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Since 2002, the Arca Cinema Giovani Award, promoted by Arca Enel as part of the Venice Film Festival, has strengthened the bond between the seventh art and young people through the institution of recognition for the best films of the festival, and a series of masterclasses with sector professionals in the spaces of the Arca Cinema Giovani Boutique, a stone’s throw from the red carpet. Among the protagonists of the meetings in the just concluded edition of the event was also the Messina director Fabio Schifilliti, who has already obtained the Arca Award for Best Short Film Out of Competition from the young jurors at the last Taormina Film Festival for “Fili Invisibili”.
Produced by Giuseppe Ministeri’s Gran Mirci Film and made with the students of the Copernico Technological Institute of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (Messina), as part of a cinema laboratory held by the director himself, the short connects the stories of Graziella Recupero (Sofia Spadaro), killed in Barcelona in 1956, and Sara Campanella (Giulia Foti), stabbed in Messina in 2025. A cry of pain against the scourge of feminicide, symbol of a cinema that must not be mere entertainment.
Daniele Gonciaruk with Schifilliti in Venice 2026«I explained how important it is for them as a target and for us authors – he says – to understand that the function of cinema is not only to create a product, an audiovisual story for an audience, but to ensure that it can shake consciences. You have to leave the room completely different than when you entered, see something that can make you reflect in the days to come. This is what we tried to do with “Invisible Threads”; and it’s important to make kids understand that if they want to pursue this career it’s essential that they do the same thing, because a film as an end in itself doesn’t lead anywhere.”
During the meeting Schifilliti also addressed some specific topics relating to Italian cinema, providing valuable advice to young aspiring professionals. The most important concerns writing the screenplay for a short film. «The first step to take is to write the short without dialogue – he adds – because cinema is born on images and their power, and then structure everything on these which are the fulcrum of the story. The rest comes later and becomes secondary, even the dialogues.”
The actor and director Daniele Gonciaruk from Messina, awarded in Taormina for the documentary “Fango”, on the Giampilieri flood, also participated in the discussion with the children. At the Mostra del Cinema Schifilliti also participated in the panel “The power of film tourism and Made in Italy”, where it was announced that “Invisible Threads” will be the opening short of the fifteenth edition of the Catania Film Fest, scheduled from 11 to 14 November. The announcement was made by founder and artistic director Cateno Piazza, who also offered a brief but heartfelt memory of Ninni Panzera, who passed away last July.