(ANS – Giffoni) – The Giffoni Cinema Workshop, organised by the National Association of Youth Social and Cultural Film Clubs (CGS),  ended on 24th July. About 80 people took part, including teachers, cultural workers, youth leaders and children from middle schools. The idea was an offshoot of the Giffoni Film Festival (GFF), an international exhibition started in 1971 to promote children’s cinema.

The Giffoni Cinema Workshop offered two course. The first, for teachers, cultural workers and youth leaders, explored the links between cinema and education. During the course, 60 hours in total, there was a showing of short films from the ‘Life Journeys’ project produced by local CGS Associations. The participants also took part in Festival events, viewing of films in the various sections of the contest and in theatrical performances and concerts.

The second, designed for a representative group of children from middle schools in Macerata and Alassio, offered a special course on film criticism. The children also produced video diaries of their everyday experience. They were joined by another group of children from other areas who were attending the Festival.

CGS also awarded two prizes of its own. A panel of children from CGS awarded the ‘CGS 2012 Creative Courses’ prize to the film ‘Milo’ by Berend and Roel Boorsma ‘because through an original and well-written story, it deals with the themes of belonging and self-acceptance, very dear to the hearts of contemporary adolescents, without falling into commonplace or predictable narrative solutions, and because it connected in an integral way with the thread running through the Festival. The quality of direction and interpretation by the actors makes the work stimulating and invites curiosity and reflection through the use of expressive techniques easily understood and appreciated even by a very young audience’.

The CGS prize ‘The Digital Workshop’ went to ‘The Foster Boy’ (Der Verdingbub) by Markus Imboden: ‘because it deals with themes which are too often ignored such as child exploitation, gratuitous violence, personal affirmation at all costs. It criticises hypocrisy, injustice and stolen childhood. It depicts the difficulties of children, but also describes the dream of someone who wants to find happiness through music. We want to award the prize because of the emotional impact it had on all of us, thanks to the use of strong images in a cold and detached atmosphere’.

The same panel also gave a Special Mention to the film ‘Milo’.

CGS is one of the partners of Euro Clip Don Bosco, the European Short Film Festival for young people promoted by the Departments of Social Communications and Youth Ministry. This event, including participants from various provinces and nations in Salesian Europe, will be celebrated in the Autumn of 2013.

Published 2/8/2012