While I’m waiting for the bus that will take me back to Salerno, a group of girls, sworn by the Giffoni film festival, approaches, judging by the badge hanging from their neck. One of them asks me if you can take a selfie with me. I point out that I’m not famous. “Of course not”, she replies relentlessly, “I saw you on the news”. OK then. She takes the selfie and walks away happy with her friends.
Fifty plus one. The Giffoni film festival (one of the most important and long-lived events in the world on cinema for children) has taken measures to the pandemic and has managed to propose an almost “normal” edition, at least more normal than 2020. Last year, in fact , like many other cultural events, the festival of Giffoni Valle Piana – a small town in the hills a few kilometers from Salerno – had to adapt, dividing the edition into three parts, two in August and one in December, which took place entirely online. This year, however, we returned to the old location, at the end of July, from 21st to 31st, despite the overlap with the 74th edition of the Cannes festival, which took place a few days before the inauguration of the one in Giffoni, sucking a black hole star, industry professionals and journalists.
After the pandemic
Of course, the 2021 edition is not comparable to the last one before the pandemic. At the end of constant growth, the 2019 vintage had been exceptional and according to journalists and professionals it was on the way to becoming one of the most important festivals in Italy, thanks to the influx of audiences and international stars. In the current conditions, it was objectively impossible to think of hosting more than six thousand jurors, that is to say children and young people aged three to twenty, from about fifty countries. It was equally unthinkable to be able to welcome guests from all over the world or to approach the estimated 350 thousand admissions in the nine days of the festival two years ago.
Over the span of fifty years, the Giffoni film festival has been able to grow and transform itself into a reality that goes far beyond the event, it has sown well, creating professionalism and jobs (the structure of the festival has over two hundred collaborators, many of the which began as jurors, as children). Since the legendary participation of François Truffaut in 1982, Giffoni has carved out a growing share of the attention of local and national institutions, and of the media. A sign of the passion and undeniable political abilities of the creator and director Claudio Gubitosi (for some years supported by his son Jacopo), but also of the fact that the festival undoubtedly knows how to be loved.
However, three thousand young people took part in the 50Plus edition who, together with another two thousand scattered in 36 hubs (26 in Italy and ten abroad), will have to judge 101 films from 35 countries. The selection is very varied: they range from animated shorts for the juries of the youngest to those chosen for those of the older ones, films to which the categorization as children’s films is very narrow. Even in the sections dedicated to older children and adolescents, the selectors do not set many limits. There are no taboo topics, but the topic itself is never a criterion of choice.
In any case, this large “non-professional” jury will hardly award a work for reasons other than approval. Before the end of the event, 120 Italian guests will be paraded in the citadel of cinema and the films in competition will be accompanied by previews of more commercial products such as Jungle cruise, Disney adventure with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt, the first Paw Patrol feature film or even the presentation of the new (much feared by parents) movie Me Against You.
It is not cheap, even if everyone hopes for a complete return to normal. From the direction of the festival they say that the event this year runs at a third of its usual rate. Moreover, especially after what some have already dubbed the “European effect”, covid-19 remains a strong concern. This is testified by the decision taken as a precaution by the festival management, a few hours after the inauguration, to suspend the Giffoni music concept, a dozen free live concerts that would have enlivened the evenings of a thousand people.
In short, to make a virtue of necessity, the Giffoni film festival 2021 has returned to its essence, an appointment where the main dish is cinema and the protagonists are the kids: they are the public, the jury, the raison d’être. And in the end, the feeling is that the great sounding board built around the festival could also be done without. The concerts, the guests, the red carpet (which in this case is blue), the presence of the press and TV are all important elements to keep up a structure that has no intention of going back. But in the end these are elements that add little to the true essence of the festival: bringing young people closer to cinema, nurturing and cultivating their dreams, broadening their horizons, getting them used to interacting with the world of adults, showing them that they have a whole world to conquer.
Thinking back to the little girl who wanted to take a selfie I hope she won’t be too disappointed when she finds out that the photo with me is not very meaningful. But it’s only the first few days of the festival, and I think she’ll have forgotten it by the end.
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