September 21, 2026

Lucca Film Festival 2026

Nanni Moretti, Julian Schnabel, Pierfrancesco Favino and Giovanni Veronesi among the festival’s leading guests

From September 26 to October 4, Lucca becomes a small capital of cinema thanks to the Lucca Film Festival: Nanni Moretti, Julian Schnabel, Pierfrancesco Favino and Giovanni Veronesi are among the leading guests, alongside premieres, exhibitions and talks to put on your calendar.

The Lucca Film Festival fills cinemas and historic venues across the city centre with a packed programme of twelve feature films and twelve short films in competition, premieres, retrospectives, masterclasses, exhibitions and meetings with some of the leading names in Italian and international cinema.

Admission is free, subject to availability. For those staying in Florence or travelling through Tuscany, it is also a good reason to spend a day in Lucca, choosing a few festival events and leaving time to explore the city’s walls, piazzas and historic streets.

The major guests

The first date to mark is September 27, when American filmmaker and artist Julian Schnabel receives the Lifetime Achievement Award and presents In the Hand of Dante. The following day he will take part in a masterclass at Cinema Astra, while the festival pays tribute to his career with a retrospective including Basquiat, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Before Night Falls and At Eternity’s Gate.

On September 29, Giancarlo Giannini arrives in Lucca to present Baracoa, directed by Cuban filmmaker Luis Ernesto Doñas, in a conversation moderated by Giovanni Bogani.

September 30 belongs to Julien Temple, the British filmmaker whose work has long been closely associated with music and popular culture. He will present The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, his 1980 mockumentary about the Sex Pistols, alongside his latest film, I Am Curious Johnny. His appearance ties in neatly with the exhibition celebrating fifty years of punk at Palazzo Guinigi.

On October 2, the spotlight turns to Liliana Cavani, who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award and take part in a conversation with film critic Fabio Ferzetti. The festival pays tribute to her with two films devoted to St Francis: Francesco d’Assisi, made for television in 1966 and starring Lou Castel, and the restored 1989 film Francesco, starring Mickey Rourke.

That same day, at Atelier Ricci, another date worth noting: Academy Award-winning costume designer Franca Squarciapino will discuss cinema, costume and character in Behind the Costume: Art, Character and Vision.

October 3 brings two of the festival’s most anticipated guests. Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish director, screenwriter and producer behind Drive, Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon, will receive the Golden Panther Award and present Her Private Hell, a thriller set in an unsettling futuristic world and starring Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton and Kristine Froseth.

The evening belongs to Nanni Moretti, who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award and be celebrated with a screening of Io sono un autarchico, his 1976 feature-film debut. For anyone planning an entire day around the festival, this is one of the events to book well in advance.

The festival closes on October 4 with Gordon Getty, musician and screenwriter, who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award and present the Italian premiere of Plump Jack with director Martin Guigui. That evening, at Cinema Astra, Giovanni Veronesi, Pierfrancesco Favino and Silvio Orlando will present Dio Ride, the film chosen to close the festival.

Two exhibitions at Palazzo Guinigi

Between screenings, make time for Palazzo Guinigi, where the festival presents two very different exhibitions.

Until October 2, John Tiberi: Punk Gaze 50 Years, curated by Alessandro Romanini, celebrates fifty years of Anarchy in the U.K., the 1976 single that propelled the Sex Pistols to the centre of the British music scene. Photographs and images capture the visual language of a movement that also changed the way music was seen.

Until October 4, Chess Cyborg Movie by Simone Domeniconi brings together chess and cinema. The chessboard becomes a framework for reinterpreting some of the best-known masterpieces in film history, giving the festival an unmistakably contemporary visual dimension.

Keith Haring, from Pisa to Lucca

On October 1 at 6pm, at the Auditorium of the San Micheletto Monumental Complex, the festival presents the world premiere of the full version of Tuttomondo, Andrea Soldani’s documentary about the making of Keith Haring’s last major permanent public artwork, created in Pisa in 1989.

It is one of the festival’s most interesting appointments for anyone coming to Lucca from Florence: an opportunity to discover the story behind a work that has become part of Tuscany’s contemporary landscape, just a few kilometres from the city.

Events You Won't Want to Miss

If time is limited, Saturday, October 3 brings together some of the festival’s key appointments: Donatella Finocchiaro, recipient of the Outstanding Woman in Film Award, Nicolas Winding Refn at Cinema Astra and, that evening, Nanni Moretti with Io sono un autarchico.

For those drawn to auteur cinema, September 27 and 28 are the days to focus on Schnabel; October 2 brings together Liliana Cavani and Franca Squarciapino; and October 4 closes the festival with Gordon Getty and Dio Ride.

The practical detail is simple: check the programme and reserve your chosen events in advance. Admission is free, but places are limited.

And then there is Lucca. Between screenings, the festival gives you every excuse to walk through the city, follow the Renaissance walls, stop for a coffee in one of its piazzas or stay on for dinner. It is one of those Tuscan programmes where cinema is an excellent reason to make the journey, but not necessarily the only one.