Hollywood star Jon Voight
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But it is not just the coastline or the local cuisine that draws Giffoni’s guests: it is the overwhelming enthusiasm they encounter there, as much from the organisers as from the thousands of young people, from all over Italy and around the world, who make up its audiences and, most important of all, its juries.
The films at Giffoni are judged by the cinemagoers for whom they were made, ranging from the young adults of the Generation Y jury, via the Festival’s oldest-established competitive section, Libere di Volare (Free to Fly), to the real youngsters: the 8-11-year-olds of the Primi Schermi (First Screens) jury.
Australian director Nadia Tass
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2000 Best Actress winner Veronica Niccolai
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At last year’s Festival, which marked the event’s 30th anniversary, the juries split their awards between an Italian film, Andrea and Antonio Frazzi’s Il cielo cade (The Sky Will Fall), based on an acclaimed autobiographical novel about growing up in wartime Tuscany, which won the Gryphon for Best Film together with a Best Actress nod for young Veronica Niccolai; an American movie, My Dog Skip, for which Frankie Muniz won Best Actor; and the Japanese film Juvenile, directed by Takashi Yamazaki, which got a Silver Gryphon from the Primi Schermi jury.
Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone
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This year’s event will kick off on July 14 with guests set to include Jamie Bell, the Oscar-nominated star of Billy Elliot, and Oscar-winning US director Oliver Stone. The Festival ends on July 21. There will be the usual flurry of screenings, meetings between film-makers and their audiences, master classes and open-air evening concerts.
And, as the Festival enters its fourth decade, it will be moving into a new home: the recently completed, purpose-built Citadel of Cinema, which will be inaugurated this summer by the President of the Republic.
Sounds like it’d be a shame to miss it…
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