The 56th Giffoni Film Festival has wrapped after nine days of screenings, premieres and encounters with a range of figures from cinema, culture, sport and public life. More than 5,000 young jurors selected the winners, rewarding films exploring courage, personal growth, friendship, inclusion and hope, in keeping with this year’s theme, “Impossible Things”.

In the Gex Doc competition, the Gryphon Award went to One in a Million by Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes. Shot over ten years, this German-British-US documentary follows Israa from childhood to adulthood on her journey from Syria to Germany, offering up an intimate chronicle of war, exile, loss and the search for identity and belonging.

Nicolas Steiner’s German-Swiss production Do You Believe in Angels, Mr Drowak? emerged as the most decorated title in the Generator +18 line-up. Besides scooping the section’s Gryphon Award, it received the Gaetano Del Mauro Memorial Award for Best Cinematography, recognising Markus Nestroy’s work, as well as the CGS Creative Journeys Prize. Steiner’s drama revolves around Lena, a young woman who takes a job as a writing tutor and who discovers her sole student is Hugo Drowak, a highly gifted, formerly homeless man. As he begins writing, however, painful memories and demons resurface from his past.

Another multiple-award-winner was Ivan Pavljutskov’s Estonian-Lithuanian coming-of-age film Morten, which prevailed in the Generator +15 section, and which also secured the CONOU Special Award and the CGS Creative Journeys Prize. Having premiered in Karlovy Vary earlier this month, the movie follows an introverted 15-year-old living with his unemployed uncle on a dilapidated farm, who uses an old camera to make sense of himself and his surroundings.

The Generator +13 jury, for their part, crowned Polish filmmaker Piotr Domalewski’s The Altar Boys as their winner, which is a work centred on a group of adolescent altar boys whose frustration with the indifference shown by adults and the Church towards social injustice prompts them to devise an unconventional plan to morally revitalise their neighbourhood.

Katja Benrath’s German production Just Call Me Frida triumphed in the Elements +10 line-up. This modern-day fable follows a boy called Samuel - who has spent years in hospital because of an autoimmune disease - and his encounter with the Little Reaper, who must learn about life before she can become Death. In the Elements +6 section, Ronny Gani’s Indonesian pic Garuda: Dare to Dream won both the Gryphon Award and the Lete Special Award, focusing on an asthmatic 13-year-old who’s determined to fulfil his dream of playing for Indonesia’s national football team.

Among the shorts, Snorri, Catch Me If You Candy! by Thierry Marchand won the Elements +3 title, while Julia van Braak’s The Little Hotel Detective and Massimiliano Pacifico’s Maradona-themed Il Murales del Campione prevailed in the Elements +6 and Elements +10 sections, respectively. The Parental Experience Award, for its part, went to Taiwanese director Joshua Yang’s Where We Sit Together.

The special awards subsequently saw Marie Limkilde’s Mira named Best European Film for Children by the ECFA, whilst Sunniva Eir Tangvik Kveum’s Nipster received the ACEC Award.

General director Jacopo Gubitosi described the closing day as “a beginning and a fresh start”, adding that preparations were already underway for the 57th edition, which is set to unfold between 16 and 24 July in 2027.

The full list of this year’s winners is as follows:

Gex Doc

Gryphon Award
One in a Million – Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes (Germany/UK/USA)

Generator +18

Gryphon Award
Do You Believe in Angels, Mr Drowak? – Nicolas Steiner (Germany/Switzerland)

Generator +15

Gryphon Award
Morten – Ivan Pavljutskov (Estonia/Lithuania)

Generator +13

Gryphon Award
The Altar Boys – Piotr Domalewski (Poland)

Elements +10

Gryphon Award for Best Feature Film
Just Call Me Frida – Katja Benrath (Germany)

Gryphon Award for Best Short
Il murales del campione – Massimiliano Pacifico (Italy)

Elements +6

Gryphon Award for Best Feature Film
Garuda: Dare to Dream – Ronny Gani (Indonesia)

Gryphon Award for Best Short
The Little Hotel Detective – Julia van Braak (Netherlands)

Elements +3

Gryphon Award for Best Short
Snorri, Catch Me If You Candy! – Thierry Marchand (Germany)

Other awards

Gaetano Del Mauro Memorial Award for Best Cinematography
Do You Believe in Angels, Mr Drowak? – Nicolas Steiner

Parental Experience Award
Where We Sit Together – Joshua Yang (Taiwan)

Zecchino d’Oro Award for Best Music Score
The Winter Cat – Aurora Cesarini, Silvia Sabbatini and Marta Zanoni (Italy)

CONAI Special Award
Alby – The Last Tree – Alessandro Parrello (Italy)

Lete Special Award
Garuda: Dare to Dream – Ronny Gani

Ecopneus Special Award
Splish Splash Forever! – Natascha Beller (Switzerland)

ECFA Award for Best European Film for Children
Mira – Marie Limkilde (Denmark)

ACEC Award
Nipster – Sunniva Eir Tangvik Kveum (Sweden)

CONOU Special Award
Morten – Ivan Pavljutskov

CGS Creative Journeys Prize – Generator +18
You Believe in Angels, Mr Drowak? – Nicolas Steiner

CGS Creative Journeys Prize – Generator +15
Morten – Ivan Pavljutskov