Josh Gad among Hollywood guests at 2025 Mediterrane Film Festival

Josh Gad, known for voicing Olaf in Frozen and playing Elder Arnold Cunningham in The Book of Mormon, will be one of the Hollywood guests in attendance at the Mediterrane Film Festival this week.

Gad will join filmmakers, industry figures and audiences for the third edition of the festival, which takes place between 21 and 29 June. Now in its third year, the festival will feature over 40 films from more than 20 countries, with a programme that includes 10 Main Competition titles, 12 Out of Competition screenings, and six environmental-themed films under the Mare Nostrum banner.

Among the Main Competition highlights is The Return by Uberto Pasolini, reuniting Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in a reimagining of Homer’s Odyssey; Hot Milk, the directorial debut of Rebecca Lenkiewicz; and The Theft of the Caravaggio, a new thriller from Maltese director Joshua Cassar Gaspar imagining the disappearance of a priceless painting from Valletta’s St John’s Co-Cathedral.

Other films competing include Harvest by Athina Rachel Tsangari, Fiume o Morte! by Croatia’s Igor Bezinović, and The Wound, winner of Best Debut Feature at the Athens International Art Film Festival.

Out-of-competition titles include Peter Hujar’s Day starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, Neil Marshall’s Malta-set erotic thriller Compulsion, and Four Letters of Love featuring Pierce Brosnan and Helena Bonham Carter. There are also a couple of quirky entries like Time Travel is Dangerous—a comedy set in a vintage clothing shop—and About a Hero, featuring an AI-generated version of Werner Herzog solving a murder mystery.

The festival will also screen Gloria!, an 18th-century musical drama by Italian singer Margherita Vicario, and Love and Glory—The Long Deledda, about the life of Nobel Prize-winning author Grazia Deledda. Meanwhile, the Mare Nostrum strand will spotlight stories about the climate crisis, including the Louisiana-set documentary Lowland Kids, Only on Earth, which explores wildfire-stricken Galicia, and the animated Black Butterflies.

This year’s Golden Bee Awards jury includes Oscar-winning production designer Rick Carter, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, and Maltese filmmaker Mario Philip Azzopardi.

Festival-goers can also attend industry masterclasses by top names like Jon Watts, Amazon Studios’ Glenn Gainor, and The Last Emperor producer Jeremy Thomas.  Sessions will be held at the dramatic 400-year-old Fort Ricasoli.

Led by festival director Ray Calleja and curator Mark Adams, the Mediterrane Film Festival aims to foster creative exchange across the Mediterranean region and beyond.  “We stand for opportunity, collaboration and creativity,” Film Commissioner Johann Grech said. “This festival is about turning bold ideas into reality.”