There is controversy over the Giffoni Film Festival, the film event dedicated to children and young people which this year, among the many guests, also includes Alessandro Orsini, known for his positions against military aid to Ukraine in the war against the Russian invasion . The announcement of Orsini’s presence on 27 July in Giffoni Valle Piana (Salerno), released yesterday on the festival’s social channels, sparked criticism from those who consider the presence of the sociology of terrorism teacher inappropriate. Claudio Gubitosi, founder and director of Giffoni, intervenes on the matter, defending the choice that, he emphasizes, was made by the boys, protagonists of the festival.
“Once again – he writes – everyone pretends to take the place of this extraordinary youth, speaking for them without having the ownership of them. How can we say, today, that these young people are influenced? Almost all of the guests, in a form of cooperation, is chosen by them: this is the beauty of an event that is built with them and for them. I did not want conductors: they are the absolute protagonists on stage. Without filters, with the quality of their communication, they are free to say, think, disagree, share their visions with the more than 250 guests they will meet and with whom they will discuss cinema, entrepreneurship, journalism, science, politics, literature, art, entertainment, sport, culture “.
According to Gubitosi “not everyone knows the Giffoni project as a whole. The Festival lives on its strong experience and is aimed at children aged 3 to 18, with films, meetings, talents and anything else a Festival has to and can express. For years , the affection and love that these guys have for Giffoni has made it possible to mature, grow and develop sections, let’s call them collateral, no longer reserved for the jurors but for those who want to keep alive a relationship with a place where they can express themselves and be heard. In the aftermath of 2000, the section was called ‘Questions from one century to the next’, then the ‘Masterclasses’ were born which carried out their function up to four years ago, divided into four sections: humanistic, musical, ecological and the cinema address, each with its own mission. In 2019 I felt the need to restructure the masterclasses in a real moment of confrontation, inverting the axis between speaker and audience and expanding the p the possibility and the right of young people to know and be heard. Thus was born ‘Impact!’, Reserved for 200 young Italians aged 18 to 30, a real University of Giffoni where the kids teach and freely express opinions and opinions “.
Gubitosi stresses that “in 52 years I have never disappointed my children or their parents. I have therefore noticed a strong superficiality but at the same time I understand it, because everywhere I feel the strong love that everyone has for this extraordinary Italian story known and loved in Worldwide”.
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