Love for cinema comes from a very young age. In the darkness of a screening room it is easy to be enchanted by stories, sometimes far from our everyday life and able to offer us a new point of view on the world, others so intimate and exciting that we discover something more about ourselves.A bond so strong and firm that today still represents the push to continue traveling with imagination while the world seems to stand still; this is a nutshell is what happened to the 1400 jurors of the Winter Edition who found themselves on the web in Giffoni's digital cinemas.
It is the desire for discovery, comparison, dialogue, growth and questioning of every security that brings thousands of young people, yearly, to choose the most profound films, the ones that leave a mark. #Giffoni50 comes to an end - but will be back in 2021, the year of 50Plus - but the desire to be together and to reward, after intense days of screenings and debates, the three winning feature films of the Gryphon Award 2020 for the Elements +6, +10 and Gex Doc does not stop. A passionate selection that included works from Italy and all over Europe, as well as from the United States, Iran, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Russia, Turkey and Israel.
The strength of friendship in THE ELFKINS: Baking a difference (Germany) by Ute von Münchow-Pohl, distributed in Italy by Koch Media and on various digital platforms from 5 January, has won Elements +6. For the director it is a return to Giffoni, having had three films already presented in Elements +3 section: LAURA'S STAR AND THE DREAMMONSTER in 2012, RAVEN THE LITTLE RASCAL - THE BIG RACE in 2015 and RABBIT SCHOOL - GUARDIANS OF THE GOLDEN EGG in 2017. For more than 200 years the Elfkins have lived underground, avoiding any contact with humans. But one day the young Helvi decides to come out and meet her fate.
The Elements +10 had no doubts about the choice of the winner: this time the award was given to THE CLUB OF UGLY CHILDREN (Holland) by Jonathan Elbers, distributed in Italy by Rai Cinema. In a city where looks and self-care are everything, an evil president decides to segregate all the children that are not up to expectations. Paul will soon realize the diabolical plan and, together with Sara, will prove that you don't need to be cute to become a hero.
Triumphing in the Gex Doc section, totally dedicated to documentaries, is the Emmy Award-winning director for the film MEDORA, Davy Rothbart, who presented 17 BLOCKS (United States) at Giffoni. In 1999, nine-year-old Emmanuel Sanford-Durant and his family began filming their life in America's most dangerous neighborhood, just 17 blocks from the United States Capitol building. Over two decades, the documentary tells the crisis of a nation through the rough and personal story of a family.
