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Dolce: Public Talk by director Charlie Cauchi and cinematographer Julie Mingo

Malta’s cinematic history is one of substitution: a landscape repeatedly cast as ancient Rome, biblical Judea, medieval kingdoms, and speculative futures. Each production leaves a trace, layering new fictions over old realities without fully erasing what lies beneath.

Dolce, created by artist filmmaker Charlie Cauchi and shot by cinematographer Julie Mingo, interrogates this palimpsest with a critical and personal lens.

For Cauchi, Malta’s long-standing role as a global film set is not merely an industrial phenomenon but a lived condition, an island that has often felt more like someone else’s mise en scène than a home. Together with Mingo’s attentive cinematography, Dolce examines how these accumulated representations shape cultural identity, memory, and the politics of place.

The film was commissioned by Arts Council Malta and was presented in the Malta Pavilion - curated by and also featuring work by and - as part of No Need to Sparkle: Experiments in Love and Revolution at the 61st International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (through 22 November 2026.

The screening and Q&A invite participants to explore the intersections of cinema, national image-making, and the residual power of the stories a country is asked to perform.

Bios

is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker with a BA and MA in Film Studies from Queen Mary University of London. She is currently one of 3 artists representing Malta at La Biennale di Venezia, as part of No Need to Sparkle: Experiments in Love and Revolution. Her biographical practice explores identity, cultural heritage and diaspora. Her research focuses on small national cinemas, particularly Malta's; her book Titles to Talkies: An Incomplete History of Film Culture and Industry in Malta (2025) was nominated for a 2026 National Book Prize. She is currently producing and directing Stratum, a feature documentary on archaeological discoveries by Professors Eleanor Scerri and Nicholas Vella reshaping Malta's prehistory. She co-founded Rosa Kwir, Malta's first LGBTQI+ gallery and archive, with Romeo Roxman Gatt and Sarah Chircop.

is a French director of photography, a graduate of La Fémis, and based in France. She works on fiction films, documentaries, and experimental works. Also a camera operator and colorist, shedevelops an approach to the image that is attentive to the uniqueness of each project. Her career has been marked by diverse collaborations and feature films screened at leading international film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival—where Manta Ray by Anton Bialas was presented at Critics’ Week and The Marvelous Mornings was part of the Official Selection—and the most recent Venice Film Festival, where Nicolas Pariser’s One Minute to Midnight was featured. In 2026, she collaborated with Charlie Cauchi on Dolce, a 25-minute art video created for the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art.