Event date and time: 
1st screening, 21.05.2026, 16:30/19:10
2nd screening, 28.05.2026, 16:45-19:00
3rd screening, 18.06.2026, 16:30/19:00
4th screening, 08.07.2026, 16:45-19:00
5th screening, 16.07.2026, 16:30/19:00

FUTURE(s) Club is a film-screening and discussion initiative organised by Anna Romanovych, Mehmet Çağlar Akyiğit, Barbara Rinaldi, and Abdullah Ahmadi, PhD students of the Human Rights, Society and Multi-level Governance PhD Programme at the Human Rights Centre “Antonio Papisca” of the University of Padua, under the supervision of Prof. Alberto Lanzavecchia, PhD Coordinator.

The initiative creates a shared academic space where members of the University community can watch films together and reflect collectively on major issues shaping our societies, our memories, and our possible futures. Through cinema, dialogue, and facilitated discussion, FUTURE(s) Club invites participants to engage with questions related to human rights, climate change, social justice, psychology, conflict, democracy, environmental protection, collective memory, and the responsibilities we hold toward one another and the planet.

The aim is not only to watch films, but also to use them as starting points for wider conversations. Each meeting offers an opportunity to connect cinematic narratives with historical, social, political, ecological, and psychological perspectives. By discussing past and current experiences, participants are invited to consider how these experiences shape the futures we imagine, fear, resist, and seek to build together.

Why FUTURE(s)?

The name FUTURE(s) reflects the idea that the future is not singular, fixed, or already determined. Different communities, societies, and individuals imagine the future in different ways, depending on their histories, vulnerabilities, struggles, hopes, and lived experiences. Some futures are marked by environmental crisis, inequality, displacement, violence, exclusion, and authoritarianism. Others are grounded in dignity, justice, democratic participation, solidarity, ecological responsibility, and human rights.

FUTURE(s) Club begins from the conviction that reflecting on possible futures requires attention to the past and the present. The challenges we face today, climate change, war, discrimination, social fragmentation, biodiversity loss, technological transformation, and the erosion of democratic values, cannot be understood without examining the experiences, injustices, and choices that have shaped them. At the same time, imagining alternative futures requires spaces where people can listen, question, share, and think together.

Cinema can help open such a space. Films allow us to encounter stories, conflicts, and perspectives that may be distant from our everyday lives, while also encouraging us to recognise connections with our own societies and responsibilities. Through discussion, these encounters can become opportunities for critical reflection, mutual learning, and collective imagination.

Format of the meetings

Each meeting will include a film screening followed by contextual input and a facilitated discussion. After the screening, participants will be invited to share reflections, questions, and feedback related to the themes raised by the film. The discussions will be conducted in English and are designed to be open, respectful, and interdisciplinary.

The programme will address themes such as human rights, environmental crisis, social inequalities, collective memory, democracy, civil society, violence, activism, and imagined futures. 

Who can participate

Participation is free of charge and reserved exclusively for members of the University of Padua community. Due to copyright requirements related to film screenings, external guests cannot be admitted. Places are limited by the room's capacity. Registration is required.

Register to participate

Educational purpose and copyright notice

This screening initiative is part of a series of academic meetings organised within the University of Padua for educational, research-dissemination, and Third Mission purposes. The events are strictly non-profit and reserved for members of the University community. No tickets are sold, no entrance fee is charged, no donations are collected, and no sponsorship, advertising, fundraising, or other commercial activity is connected to the screenings.

All copyrights and related rights in the films remain with their respective rights holders. The films are shown solely for educational and non-commercial purposes, in accordance with Italian copyright law, including Article 15(2) of Law No. 633/1941.