Films – Giffoni Macedonia

OPENING NIGHT MOVIE

FEATURE MOVIES FOR SENIORS

FEATURE MOVIES FOR CADETS

FEATURE MOVIES FOR JUNIORS

SHORT MOVIES FOR JUNIORS

SHORT MOVIES FOR CADETS

SHORT MOVIES FOR SENIORS

STUDENTS AND ANIMATION

EPYC Short Film Award

EPYC SHORT FILM AWARD

young authors

OPENING NIGHT MOVIE

OPEN TO PUBLIC, FREE ENTRANCE Thursday, 5/10 19:00 Cinema Milenium

L'Arminuta (A Girl Returned)

Italy, 2021. 110'

Director: Giuseppe Bonito.

Summer, 1975. A thirteen-year-old girl is returned to the family she didn't know she belonged to. Suddenly she loses everything from her previous life: a comfortable home and the exclusive affection reserved for an only child.

From the novel "L'Armunita" by Donatella Di Pietrantoio

EPYC DOCUDRAMA

OPEN TO PUBLIC, FREE ENTRANCE Monday 09/10 18:00 Cinema Frosina, MKC

The Students from Umberto Primo

Greece, Italy, 2021. 80' , Docudrama.

Director: Alessandra Maioletti.

Thessaloniki, Nazi occupation, 96 percent of the Jewish population was sent to Auschwitz. This film records the untold stories of nine Jewish students who attended the Italian school, Umberto Primo. The film is based on archival material discovered in 2003 by an Italian professor and testimonies of surviving protagonists.

MOVIES FOR SENIORS

OFFICIAL SELECTION, SENIORS Friday, 06/10

Delegation

Israel, 2023. 99'

Director: Asaf Saban

Three Israeli high school friends take part in a class trip visiting Holocaust sites in Poland. During the trip, shy boy Frisch, aspiring artist Nitzan and class heartthrob Ido deal with issues of love, friendship and politics against the backdrop of concentration camps and memorial sites. This journey will change them forever.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, SENIORS Saturday , 07/10

Papaya 69

Switzerland, 2023. 90'

Directors: Riccardo Bernasconi and Francesca Reverdito

Eva is a South American girl who has grown up too fast and is on the run from an abusive ex-partner. Rainbow is a former television star caught up in a character she played when she was fourteen years old and still plays a hot version on an adult website. Their uneventful encounter will give each of them a chance to reconcile with themselves and take revenge.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, SENIORS Sunday, 08/10

Rock, Paper, Grenade

Ukraine, 2022. 93'

Director: Iryna Tsilyl

The boy Tymophiy lives in a provincial town with his family, but one day a special friend appears in his life. Felix is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, a former

counter-intelligence officer, an alcoholic broken by trials, but at the same time a very charismatic person. Being friends with such people is dangerous and fun. Like growing up in the 1990s in general.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, SENIORS Monday, 09/10

Tomorrow Somewhere by the Sea

Germany, 2023. 80'

Director: Patrick Buchting

A road trip after graduating from high school is the setting of this independent feature film, in which four fundamentally different teenagers set off to Portugal together to find themselves, their own

lives and the great freedom after school. Despite their strained friendship Konrad manages to convince Romy to go on a shared trip to the ocean during their summer holidays.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, SENIORS Tuesday, 10/10

Sisterhood

North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro 2021. 90'

Director: Dina Duma

Teenagers Maya and Yana are inseparable and do everything together. The assertive Gianna usually makes the decisions and Maya follows. One night at a party, the two catch Elena, the most popular girl at school, having sex with the boy who has been interested in Maya for a long time, and so they videotape them. Yana persuades Maya to share the video, but when it makes the rounds of the Internet, Elena's life is ruined. An intense confrontation between the three girls leads to Elena's

disappearance and Maya wants to go to the police. But Yana has something else in mind.

An adult story about the breakup of a friendship between two teenage girls, which explores in detail the phenomenon of bullying on social media that spreads among the generation of teenagers.

MOVIES FOR CADETS

OFFICIAL SELECTION, CADETS Friday, 6 /10

The fantastic Three

France, 2023. 95'

Director: Michaël Dichter

East of France, today. Max, a witty and brave 12-year-old, feels like he has two families instead of one. In and after school, he spends all his time with his two best friends Tom and Vivian, who are always there to make life easier for each other. Together, they are The Fantastic Three. His real family, on the other hand, is messy, with a depressed single mother and a brother in jail.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, CADETS Saturday, 7 /10

Guilt

Turkey, 2022. 84'

Director: Umran Safter

Reyhan, raised in a religious family, arrives to spend her summer holidays at her grandmother Ummu’s house in a conservative Central Anatolian village, accompanied by her mother Hatice, and her 6-year-old brother Mehmet. The 13-year-old is gripped by a state of inner turmoil. She has just had her first period and dreads the consequences of being unable to perform the required religious washing rites. Meanwhile, her friend Shukran, 17, fears she is pregnant and Reyhan will try to help her buy a pregnancy test.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, CADETS Sunday, 8/10

The Properties of Metals

Italy, 2023. 120'

Director: Antonio Bigini

An assortment of metal objects lies spread out on the kitchen table in front of Pietro. Closing his eyes, he gingerly stretches out his hand. Word of the boy’s psychokinetic abilities has traveled far beyond the borders of the small Italian village; they say he is able to bend more than just spoons. When a university professor starts paying Pietro regular visits, the experiments are a welcome distraction – for despite the idyllic beauty of the landscape, life here is hard: unsettled debts

linger in the air, along with unhealed wounds in the family’s history. A portrait of a world in turmoil; of a place and time in which one boy’s gift seems a beacon of hope, carrying promises of a better life.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, CADETS Monday, 9/10

Darkling

Serbia, Denmark, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, 2022. 104'

Director: Dusan Milic

Milica lives with her mother, Vukica, and grandfather, Milutin, in the wilderness of the mountains, on an estate encircled by thick woods. Every night, the family barricades themselves in the house, horrified by the terror coming from the woods. Is that horror of their encircled house just an echo of the recent war or only their fantasy, as the KFOR-officials keep telling them? There is no palpable evidence that something bad is happening, but every night, their fear grows stronger....

OFFICIAL SELECTION, CADETS Tuesday, 10/10

Excursion

Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, France, Norway, Quatar, 2023. 93'

Director: Una Gunjak

Iman, who, as her ninth grade class prepares for a field trip, attracts the attention of an older boy. After a game of truths and dares, a rumor spreads through the school that Iman is pregnant and threatens the field trip, Iman finds herself in a storm of expectations and restrictions, and the events she caused spiral out of control.

MOVIES FOR JUNIORS

OFFICIAL SELECTION, JUNIORS Thursday, 05/10

Dancing Queen

Norway, 2023. 92'

Director: Aurora Gossé

When shy, awkward seventh grader Mina joins a hip-hop dance crew, she must decide who she is and what matters most in this bright, joyous feel-good movie.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, JUNIORS FrIday, 06/10

Scrapper

United Kingsom, 2023. 83'

Director: Sharlotte Regan

Georgie, a dreamy twelve-year-old girl with her head in the clouds, lives alone in her London flat. After years of silence, however, her absent father suddenly shows up at her door, forcing her to confront the harsh reality..

OFFICIAL SELECTION, JUNIORS Sunday, 08/10

Romaissa - the Superhero from Rotterdam

Netherlands, 2022. 71'

Director: Fadua El Akchaoui

Since the loss of her father, the relationship between Romaissa and her mother Rabia has been under strain. Their flat keeps the memories of her father alive but the building has been neglected for years and awaits demolition since its purchase by an investment company. So Romaissa and her best friend and neighbour Lionel make a plan to renovate the flat and motivate the residents to join forces. And she discovers she has superpowers, but are they strong enough to stop the demolition of her home?

OFFICIAL SELECTION, JUNIORS Saturday, 07/10

The Worst Ones

France, 2022. 99'

Director: Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret

The film tells behind the scenes of a shoot in the North of France. A film director chooses to shoot in the Picasso city. He sends out a casting, looking for atypical personalities: young school dropouts, ADHD sufferers, foster children, young people leaving home... He chooses two girls and two boys, Lily, Maylis, Jessy and Ryan. Everyone is surprised by this choice: why did he only take “the worst”? Local associations are worried about the impossible hopes represented by the easy life of a film crew, the filmmaker is worried about reinforcing the stereotypes he wanted to denounce.

OFFICIAL SELECTION, JUNIORS Monday, 09/10

There and Back

Russian Federation, 2023. 107'

Director: Oleg Assadulin

Mitya and his father go to the oncology hospital for a routine examination, but the boy must stay for further examinations. Mitya meets a patient, Marina, who tells him about this magical place where you can express any wish.

SHORT FILMS FOR SENIORS

Friday, 06/10

My Grandmother's Story

By Zed B. W.

Lithuania, 10'

She is a village girl, while he is a partisan fighting the soviet oppression of their homeland. Between them stands a great love for each other.

Saturday, 07/10

Get Home Safe

by Tamara Denic

Germany 13'

Maya, a volunteer at a Way-Home-Phone service for anyone who feels unsafe on the way home at night, experiences the nightly horror of a young woman who is followed by a stranger on her way home.

Sunday, 08/10

Mother's Song

by Mauro Lamanna

Italy 15'

In the suburbs of Italy's deep south, a land of fascinating contradictions, how can a rebellious teenager, a child of the social and smartphone age, hide the heavy burden of a gift he did not ask for that will change his and his community's destiny?

Monday, 09/10

Miasma

by Tiantian He

China 20'

A young boy who grew up in a country village moves to the city to attend a prestigious school in Chongqing where he has been admitted. His initial happiness soon gives way to the frustration of not feeling truly welcomed

Tuesday, 10/10

Oh Dear Daddy

by Marco Di Gerlando

Italy 16'

Carla is 14 years old and has always been passionate about classical dance. One day she discovers that a famous company has organized an audition in her city: she has to make a decision, perhaps the most important of her life.

SHORT FILMS FOR CADETS

Friday, 06/10

Rename

by Weilong Li

China, 10'

The college entrance examination is coming, and Xu Zhaodi wants to leave her hometown's closed areas. She didn't like her name from a young age until she decided to change her name, change her appearance, and write her own name on the admission notice.

Saturday, 07/10

The Moisture

by Turan Haste

Turkeye 20'

Teacher İshak, who is doing his compulsory duty in Anatolia, on the one hand, trying to solve the child custody problem with his wife, on the other hand, enters into a struggle for authority with Yusuf, the most prankish student in the class

Sunday, 08/10

Insects

by Greta Zamparini

Italy 14'

Trapped in a shallow reality indifferent to the needs of Nature and the Soul, Adele, an eleven-year-old girl, performs a small act of rebellion that makes her find her voice and the strength to be 100% herself.

Monday, 09/10

Eye for an Eye

by Anthony Coveney

Canada 9'

On a stormy summer night, Mathieu walks in on his parents. Horrified, he shares his disturbing discovery with his friends on a fishing trip and begins to ask some big questions. Faced with the loss of his innocence, Mathieu sets himself a mission.

Tuesday, 10/10

Mariposa

by Maurizio Forcella

Italy 16'

In 1985, the Pope visits Atri, a small town in the region of Abruzzo. It’s an important event for the town, and the whole community has taken the day off. Everyone is getting ready to welcome His Holiness, but Fernando has other ideas

SHORT FILMS FOR JUNIORS

Thursday, 05/10

Bird's Nest

by Nadia Louis-Desmarchais

Canada, 9'

Lena, a 7-year-old African-American girl receives a drawing mocking her hair. With the help of her big sister, they will spend the evening trying to make her beautiful like her classmates.

Friday, 06/10

The Winner

by Ali Keyvan

Iran 15'

Vahid’s new bike which his dad bought for him so he could participate in a race resembles his friend’s bike that has been recently stolen…

Saturday , 08/10

Valentine's Magic

by Anne Christine Girardot

Netherlands 20'

Twelve years old Otis leaves his parent's home after heavily arguing with them. While he walks away from home, he meets a mysterious person in the forest, introducing herself as Saint Valentine.

Sunday, 08/10

Word of Honour

by Lolita Naranovich

Russia 9'

In the evening, a writer meets a boy crying in the park, who tells him that while playing a game he gave his word of honor to guard a gunpowder storage shed and that he couldn’t leave his post.

Monday, 09/10

Eternal Rest

by Giuseppe Sangiorgi

Italy 10'

Lucia, a 10-year-old girl, throws a stone at her little brother. Frightened, she runs away and hides at grandma Enza's house; to distract her, the woman will tell her a ghost story revealing an important truth.

EPYC Short Film Award

Friday, 06/10

Going diaspora

by Damir Mehic

Bosnia Herzegovina, 17'

A young man is about to leave Bosnia for Luxembourg in search for a better life there, and says goodbye to the city he grew up in.

Friday, 06/10

Gulab Gul

by Semih Sagman

Turkey 11'

Gulab Gul is a boy living in a remote mountain village in Afghanistan. Gulab does not have two arms from birth. Gulab, who lost his father 5 years ago, is taken care of by his uncle.

But his uncle also has to go to the city for business.

Friday, 06/10

Lights

by Jitka Nemikinsová

Czech Republic 8'

Lightbulbs are throwing a party for growing up flame to welcome them in the system that will let them shine and protect them. But one flames likes to play with fire and rebels against the system.

Friday, 06/10

My Grandmother's Story

by Kamile Kareivaite and Robin Marten Leppik

Lithuania, 17'

She is a village girl, while he is a partisan fighting soviet oppression of their homeland. Between them stands a great love for each other. The forest and nature become their sanctuary, allowing them to forget the ongoing battles and dangers, their love providing them with strength and courage to fight for what they cherish.

Friday, 06/10

Firas Fits In

by Tony El Ghazal

Jordan 12'

After feeling like a stranger in his own country, Firas, a nine-year-old Jordanian-Lebanese boy, goes to extreme lengths to finally fit in.

Friday, 06/10

Elena

by Mateo Cingu

Albania 15'

A 9-year-old girl with unemployed parents has to deal with the survival of her family with selling almonds. In one of the bars she meets a woman which has lost faith in

values of life.

EPYC Short Film Award - Young Authors

Sunday, 08/10

Elevated

by Chloe W

anHong Kong, 7'

‘Elevated’ is a teen drama coming of age film that portrays Sam’s journey of self discovery, maturation, and existentialism influenced by the French New Wave. Set in a lift lobby, the tension of the film comes from Sam breaking free from a surface-level attraction and developing an ‘elevated’ mindset that empowers him to ignore the outer world’s stigma against homosexuality. This gives him the courage to take a step further in pursuing his intensified romantic interest.

Sunday, 08/10

Top secret

by Valeria Martynenko

Ukraine 8'

With this work, I wanted to raise the issue of the system of repression, persecution, and liquidation of dissidents. I tried to show it through the inner state of the main character, showing the paranoia and anxiety of a person who chooses such a mission. This hero can exist, as in the 60s and 90s, as well as now and in the future, because this process has always been there. A lot of people gave their lives for the truth, going against the system, that's what I wanted to say.

Sunday, 08/10

Dog Tag

by Ryan Goldberg

United States 6'

An American soldier is captured and taken prisoner by the Germans in the forests of France.

Sunday, 08/10

The world you want

by Matija Štifanić

Serbia, 6'

When young artists want to turn the grayness of the city into a true exhibition of art in a space where the architecture exudes the spirit of socialism, a new environment is created. Čačak, a city with over a hundred murals, sends the message in a special way, that art is the only right way to create the world you want.

Sunday, 08/10

RISE, FALL, HOPE

Alexandra Delgra, Tiana Distefano, Nina Fiala, Kevin Lu, Alice Phelan, Merlin Puhr, Angelo Schiroky, Austria 7'

14-year-olds explore humanity's stumbling struggle for sustainability.

Sunday, 08/10

My day in Kyiv in summer 2022

by Elina Myshanych

Ukraine 7'

It`s the summer of 2022 in Kyiv. The war. Waking up to the sound of siren, taking walks around trenches and antitank hedgehogs. When you’re twelve, and your whole life is ahead.

Sunday, 08/10

Humanize

Portugal, 3'

The human being has Fundamental Rights, established so that everyone has a dignified and peaceful life. Remembering these rights is essential to putting them into practice.

Sunday, 08/10