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Francesco Cabras in Beijing: A Journey Through Cinema and Photography

akram tree
  • Data evento: Il 11 Maggio 2026, 19:00 (Ora locale)
  • A pagamento: No
We are pleased to host the multifaceted artist—director and photographer— Francesco Cabras in Beijing for two exclusive events. Best known internationally for his extensive photographic work with prestigious pubblications, Cabras brings his unique vision to the Chinese capital.
🎬May 11th, 7:00 PM | Screening: “The Akram Tree”
An intimate journey into the art of legendary choreographer Akram Khan.
Venue: Italian Cultural Institute (IIC) Beijing
81 min, 2011, English with Chinese subtitles
The documentary The Akram Tree is a journey into the personal and professional world of the Anglo-Bangladeshi dancer and choreographer Akram Khan. “My intelligence is in my body,” says Akram himself — a body shaped by acute observations of reality, by legends, and by relentless work, here embodied in Gnosis, a piece created together with seven other artists selected from different parts of the world. Traditions and experimentation from India, Japan, Pakistan, England, Egypt, Iraq and Bangladesh come together to create a work suspended between classical Kathak dance and contemporary dance. The documentary portrays the story of this unique human and artistic adventure, often transcending narrative in favor of a more visionary gaze, influenced by the place where it was filmed: the futuristic and contradictory city of Abu Dhabi, along with its surrounding desert landscapes, both austere and metaphysical.
DIRECTING, CINEMATOGRAPHY, WRITING, EDITING: Francesco Cabras, Alberto Molinari
FEATURING: Akram Khan, Faheem Mazar, Manjunath B C, Chandramouli, Sanju Sahai, Yoshie Sunahata, Ahmad Shamma, Bassam Abd Aljattar, Farooq Chaudhry

FESTIVALS & AWARDS

Best Documentary — Dhaka International Film Festival 2012; Best Film — Hong Kong Jumping Frames Dance Video Festival 2012; GFF Gulf Film Festival 2012; Loikka Film Festival Helsinki 2012; RIFF Rome Independent Film Festival 2012; Monterrey Film Festival 2012; Jumping Frames Film Festival Beijing 2012; InShadow Festival Lisbon 2015; UCLA Film Screenings, Los Angeles
FRANCESCO CABRAS (Rome, 1966) is a photographer and filmmaker whose practice develops at the intersection of documentary experience and autonomous visual research. With a background in psychology, his work spans documentary cinema, music videos, video art and cultural projects, often in collaboration with NGOs and international organizations. As a photographer, he has exhibited in museums, institutions and galleries in Italy and abroad. His images frequently engage with people, places and inner landscapes, not as subjects to be described but as fields of perception. His approach resists a strictly narrative or documentary framework, moving instead toward a suspended and often ambiguous visual space, where reality is filtered through a personal, subtly visionary drift.
ALBERTO MOLINARI is a director, actor and musician. A graduate of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, he co-founded the production company GANGA with Francesco Cabras in 1999, initiating a long-standing artistic collaboration across film, music and visual projects.In the 1990s, he was among the founders of “Il Locale,” a seminal venue in Rome that contributed to shaping contemporary Italian music and performance scenes. Alongside his work in cinema, Molinari has composed soundtracks for numerous productions, bringing a strong musical dimension into his broader artistic practice.
📸May 16th, 4:30 PM | Artist Talk: Every Image is a Landscape
For the second appointment, Cabras will host a talk at the prestigious Three Shadows Photography Art Centre. Under the title Every Image is a Landscape,  the audience will discover the secrets behind his iconic social and travel photography.