Numerous prizes awarded to students of Italian schools and sections of Italians abroad who participated in the fifth edition of the playwriting competition.
The award ceremony of the ‘One, no one and one hundred thousand’ competition
Categories: Culture and creativity -Language and education
On 8 April 2022, the award ceremony of the international competition ‘One, no one and one hundred thousand’ took place at the Luigi Pirandello Theatre in Agrigento.
Hundreds of young people from all over Italy and abroad, who arrived in Pirandello’s hometown to participate in the cultural initiatives in the programme, filled the stalls and boxes of the theatre which in the previous days had been animated by the performances and projections of the students’ playwritings. The competing works of the fifth edition re-read and rewrote Pirandello in an intercultural and contemporary key, preferring topical issues such as the pandemic, the climate crisis, eating disorders, war, social unrest, technology and immigration.
The Jury for the selection of the works was chaired by Alfredo Sgroi, professor of History and Philosophy, essayist and author of several volumes on Pirandello; Margherita Marziale, a public official for cultural promotion from Office V of the Directorate General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the MAECI (Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation); Maria Lombardo, journalist of Culture and Entertainment, Film critic and Knight of Arts and Letters of the French Republic; Cinzia Terlizzi, journalist for RAI’s Tg2 in the Culture and Entertainment editorial staff, editor of the ‘CineMatinée’ section; finally, Irene Facheris, psychologist and trainer, expert in gender studies and president of the Bossy Association, which deals with inclusivity.
The Italian schools and the Italian sections abroad that participated in the initiative have won numerous awards.
For the best playwriting in the lower secondary schools category, the work ‘Il ventaglino – Tuta non deve morire’ by the Collège Jean-Philippe Rameau of Versailles received the first prize, on a par with Reggio Calabria’s ‘Bevacqua’ school, for the ability to interpret the material taken from several Pirandello’s texts in an original and current way. The Italian School ’GB Hodierna’ of Tunis won the second and third prize, with the theatrical shorts ‘I nostril ricordi’ and ‘La falsa realtà dei libri’, and also received a special mention from the Jury for the exceptional commitment for 10 theatrical shorts.
For best playwriting of the upper secondary schools, the Italian State School of Athens was awarded first place for the theatrical short ‘La Super Patente’ written in collaboration with four other local schools, for not only being able to save the spirit Pirandello, but also enhance it by relating the use of the Covid-19 face mask with the Greek custom of spitting on the ground to ward off the evil eye. Second prize was won by the student Ayşe Oral from the Liceo Scientifico IMI of Istanbul with the theatrical short ‘Ayşe e il Tour del Mistero’, while third prize went to the Italian section of the Lycée International of Saint-Germain-en-Laye for the work ‘Nelle trincee risplende la luna’.
New this year was the award assigned to the best video in the competition, which saw the Italian section of the Colegiul Naţional G. Bariţiu in Cluj-Napoca take third place with the short film ‘Le Lacrime’, directed by Prof. Laszlo Alexandru.
The ceremony was attended by Prof. Serena Bonito, head of Office V, Section II, of the Directorate General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy, as a representative from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Together with Dr. Margherita Marziali, a member of the Jury, Prof. Bonito handed the participation certificates over to the representatives of the Italian schools and sections attending the ceremony.
Prof. Bonito remarked how the ‘MAECI has intended to work on this project since the first edition because it believes in this Competition’ and added the importance of being together face to face, especially after the difficult times of the pandemic and the closure of theatres, to share what she defined as ‘an explosion of enthusiasm’.
Further information is available on the Facebook page and on the Competition website.
