Promoting Innovation in Film: Five JCU Students Participate in Prix Italia Festival
Five JCU students and alumni will participate in the prestigious Prix Italia Festival, which will take place in Rome from September 23-28, 2019.
Prix Italia is an international competition organized by RAI, the Italian national public broadcasting company, in order to promote and celebrate quality, innovation, and creativity in the production of radio and television programs and web content. Established in Capri, Italy in 1948, the competition is among the longest-running in the world, and it is held in a different city each year. Among the participants of the past editions are Bertolt Brecht, Sydney Pollack, and Samuel Beckett. This year marks the 71st edition of the Prix Italia competition, which will feature 136 television programs, 83 radio programs, 39 web programs, and 15 cross-platform programs from 37 countries. The theme of this year’s festival is “Celebrating Cultural Diversity in a Global Media World.”
Stills from the short films selected for the Prix Italia festival
Prix Italia’s educational platform, called Ylab, is open to students from the host city. The aim is to promote an exchange between young people and the array of international experts attending Prix Italia. This year, students from John Cabot University, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Rome Tor Vergata, and University of Roma Tre, will participate in the competition and showcase their video projects about Rome. The participating students are invited to join in the debate with a presentation of their multimedia projects.
JCU’s students’ works will be screened on Monday, September 23, 2019, at the Mercati di Traiano in Rome. The JCU Ylab project was supervised by Communications Professors Peter Sarram, Antonio Lopez, Kwame Phillips, and Brian Thomson. JCU’s Digital Media Lab Associate Producer, Roberto Ronzulli, oversaw technical and creative aspects of the project. “The invitation from RAI to participate in the Prix Italia was recognition that our students are an important part of Roman life and that their voice matters. Our state of the art media production facilities made it easy to create broadcast quality work,” said Professor Antonio Lopez.
JCU students and alumni participating in Prix Italia Ylab will present the following works:
Rome, Transversally by student Giulia Villanucci: the film focuses on Rome’s culinary traditions, and inclusivity through food.
L’acchiappasogni by alumna Elena Ruggiero: a video about Colorful soap bubbles as a metaphor for the diversity that characterizes the music, musicians, and audiences in Rome.
Romart by student Lavinia Giardina: a journey through Rome, focusing on the different forms of Street Art present in the city.
Street Interviews by alumna Devon Victoria Hyer: a collection of accounts from people passing by the Roman neighborhood of Trastevere, documenting the diversity of the city.
Roma: Lei by alumna Karol France: a celebration of diversity and femininity by black women
“During a series of meetings, the subject matter of the video shorts was collaboratively developed by the students. In our discussions, they wanted to capture different aspects of Roman cultural life, ranging from street art, street musicians, dance, and food. It was important for them to reflect the multicultural experience of living in Rome,” said Professor Lopez.
