino persiano” โ Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha.
Short Film: “Giardino dโinverno” โ Monica Felloni.
– Venue: Radicepura Botanical Park, Giarre.
– Information: gardeninmovies@radicepura.com
– Adult admission: special day rate of โฌ8, under the usual conditions of admission to the Radicepura Garden Festival.
Ornella Sgroi, born in Catania on May 14, 1978, is a journalist, film critic, writer and screenwriter, and producer. And she has authored columns, programs and formats for television, radio and web, and podcasts. He has been involved in Cinema for 20 years, and also in Culture, Entertainment and Social. She contributes to Corriere della Sera and SicilianPost, Gigi Marzullo’s Rai Uno program “Cinematografo,” and is a guest as a film expert on two Tv2000 programs, Paola Saluzzi’s “L’Ora Solare” and “Di Buon Mattino.” She is artistic director of the “Garden in Movies” film festival, which she conceived in 2017 for the Radicepura Botanical Park. She is the author of the collection of literary shorts “The Contradictions of While,” Le Farfalle Editions (2015), with a foreword by director Roberto Faenza. In 2020 he published with HarperCollins the book “It’s the couple that makes the total. Journey in the Cinema of Ficarra and Picone,” with a foreword by director Roberto Andรฒ. The text was awarded the Efebo d’Oro and the “Nino Maroglio” International Literary Award.
He edited the interviews for the documentary “L’AntiGattoparda” (2014) by Alessandro Aiello and Giuseppe Di Maio, dedicated to Catanian writer Goliarda Sapienza, author of “The Art of Joy.” In 2018 he wrote the subject and screenplay of the short film “Magic Show,” together with director Andrea Traina. The short film, starring an unprecedented Nino Frassica, launched on RaiPlay on May 20, 2022 for the International Day Against Gambling. She co-authored the subject and screenplay of the short film “Room 5” (2023) directed by Rosario Capozzolo, which she co-produced with Tramp Limited and Rai Cinema. Starring the intense Milena Vukotic, the short film was selected in competition at the Giffoni Film Festival 2023. She co-authored the subject and screenplay of the short film “The Jonas Cut” (2024), together with Ludovica Isidori, who was the director of photography, and Rosario Capozzolo, who was the director. The short film was awarded at the San Diego FilmFestival, among others.
She is the author and director of the podcast “Ashes. Catania, July 2023,” available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Mattia Arena, 24, a DAMS graduate from the University of Bologna, is currently a master’s student in Cinema and Television and Multimedia Production at Roma Tre University. He worked as an assistant director on the set of “La Terra Senza,” Moni Ovadia’s debut feature with Donatella Finocchiaro, and attended a course for TV writers organized by Banijay Italia in collaboration with the Catholic University of Milan, enriching his skills in writing and devising audiovisual content. Over the years, he has also accumulated significant experience in organizing cultural events and international festivals, actively participating in the “Festa del Cinema di Roma”; “Taobuk Festival”; “Capri, Hollywood” and “Los Angeles, Italy.” Passionate about cinema, he approaches each project with enthusiasm, combining a rigorous and analytical approach with a deep artistic sensibility, always looking for new stories to enhance and share.
Roberto Zito holds a degree in Modern Philology from the University of Catania. He was a finalist in the first and fourth editions of the film criticism competition “Scrivere di cinema – Premio Alberto Farassino,” organized by the Cinemazero Association, the Pordenonelegge Foundation and the National Union of Italian Film Critics. Over the years, he has collaborated with the University of Catania in organizing the “Learn by Movies” cineforum and served as a selector for the international short film section at the “Garden in Movies” festival. In 2023 he graduated from the two-year School of Writing and Storytelling training center Viagrande Studios. He made his fiction debut with the novel “Nail of the Earth,” published by Scatole Parlanti in 2022 and awarded in the “Ju Buk Opera Prima” competition as part of the Ju Buk 2023 Festival,
under the patronage of the City of Scanno (AQ) and the Abruzzo Region. The novel was among the selections for the XXVI City of Cuneo Prize for the First Novel and was a finalist in the 5th edition of the Literary Prize “A Story for Film.”
