Tuesday, 17 October 2017 16:14

Giffoni Macedonia starts tomorrow

From the 18th to the 23rd of October the fifth edition of the Festival in the heart of the Balkans

The fifth edition of Giffoni Macedonia will start tomorrow with over 700 young people, aged between 10 and 18, from 12 European countries. At the inauguration ceremony of the Festival, which will be held in Skopje from October 18th to 23rd, the director of the Giffoni Experience, Claudio Gubitosi will be in attendance, while the President Piero Rinaldi will attend the closing night.

"Since 2013, in collaboration with the National Agency for Macedonian Cinema, directed by Gorjan Tozija and with the support of their respective Ministries of Culture, we have carried out this event with passion - says Gubitosi - and I am thankful to Darko Basheski, director of Giffoni Macedonia for his efforts. I would also like to Acknowledge the Minister of Culture, Robert Alagjozovski, who immediately realized the importance of our mission. A heartfelt thank you to the Italian Ambassador in Skopje, Carlo Romeo, for the precious cooperation and attention. I am happy that Giffoni Macedonia 2017 is part of the Week of Italian Language in the World, which this year is dedicated to cinema. The Commitment, love and respect for a festival that continues to grow in the heart of the Balkans has given credit to Macedonia and to the idea of how much it is central to our work."

The event, with a theme inspired by the 47th edition of the Giffoni Film Festival, "Into the magic of cinema", will welcome participants from the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, as well as children from nations such as Georgia and Azerbaijan. Of course there is also a big delegation from the Giffoni Experience: Marco Cesaro, assistant director and project coordinator, Jacopo Gubitosi and Antonino Muro, who will illustrate the Giffoni Innovation department’s new initiatives, while Giusi Rago and Maria Pia Montuori will chaperone the 13 giffoners invited to the Festival. The young jury members are Giorgia Anania, Donato Scarano, Roberto De Mattia, Alessandro Costantino, Silvano Melloni, Matteo D'Arienzo, Carmine Tedesco, Paola Di Stefano, Nicole Bernardo, Martina Coppola, Mario Cesaro, Emanuele Migliaccio and Pasquale Lorito. They are tasked together with the other jurors to whatch feature films, shorts -film and documentaries, voting the best productions in the contest and sharing their opinions during debates and workshops.

The opening ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow, October 18, at 19:30 at the Cinema Millenium, with a preview of "Hunting Flies" by director Izer Aliu. The film was written and produced (with Khalid Maimouni for Storyline Pictures) by Aliu, the film is set in a Macedonian school where idealist teacher Ghani(Burhan Amiti, the only professional actor of the work) loses his job when a new political party takes over to the government. Therefore he tries to get his job back by blocking his students in a school and forcing them to solve an old conflict between their villages.

There are Three juries involved in the event: Juniors (from 10 to 12 years), Cadets (13 to 15 years old) and Seniors (16 to 18 years old). For the youngest, there are five works in the race: Emelie Lindblom's mysterious "Room 213", Sven Undervaltd JR's "Help, I Shrunk my teacher!", The adventurous "Mountain Miracle - an unexpected friendship" by Tobias Wiermann, the exhilarating "Master Spy" by Pieter van Rijn and the delicate "Girl in Flight" by Sandra Vannucch. The titles proposed to the Cadets are also of great interest: youngsters looking for their own identity and a different future with "Lane 1974" by SJ Chiro, a life split in two - one ideal and the other real - in "Do It Right" by Chad Chenouga, we spend six ordinary (but not really) school days with "Good Boy" by Oksana Karas, we live the emotions of the first love with "Strawberry days" by Wiktor Ericsson and find out how diversity is a source of wealth with "The Lion Girl" by Vibeke Idsøe. Great stories also enrich the Seniors: from the poetic "Little Harbor" by Iveta Grófová to the magical summer told in "Garden Lane" by Olof Spaak, through the Russian feature film "Chastnoe Pionerskoe 3" by Aleksandr Karpilovskiy and the only Italian film in competition represented by "The Girl of the World" by Claudio Giovannesi, and finally "Amok" by Vardan Toziaja, the story of a young pragmatic and rebellious guy. There are also two documentaries in the Jazz and Film section: "Dixieland" by Roman Bodarchuk and "The jazz loft according to W.Eugene Smith" by Sara Fishko. The Works are the demonstration of how art, in all its forms, can meet, contaminate and complete itself in all its declinations.

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