Notes on (Real) Love

In a world marked by ongoing fragmentation, cinema remains one of the few spaces where fragility can be expressed with sincerity. The section Notes on (Real) Love brings together a series of cult films that explore not only human relationships, but also the ways in which these connections shape who we are — sometimes painfully, other times with a tenderness that’s almost unbearable. From the intense and impossible intimacies of Sheer Madness, to the radical, vindicating escape of the protagonists in Thelma & Louise, and the suspended tenderness of a single night in Vienna (Before Sunrise), each of these films speaks about encounters—real or imagined, salvaging or destructive. Jane B. par Agnès Varda adds the dimension of the dreamlike self-portrait, while The Thin Red Line and The Unbearable Lightness of Being shift the reflection into a world in conflict, where love, war, and the search for meaning intertwine. In Magnolia, all these threads converge into an emotionally charged tapestry of coincidence, trauma, and hope. This selection does not follow a genre, but a state of being—where the real becomes poetic, and fragility becomes a form of deep truth. Films that offer no certainties, but open windows toward the unseen human experience, lived just beneath the skin.