by Redazione Ennesimo Film Festival
Ennesimo Film Festival’s new thematic selection, made in collaboration with PLAY, il festival del Gioco di Modena, investigates the symbiotic relationship between cinema and the play concept. Through a series of films, the selection explores the theme of gaming culture, analyzing the processes of hybridization and contamination that occurs between the language of cinema and the universe of gaming. The selections present opportunity to reflect on how gaming, between fiction and reality, has become a magnifying glass to explore contemporary society and its dynamics.
They panel of judges assigned the Play Prize 2024 to the film Nothing holier than a dolphin by Isabella Margara with the following motivation
The film perfectly centers the idea of play, in particular role-playing: it fully expresses the concept that the right creativity is enough to be transported to another world, that the playful dimension is innate in man and that it can involve different people and of all ages, almost like in a LARP session. The naturalness with which the single individual manages to infect the group and transport it into his story, like a good “game master”, strengthens the link with the atavistic dimension of mythopoeia, typical of the human being.
The film, which had already won the Artemisia Award from the Ennesimo Film Festival, was also chosen by the audience in theaters for the Public Mention.
The director, Isabella Margara, sent us a thank you message
The jury then awarded a Special Mention to the film Treasures by Welf Reinhart with the following motivation:
For the naturalness with which it passes from reality to the playful dimension, typical of children, and for the multiple levels of interpretation it offers to the spectator, between fantasy, symbolic play and role play, the game is represented as the purest form of expression of childhood, as opposed to war, which can corrupt and destroy innocence. Today more than ever we need works like this, which make us reflect on the Charter of Children’s Rights and its perennial relevance.
