SiciliAmbiente Film Festival

A festival where cinema meets social commitment

The SiciliAmbiente Film Festival is an international event dedicated to independent cinema, documentaries, and the major issues of our time: the environment, sustainability, human rights, migration, and contemporary conflicts. Founded in 2009, it takes place every July in San Vito Lo Capo, a renowned seaside resort in the province of Trapani, Sicily. Its motto perfectly captures the spirit of the festival: "bringing cinema where it doesn't exist, to change what does."

Sections and competitions

The program is divided into several international competitions that bring together different formats and languages:

• Documentaries, the heart of the festival, featuring works dedicated to environmental and social emergencies;
• Feature fiction films that address the relationship between humanity and nature;
• Short films from every corner of the planet;
• Animated films, often serving as powerful fables on the ecological crisis.

Each edition features dozens of films from numerous countries, including premieres, Q&A sessions with directors, and public debates.

Awards and international partnerships

SiciliAmbiente is the only festival in Europe to benefit from the collaboration of Amnesty International and Greenpeace, which present awards dedicated to the defense of human rights and environmental protection, respectively. These are joined by the AAMOD Award (Audiovisual Archive of the Workers' and Democratic Movement) for the best use of archival footage, alongside other prizes awarded by juries composed of directors, critics, actors, academics, and environmental professionals. The artistic direction has been led by director Antonio Bellia since the festival's inception.

The Summer School

Alongside the screenings, the festival hosts the SiciliAmbiente Summer School, an intensive workshop dedicated to documentary filmmaking for film students, young directors, and emerging professionals: a journey that blends theory and practice through image, sound, writing, and editing.

San Vito Lo Capo and Sicily

The setting is San Vito Lo Capo, a village overlooking one of Sicily's most famous beaches, dominated by the silhouette of Monte Monaco and just a few kilometers from the Zingaro Nature Reserve. The open-air evening screenings, with the sea and the starry sky as a backdrop, make SiciliAmbiente a unique experience where great auteur cinema merges with the beauty of the landscape and the territory's environmental vocation.