This year, the event, organised by Giffoni Experience with the Macedonian association Planet-M, is part of the Italia Experience project promoted by the Ministry of Culture – Directorate General for Cinema and Audiovisual and was co-financed for North Macedonia by the North Macedonia Film Agency, supported by the Italian Embassy in Skopje and the Italian Institute of Culture in Belgrade.
The festival took place in three locations in the capital Skopje and engaged more than 500 young people from North Macedonia and 5 other countries as jurors. the packed programme included films, meetings, masterclasses, creative workshops, exhibitions and other events.
On the opening night there was a screening of the film Italo by Alessia Scarso. Over the following five days, a further 15 feature films and over 30 shorts and animated films were screened in the various competition categories.
According to the original festival formula, each screening is followed by a discussion amongst the young people, who are invited to share their view on the film they have just seen and on the themes it dealt with. This year, five directors and actors from the competing films also took part in the discussions, including Vincenzo Caiazzo, the director of the Italian film Il Diario di Carmela.
There were also nine creative workshops, under the guidance of industry professionals (Design, Filmmaking, Musicals, Photography, Video Editing, Comics, Animation, Digital Design and One-Take Videos) and the creations produced during these workshops were showcased on the closing evening.
The programme included various meetings and masterclasses, some of which were also open to the public, where the young jurors had the chance to meet personalities from the world of art and culture who talked to them about the multiple opportunities and career prospects in the creative industries. This year’s masterclass programme featured the film festivals with which Giffoni Macedonia collaborates, a group of actors and directors from Skopje who organise improvisational theatre, a group of young Macedonian filmmakers and actors (former Giffoni jurors) who have created the first TV series produced entirely by young people and the land artists Roberto Ghezzi and Antonio Massarutto.
Finally, an entire day – 6 October – was dedicated to Italian comics: Italian Comics Day, an event organised in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Skopje as part of the Week of Italian Language in the World, with guests including Alessandro Bilotta and Sergio Gerasi, authors of numerous Bonelli Editore comics.
The two cartoonists talked about their work and answered the many questions from the jurors. Gerasi also drew a character created right there and then by one of the jurors, projected live onto the big screen. Finally, the exhibition was opened in the Youth Cultural Centre, with ten comic strips drawn by Gerasi on Bilotta’s characters.
Giffoni Macedonia focuses in particular on the international character of the Festival and the sharing of cultural values among young people from different countries. This year, jurors from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Ireland and Serbia also took part and stayed with the families of their Macedonian companions during the Festival.
After the event in Skopje, Italian Experience will travel to Spain in November (in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture of Madrid) and then continue on to Croatia in March and then a final event in Poland.
