Saturday, 27 July 2019 20:21

The winning shorts of #Giffoni2019: a hymn to integration and the beauty of differences

The jurors of the Giffoni Film Festival 49th edition, through the prizes awarded to the short films, chosen to send out a powerful message: no geographical boundaries, no prejudices, no differences can limit the confrontation between different cultures, realities and lives.

The first short awarded with the Gryphon Award, chosen by Elements +3 section, was THE MOST MAGNIFICENT THING by Arna Selznick (Canada). A little girl with a creative spirit is determined to make great things. Joined by her best friend, her pet dog, the two happily explore the world, doing absolutely everything together. When she receives her very own tool kit, the little girl sets out to make the most magnificent thing for her best friend – but it’s not as easy as she thinks!

The value of diversity is the main theme of ZIBILLA by Isabelle Favez (Switzerland), the winning short for Element+6 kids. Zibilla is different and children at school don't accept her. When she unintentionally falls into an exciting adventure and meets a wild lion, she gains the self-confidence to roar back.

As for Elements+10 jurors, the preference went to THE SCHOOL TRIP, a short by Italian director Salvatore Allocca. At the age of 14, Megalie, daughter of an immigrant family from Senegal but born and brought up in Italy, is faced with the difficult task of finding a place for herself in the world she is living in. When she is denied the opportunity of taking part in a school trip to Paris, a perfect occasion for the girl to reveal her feelings to her classmate Marco, she loses her hope.

Generator +18 youth were conquered by SONG SPARROW by Farzaneh Omidvarnia (Denmark). People of different colors, race and culture, old and young, embark on journeys, eager to find some place they can call home, or just some place they can live in. This film is about real events which happened in Austria in August 2015.

Last but not least are the two winners selected by Parental Experience category. The prize for the national competition went to SKIN by Guy Nattiv (USA), which already received and Oscar® as Best Short Film last February. In a small supermarket in a blue-collar town, a black man smiles at a 10-year-old white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous moment sends two gangs into a ruthless war that ends with a shocking backlash. As for the Parental Experience international competition, the prize went to BROTHER by Beppe Tufarulo. When they are forced to separate, 10-year-old Ali and his 18-year-old brother Mohammed have already been travelling for a long time. Three years earlier, a bomb destroyed their home in Kabul and killed their parents.

Such choices testify once again the meaningful nature of Giffoni: a place open to thoughts, dreams and expectations – multi-faceted and different – of youth coming from all over the world. That is a place that every giffoner can call home.

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