Director: Marco Chiarini
Cast: Francesco Pannofino, Marco Leonzi, Gabriele Manfredi
Duration: 81'
Year: 2009

The matchstisk man tells the story of Simone, an 11 year old boy and his boring Summer holiday: his mother has died and his father is over protective and strict! Country life is dull and in order to evade from his home and  his village, he  takes refuge in his imaginary world which he creates for himself in the countryside around. At last a 13 year old girl, called Lorenza, arrives on holiday from a nearby town and eventually Simone manages to involve her in his fantasy world... and awaits with her the arrival of the king of his magical world -the matchstick man who arrives at night to turn on lights and show the way...

Director: Alessandro di Robilant
Cast: Michele Riondino, Giulio Beranek, Giorgio Colangeli
Duration: 87'
Year: 2009

Tiziano (debut actor Giulio Beranek) is a maladjusted boy who lives in a “border” neighbourhood. A poor student, his school attendance is even poorer. He has a family full of problems, he does odd jobs for local boss Tonio (Michele Riondino)  and only dreams of leaving. His future seems doomed, however – all the more so when he ends up in a juvenile detention centre. But Tiziano is not alone: he has the detention centre guard (Giorgio Colangeli), his Italian teacher (Valentina Carnelutti, Quiet Chaos [trailer, film focus]), his girlfriend (Selenia Orzella) and his mother (Anna Ferruzzo).

Director: Alessandro Angelini
Cast: Sergio Castellitto, Anita Kravos, Giorgio Colangeli
Duration: 87'
Year: 2009

Set in the sprawling multi-ethnic  outskirts of Rome, the film focuses on the relationship between shipyard worker Mero (Sergio Castellitto) and his teenage son Lorenzo (Campanelli), a promising young boxer who is trained by his dad in a homemade gym. There’s affection between the two, but also conflict as the slouching, unshaven Mero drives his son obsessively and aggressively towards the success he never achieved  – either in the ring, at work, or in his marriage to Lorenzo’s mother, a flighty Albanian blonde.
Eventually, although boxing kudos does arrive for Lorenzo, Mero pushes his son too far by interfering in his budding relationship with a gamine young Romanian girl.

Director: Susanna Nicchiarelli
Cast: Claudia Pandolfi, Sergio Rubini, Pietro Del Giudice
Duration: 85'
Year: 2009

It was the years of the Space Race. As capitalist America and communist Russia compete for ideological pre-eminence through the conquest of the heavens, in Italy 15-year-old Luciana, fascinated by the proletariat who were launching their ideas beyond Earth, grows up in the Communist Party and struggles to affirm her feminine identity.

Director: Donatella Maiorca
Cast: Ennio Fantastichini, Isabella Ragonese, Valeria Solarino
Duration: 105'
Year: 2009

On a small, imaginary island off 19th-century Sicily, when the 'Thousand' have landed to reunite Italy, Angela, 25, loves Sara and seeks to ride out the scandal over her own homosexuality by disguising herself as a man. Shut up in a cave by her father, a tyrannical paterfamilias, when she refuses an arranged marriage, Angela is saved by a trick her mother cooks up: she convinces the curate to change Angela's name and sex on her birth certificate. That's how Angela turns into Angelo: sporting a cap and a cigar, and a picture-perfect family. An intense examination of the frontiers of identity as well as geography, the story interweaves fact, legend, and poetry and re-evokes an ancient scandal lost in time.

Director: Valerio Mieli
Cast: Isabella Ragonese, Michele Riondino, Glen Blackhall
Duration: 99'
Year: 2009

Winter 1999. A small ferry crosses the venice lagoon. Camilla, a shy eighteen year-old who has just arrived from her small town to study Russian literature at the University, spots a boy in the crowd. It's Silvestro. The two exchange looks... Ten Winters is a story about falling in love slowly, not about something that burns out quickly but it is about a yearning, the exact opposite of love at first sight. (Valerio Mieli, Director)

Director: Stefania Sandrelli
Cast: Amanda Sandrelli, Alessio Boni, Alessandro Haber
Duration: 92'
Year: 2009

Christine Christina, the anticipated directorial debut of Italian acting icon Stefania Sandrelli, is the story of medieval poetess Cristina da Pizzano -also known as Christine de Pisan -who uncovers her gift for writing when she is left destitute.