From August 22 to September 7, 2025, Floating Cinema ~ Acque Sconosciute returns, the cultural festival that enlivens the waters of the Venice lagoon every summer. A floating stage - visible both from its own boat and from a floating platform - will host screenings and performances by international and local artists. Now in its sixth edition, the event changes scenery and lands in front of the island of Sacca Fisola. Since its inception, the project has explored the relationship between cinema and the visual arts, offering sound and visual experiments: from shadow theater to magic lanterns, from silent films with live accompaniment to film screenings and digital technologies.
As every year, Floating Cinema ~ Unknown Waters is born from a choral action, made possible by the collaboration of numerous institutions. The 2025 edition is realized with the support of: TBA21-Academy/Ocean Space, Pentagram Stiftung, Palazzo Grassi - Punta della Dogana - Pinault Collection, In Between Art Film Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and Espace Louis Vuitton Venice, along with support from the Academy of France in Rome - Villa Medici, Fondazione Venezia, Palazzetto Bru Zane - Centre de musique romantique française and The KHR McNeely Family Fund.
The program takes shape thanks to a selection curated by Microclima, partners and numerous guest institutions: among them, the National Archive Cinema Impresa (Ivrea), MAC - Studi d’artista (Padua), Spazio Punch (Venice), Spettro (Brescia), Xing (Bologna), the Luigi Nono Archive Foundation (Venice) and many others.
The 2025 edition offers a rich billboard:
TBA21-Academy/Ocean Space presents four new productions signed by Nadia Huggins, Kaldi Moss, Kenneth Tam and Emilija Škarnulytė, who reflect on the limits and rigidities of binary systems, using freestyle as a fluid, rewriting practice.
Pentagram Stiftung, in the year of the Golden Lion to Werner Herzog, presents La Soufrière (1977), an extraordinary documentary filmed on the island of Guadeloupe while waiting for a volcanic eruption.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection re-presents Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) in the version restored by the Cineteca di Bologna, accompanied by Valeria Sturba’s live soundtrack with voice, theremin, violin and electronics.
Palazzo Grassi - Punta della Dogana - Pinault Collection presents Cabaret Crusades: The Path to Cairo (2012) by Wael Shawky, the second chapter of the trilogy inspired by Amin Maalouf’s book, narrated through ceramic puppets and traditional Bahraini sounds.
In Between Art Film Foundation presents three recent works: Flowering and fading (2024) by Andro Eradze, Tactile Afferents (2023) by Formafantasma and Joanna Piotrowska, and Marshall Allen, 99, Astronaut (2024) by Ari Benjamin Meyers.
Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, a new partner in the festival, brings four films commissioned for the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement 2024, including Lawrence Lek’s Empty Rider, Emmanuel van der Auwera’s The Gospel, and Diego Marcon’s La Gola.
Espace Louis Vuitton Venice debuts with a selection that includes Berlin Horse (1970) by Malcolm Le Grice, The resonant interval (2016) by Clément Cogitore, and the premiere I used a nude girl (2022) by Caroline Rambaud.
The festival opens on Aug. 22 with The Women’s Concert - Timeless Inspiration, a tribute to the famous Concert of the Ladies of the Este Court in Ferrara, followed by two very rare avant-garde shorts by Franciszka and Stefan Themerson. The following days feature films, sound performances, concerts and contemporary productions that weave historical memory, visual experimentation and political engagement.
Among the titles on the program: Canal Grande (1963) by Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, with an introduction by art historian Camilla Pietrabissa; UNDR (2024) by Kamal Aljafari; The Cake in the Sky (1973) by Lino Del Fra; Naked Blue (2022) by Mati Diop and Manon Lutanie; Wonder Mite (2024) by Sveva Conte; Paraflu (2024) by Michela de Mattei and Invernomuto.
The calendar also includes live soundtracks, concerts and performances: among them, the Fossick Project’s Monkeybiz show, live sets by Talpah, Francesco Fonassi and Marta Salogni, Le Ocarine del Delta, and two piano sonorizations by Gabriele Dal Santo on films by Jean Vigo and Georges Méliès.
Each evening opens with Hollis Frampton’s experimental short film Lemon (1969) and closes with a collection of Venetian lullabies performed by Luisa Ronchini.
The conclusion, on September 7, features Venetian composer Gigi Masin, who will accompany the audience from dusk until nightfall with a live set. To follow, on the audience platform, an afternoon of performances and concerts curated by Cosmogram, with interventions by Italian and international musicians.
Floating Cinema ~ Unknown Waters is a project conceived and curated by Edoardo Aruta, Alessandra Messali and Paolo Rosso, presented by Microclima.
The full program of Cinema Galleggiante ~ Acque Sconosciute and the link for reservations are available on the official website www.cinemagalleggiante.it
Pictured: Floating Cinema, 2024 edition. Photo by Riccardo Banfi
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| Venice, 2025 edition of Floating Cinema kicks off |
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