“We want everyone to feel like fathers and householders of the Giffoni Film Festival”: so affirmed director Claudio Gubitosi during the closing conference of the GFF 46th edition. “From September 30th to April 30th – he went on – we will launch a crowdfunding addressed to everyone. We’re certain that the youth will pleasantly renounce on a pizza with their friends in order to support Giffoni. Together with their families, they will become the real protagonists and supporters of the GFF because the festival belongs to them. What’s more, civil and entrepreneurial society must stand by our side. We invite all the entrepreneurs from Salerno, the Campania region and the whole Italy to get actively involved and support us”.
Afterwards, the director ideally talked to the jurors. “Yesterday night – he said – I heard two boys telling each other: ‘The Giffoni ends tomorrow. What will I do?’. I want to tell the 4200 youths, that will be sad without their festival by tomorrow on, that they are our strength and our resource. We will turn to them to build the new edition. The youth, of course, but not only them: "we want to turn to families as well, because this year the Giffoni opened its doors to them too, reserving screenings especially for them. Thanks to the Giffoni, parents and children got even closer to each other”, explained the director, underlining the importance of the films in competition that “highlight uneasiness, sufferings, worries and symptoms of a society that is never too safe”.
Gubitosi also presented impressive record figures: “50 million people have followed us on the Internet. Among these, 4 million users have followed us on streaming; the number of pictures and videos shot by the youths is incalculable; the international media coverage has been praised to the skies; international and Italian movie stars consider the Giffoni as one of the few top cinema appointments they must absolutely be invited to. As a matter of fact, sociologist Domenico De Massi affirmed that the Giffoni is to cinema as Cupertino is to Apple”.
For a few years, though, Giffoni has not been just cinema anymore: Innovation Hub, the project accelerator started by Luca Tesauro and Orazio Maria Di Martino, has become a point of reference for startups, and is going to find its perfect position into the Multimedia Valley, the building set to host the Giffoni Experience starting from next edition, where the dreams of 5000 jurors coming from all over the world will finally come true.
Gubitosi gave the floor to the jurors of the different sections, who went on about culture, their will to share emotions and thoughts, and the way Giffoni is going to grow inside them until next edition arrives. Then was the turn of the managers who selected the films in competition, who are the boast of the film section: Manlio Castagna, Antonia Grimaldi, Gianvincenzo Nastasi, Luca Apolito and Tony Guarino. Thanks to their care and professionalism, they’ve been able to capture the young jurors’ desires, ending up us their confidants and models.
Among the forthcoming projects are: a partnership for a teacher training programme between the Giffoni Experience and Formamentis, as well as a crowd funding agreement. Director Gubitosi also lingered over Aura, the social branch of the Giffoni Experience: “I wish to thank all the Aura staff and President Alfonsina Novellino for their careful and professional work”.
According to President Piero Rinaldi: “It’s been an amazing edition, and the records can prove that. We’ve overcome several difficulties, I know what it means to manage such a complex machine. This is the proof that Claudio Gubitosi’s project is a valuable one.
