Mambo Kids short film selected for Berlinale 2026 Generation 14plus

The short film 'Mambo Kids' has been selected for the 76th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in the Generation 14plus section, running from February 12 to 22, 2026. Directed by Emanuele Tresca, the project involves two students from the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice: Pietro Michelini (born 2000) as producer and executive producer, and Tommaso Olivotto (born 2002) as assistant director. Michelini is a third-year student in New Technologies of Art – Multimedia Arts at the Venetian academy, while Olivotto is about to graduate in the same program and plans to pursue a master's in Decoration – Art and Public Space. Shot in Caserta and featuring Casertan dialect, the approximately 20-minute film follows Alessandro and Flavio, two twenty-somethings on a late summer day, capturing a sense of impending adulthood through silences, waiting, and micro-epiphanies, culminating in an unspoken farewell. The production company is Onirica Pictures, an independent collective emphasizing cinema as shared practice and community space. Olivotto also pursues visual research focused on analog techniques and the obsolescence of digital systems.