Ho Chi Minh City is getting a week of Italian cinema, and it won't cost a thing. From November 2-7, the Italian Consulate General, working with the Asian Film Festival in Rome, hosts the 2026 Italian Film Festival with six recent films screening nightly at 7pm — all free admission.
The line-up is strong. Opening night features La Grazia (The Pardon) from Paolo Sorrentino, the director behind the Oscar-winning La Grande Bellezza, in a contemplative story about loneliness, doubt and conscience at the height of power. From there the programme moves through Il Maestro (My Tennis Maestro), a sports drama by Andrea Di Stefano on November 3; Primavera by Damiano Michieletto on November 4; Margherita Spampinato's family drama Gioia Mia (Sweetheart) on November 5; the road movie Le Città di Pianura (The Last One for the Road) by Francesco Sossai on November 6; and closes with Ferzan Ozpetek's comedy-drama Diamanti (Diamonds) on November 7.
Everything on screen was produced in 2024-2025, hand-picked by Antonio Termenini, artistic director of the Asian Film Festival, so it's a genuinely current snapshot of Italian filmmaking rather than a greatest-hits retrospective. The idea is to show everyday life and society in Italy and build a cultural bridge to Vietnamese audiences.
There's more than just the films. Italian Film Week brings seven specialists — covering film studies, criticism, acting, screenwriting, production design, film music and creative community development — for discussions alongside the screenings.
Practicalities: all screenings take place at Galaxy Nguyễn Du, 116 Nguyễn Du Street, Bến Thành Ward, starting at 7pm each evening. You'll need to register in advance through the festival website ifwvn.netlify.app.
For travellers already in Saigon in early November, this is an easy, free evening out in a city known mostly for street food and rooftop bars. It's the kind of unplanned cultural bonus that makes a trip memorable — an Italian arthouse film in a Vietnamese cinema, no booking fee, no language barrier to entry if you're happy reading subtitles.
