La Grotta Dei Piccoli is born as part of the 2016 edition of La Guarimba International Film Festival, as an entirely child friendly zone with the intent of showing otherwise unknown films to new generations.
It’s a safe, friendly space that is entertaining and innovative.
Since 2017, the competition takes place within the festival in collaboration with UNICEF Italy, including 40 competing international short films.
In 2018 the synergy between Unicef Italia and La Guarimba was confirmed, and the selection was extended to 60 competing international short films.
Since 2020, we select 100 films.
In addition to the screenings, during the days of the festival we offer illustration, animation and happiness workshops.
We understand children’s and young people’s hunger for cultural innovation during these sensitive life stages and we want to accompany them in this new and necessary path, capable of developing creativity and discovering new fantasies, with a fundamental educational tool of social development.
To this day we suffer from the social divide that exists between the different Italian regions, and our goal is to give cultural dignity to the territory, where there is no healthy entertainment for children, cultural houses or libraries, places that have always been a symbol of social gathering and knowledge, so it is even more important for us to make culture accessible, paying particular attention to those who need it most.
Thus, the desire to be part of the solution was born, offering an alternative to the usual channels of consumption of audio-visual content.
The selected works have the objective of respecting the children and challenging them with sensitive themes and new narrative techniques, necessary for the development of creativity and critical sense, by still leaving them free to play and imagine “.
GABRIELE TANGERINI
