(Nicola Simonetti) The short film "La faim va tout droit", an Italian-French co-production directed by Giulia Canella, which recounts anorexia from an unusual male point of view, wins the Città di Latina Award at the "Filmdipeso" Short Festival .
The Short Film Festival, "Filmdipeso" in Latina (III edition promoted by the Bariatric Center of Excellence, Sapienza University of Rome Polo Pontino and by the Municipality of Latina in collaboration with Amici Obesi onlus, the Italian Association for the Fight against Obesity and Villa Miralago, with support non-conditioning by Johnson & JohnsonMedicalSpA and Novo Nordisk) wants to break down the prejudices on obesity - a social pathology that affects 7 million Italians - and on eating disorders and raise awareness among the population.
Charles, the young protagonist, looks at his own image in the mirror and tries to escape from the dramatic anorexia and from a sick relationship with food, imagining a sweet story with Bijoux.
Wide, fixed fields and a lot of silence for this little film that speaks of love and solitude and that denounces, with delicacy from shivers, the invisible drama of so many young people.
Eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia nervosa, orthorexia, etc.) are, today, a real emergency and which is worrying about the attack on mental and physical health and the serious consequences that derive from this, especially involving adolescents and young adults.
Disorders, all of which, unless promptly taken in care and treated by a medical, psychological, psychiatric, behavioral and clinical team, can worsen until they become chronic and lead to suicide or death, generally, due to cardiac arrest.
The basis of the disorder: biological, genetic, environmental, social, psychological and psychiatric factors, as well as a push, not secondary, by the media, fashion with its "aesthetic canons" and its surroundings. Not to underestimate the decisive role represented by very traumatic situations (sexual violence, family tragedies, abuse, injustices suffered even at work).
The anomalous behavior can generate: permanent damage to the digestive system, dehydration, alterations of the gums, teeth, bones, internal bleeding, cardio-, hepato-, nephro-patie, psychic involvement of various degrees, hypothermia, hypo or hypertension.
The psychological repercussions, on the other hand, involve depression, low self-esteem, a sense of shame and guilt, difficulty in maintaining social and family relationships, mood swings, tendency to Manichaean and manic behavior, propensity to perfectionism.
Symptoms and characteristics
Eating disorders include many different conditions. The most well-known and common are anorexia and bulimia nervosa.
Nervous anorexia
The anorexic is classified as such when, following his refusal to take food, he falls below 85% of normal weight for his age, sex and height. The subject becomes progressively obsessed with refusing food (sometimes he eats and then he provokes vomiting) to make it the main interest in life excluding any other attraction.
"This year - says Gianfranco Pannone, president of the Jury - we have awarded an Italian film but co-produced in France, an Australian film and a British film. Therefore, a third edition of the Festival that stands out for its international profile and we can say that the ambition to merge medical science and cinematographic language has succeeded, sublimated this time from the location intended for the screening of the works ".
The winning works
"La faim va tout droit", an Italian-French co-production, directed by the director, Giulia Canella, won the first "Città di Latina" Award because, as we read in the motivation, the film, regardless of the productive means, is able to center forcefully the theme of anorexia and unusually decline it into the masculine using the excellent interpretative test and returning with a painful grace a self-referential horizon, a permanent indicator of discomfort.
Ari, an Australian production directed by Alex Murawski, received the Special Jury Prize and tells how difficult it is to be a child and even more so to be yourself and accept yourself, finding the courage to do so despite the difficulties. An effective short for the simple proposal, with many evocative abilities through the face and physicality of the young protagonist, which expresses the sense of diversity that each of us may have experienced.
Food for Thoughts by the Italian director Davide Gentile, who lives in London, produced by Davide Gentile / Banjo Eyes Film, received a Special Mention. The short film denounces how sedentariness and comfort food make our life more comfortable but inexorably more unhealthy. An essay of virtuous and mature cinematography, this is the motivation of the experts, able to return the theme of junk food with excellent expressive ability, strong of an extraordinary cast and demonstrating a very accurate domination of formal languages ”.