First visit for over 10 years of a representative of the Italian government in the country
The visit to Skopje by Senator Lucia Borgonzoni, Undersecretary to MiBAC, ended yesterday, on the occasion of the sixth edition of the "Giffoni Macedonia Youth Festival".
A dense agenda of meetings with representatives of the government and the Macedonian cultural universe and with 650 young people (from 10 countries) the protagonists of the Macedonian festival. On Tuesday morning, accompanied by Ambassador Carlo Romeo, the director of Giffoni Experience Claudio Gubitosi and the director of Giffoni Macedonia Darko Basheski, Senator Borgonzoni met the "Seniors" jurors at the Cinema Millenium, to whom he made his best wishes for the edition.
On this occasion, the "Giffoni 2018" video was shown as a world preview. Subsequently, the Undersecretary met the Macedonian Minister of Culture Asaf Ademi, who thanked the Honorable Member for his visit to the country and expressed the government's strong desire to continue the already close collaboration between Italy and his country in the scope of cinematographic co-productions.
The Minister thanked Director Gubitosi and Director Basheski for the success of the Macedonian festival, confirming the importance that the country holds in the international projects of Giffoni and in particular in the Balkans. The meeting with Minister Ademi was followed by a meeting with the Director of the Macedonian Film Agency Gorjan Tozija, who expressed his total support for the Giffoni projects in Macedonia and called for the development of training projects (master classes and workshops) in a cinematic context in the Balkan country through the collaboration with Giffoni Experience, hosting Italian professionals in the sector.
In the afternoon, the undersecretary visited together with 20 jurors of the Italian delegation of Giffoni, the exhibition of the Italian Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje and the ancient Turkish quarter of the capital.
The undersecretary also had a meeting with the Macedonian Deputy Minister of Culture Vladimir Lazoski.
On Wednesday, Senator Borgonzoni met the students and professors of the Department of Italian Studies of the "Cyril and Methodius" University of Skopje. On this occasion she thanked the whole organization for their work, highlighting the success achieved this year with the introduction of Italian classes in the Macedonian school system and expressed the hope for an increasingly fruitful collaboration between Italy and Macedonia in view of the 60th anniversary of the teaching of Italian in the world in 2019.
At the end of the visit in Macedonia, the Undersecretary visited the Italian Embassy bringing the salute of the Italian Government to all the diplomatic staff and then met the jurors of the festival in the category "cadets" at the MKC Cinema Frosina.
Recalling her visit to Giffoni in July, the Senator congratulated Director Gubitosi for bringing the emotions of the Italian edition of the festival to Skopje, and she thanked the Macedonian capital and the organizers, saying: “Usually when a person goes abroad they feel like a guest. Here it is not like that. Here, with you, I feel at home”.
