UNBOX 2026 | The Talents of the Future
19–23 October 2026, Rome
UNBOX renews the collaboration between Alice nella città and MIA | Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo and opens up to Europe for the first time. Curated by Francesco Giai Via, the training and co-production programme supports eight directors who have already made their mark with short films as they develop their debut fiction features, connecting them with producers and international industry professionals.
Produced by Alice nella città and part of the official programme of MIA, promoted by ANICA and APA, UNBOX is supported by Fondazione Roma Lazio Film Commission and Rai Cinema as Main Cultural Partner. Cooperation with European Short Pitch and Nordisk Panorama, support from European Film Academy and collaboration with MUBI strengthen the programme’s international reach and create opportunities for filmmakers and producers from different film cultures to connect.
From 19 to 23 October, the selected teams take part in five working days in Rome, preceded by an online day before the market. Mentoring, tutoring, workshops and pitching training provide a collaborative setting tailored to each project’s identity and needs. The programme welcomes projects at various stages of development, pre-production and production, bringing together directors who already have a producer and those seeking a majority or minority production partner.
The programme focuses on defining each project’s international positioning: identifying the language, tools and partners best suited to communicating its potential while preserving its artistic identity. It opens with a masterclass by Romanian producer Ada Solomon, Chair of the European Film Academy. French producer Didar Domehri, this year’s UNBOX Angel, works alongside the teams to help them clarify their projects’ creative identity and present them to industry professionals.
The intensive development and pitching training programme, led by Francesco Giai Via, also includes a marketing session organised with MUBI and delivered by Simona Montemurro, Senior Marketing Manager Italy. The programme culminates in a pitching session within the MIA Co-Production Market and one-to-one meetings with decision-makers, alongside informal networking opportunities with professionals attending MIA and Alice nella città.
Alongside its focus on debut features, UNBOX continues its exploration of Italy’s short film ecosystem through the Stati Generali del Cortometraggio. The event brings together key players in the Italian film industry to discuss the sector’s present and future, from financial support to opportunities for emerging filmmakers.
FORD and Out of Athens are selected in cooperation with Nordisk Panorama; House Are Silent and MAR I O with European Short Pitch.
UNBOX 2026 Selected Projects
FORD
Sweden
FORD a drama set in the Swedish contemporary countryside covered in snow, exploring what it is to be a young man searching for his place in this world. FORD is a rural symphony about sound, silence, and belonging.
Director: Malin Ingrid Johansson
Producer: Joel Rostmark (Pine)
Goal @MIA: Sales Agents
Discover more →HOUSES ARE SILENT
Romania, Switzerland, Germany, Uruguay (TBD)
In a secluded Mennonite colony in Bolivia, a 16-year-old girl becomes pregnant after an assault she cannot remember. When other women report the same mysterious injuries, she uncovers a pattern of sexual violence that forces her to question the faith and community that have defined her entire life.
Director: Roxana Stroe
Producer: Gabriela Suciu (Atelier de Film)
Goal @MIA: Sales agents, international co-producers, financiers, gap financing.
Discover more →KENNEL
Original title: Canile - Le nostre ore contate
Italy
Mara (50), a metalhead who lives at and runs a dog shelter housing over a hundred amputee, disabled and severely injured dogs, is preparing a birthday party for her 16-year-old daughter. But the party turns into a confrontation: she is forced to face her ex-husband, who is seeking full custody of their daughter.
Director: Valentina Parati
Goal @MIA: Main Producer/production company, financial co-producers, and sales agents.
Discover more →Mambo Kids
Italy
Used to hearing about life rather than living it, Alessandro and Flavio spend their last summer before university among the streets and legends of Caserta, a small town in Southern Italy suspended in time, carried along by a season that, step by step, will push them to decide who they want to become and whether to stay together.
Director: Emanuele Tresca
Producer: Pietro Michelini (Onirica)
Goal @MIA: We are looking for a main Italian production company (grants and funding, technical, legal, and logistical support) and a European co-production (grants and funding), sales agent (presales), Festival programmers and curators, development labs, and funding.
Discover more →MAR I O
Germany (France/Bulgaria)
Mar, 38, a classical saxophonist at the height of her career in Berlin, is preparing for the premiere of her own orchestra, dedicated to her first love, who tragically died when they were eighteen. Once a rising jazz star, Mar abandoned that world after the loss. A month before the premiere, a score written for her resurfaces, throwing her carefully constructed present off balance and bringing the life she might have lived back into view.
Director: Lili Koss
Goal @MIA: Majority Producer
Discover more →Out of Athens
Original title: Ut av Athen
Norway
Maja, a Norwegian woman, is hired by a smuggler in Athens to pose as the girlfriend of Kasim, an undocumented Somali man trying to fly out of Greece on a forged passport. They have forty-eight hours to invent a relationship convincing enough to get through the airport. What begins as a performance slowly turns into something real, and dangerous.
Director: Badrudin Ga’ur
Producer: Thomas Robsahm, Vibeke Ringen (Nordisk Film Production Norway)
Goal @MIA: Greek and Italian creative and financial co-producers, international sales agents and distributors.
Discover more →Six Thursdays and a Sunday
Original title: Sei Giovedì e Una Domenica
Italy
After nine years in Paris, Nina returns to Naples and follows a map of votive shrines left to her by a missing friend. Trying to recover lost time, she rediscovers a long-repressed anger and begins to question the promise that, if she does everything right, life will eventually begin. To move forward, she may have to deliberately choose the wrong step.
Director: Valeria Gaudieri
Producer: Luigi Sales (Giffoni Innovation Hub)
Goal @MIA: An Italian co-producer with complementary feature-film and financing experience; a European/international co-producer; sales agents and distribution partners; access to selective funds, co-production instruments and international development opportunities.
Discover more →The Slackers
Original title: Le Sonnambule
Italy
In black-and-white Milan, Eleonora and Mafalda, two twenty-nine-year-old roommates living on the edge of financial insecurity, chase small joys through sleepless nights. When unemployment forces Mafalda, a sleepwalker, to leave the city, Eleonora must face her friend’s departure while juggling an exhausting job and a father’s fading memory. Their last weeks together become a long goodbye to the life they have built and a stubborn attempt to imagine a future on their own terms.
Director: Francesco Alessandro Cogliati
Producer: Federica Sosso (Executive Producer)
Discover more →
