This year’s “CiAl environmental award”, an official award set up under the auspices of the Italian Ministry of the Environment, now at its fifteenth edition, goes to a 2018 Chilean production, made in collaboration with Brazil and Qatar. TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG by Dominga Sotomayor was presented at the most important children’s world film festival, where it competed in the Generator+16 section, including jurors aged 16 to 18. The prize, a Griffon made of recycled aluminum, was assigned by the CiAl consortium, among Giffoni historic partners, in accordance with the Festival Artistic Direction, and handed today to main actor Antar Machado by the “CiAl jury”, made of 12 students from all over Italy who won the school contest “Obiettivo Alluminio” (Objective Aluminum).
During the summer of 1990 in Chile, a small group of families live in an isolated community right below the Andes, building a new world away from the urban excesses, with the emerging freedom that followed the recent end of the dictatorship. In this time of change and reckoning, 16-year-old Sofía and Lucas, and 10-year-old Clara, neighbors in this dry land, struggle with parents, first loves, and fears, as they prepare a big party for New Year’s Eve. They may live far from the dangers of the city, but not from those of nature.
Among the reasons for the assignation of The CiAl environmental award to “TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG” is the director’s choice to tell a corner of history that, although quite distant in time, is still remarkably relevant.
