The festival and Toyota collaborated for the first time at the 2019 edition: the carmaker promoted a contest, a masterclass and a special award to tell the story of boundless sustainable mobility and the value of an inclusive society.
The courage to push beyond boundaries, the search for one's own voice, love that changes lives, hardships that shape you and challenge you to grow, the great sweep of history that never stops teaching and making itself felt in the present: these were the themes of the 49th edition of the Giffoni Film Festival, held this year from 19 to 27 July in Giffoni Valle Piana (Salerno), alongside the overarching thread running through the 2018–2020 three-year period: the safeguarding of the planet and all its elements.
The event, as always, brought children and young people closer to the world of cinema and, for the first time, saw Toyota Motor Italia as the principal sponsor for mobility services. The Three Ovals brand made available a fleet of 20 fourth-generation Full Hybrid vehicles, comprising the New Corolla and RAV4, as well as a Mirai, the first mass-produced Toyota saloon powered by hydrogen.
Toyota also contributed to the festival by promoting a series of activities. The car brand launched a contest entitled "Arrivare dove non credevi", designed to encapsulate Toyota's commitment to creating an inclusive society through the use of its own technological solutions. Toyota was also the protagonist of a masterclass aimed at former giffoners (young people aged 18 to 25), centred on the theme of environmental sustainability and the journey begun 20 years ago by the Three Ovals brand towards zero-emissions mobility. Within the Giffoni Innovation Hub, the Toyota Dream Team took part in a workshop for the conception and design of a Smart Learning tool on the theme of sustainable mobility for internal training within the Organisation and in schools. Finally, on 26 July a special Toyota award was presented to one of the films in the programme, A Colony, by director Geneviève Dulude-De Celles: as stated in the award's motivation, the film, through the story of its protagonist, conveyed the very same message that Toyota wishes to spread through the global campaign Start Your Impossible — that of the value of an inclusive society, in which diversity represents a richness and an opportunity, and every limit can be overcome through determination, passion and courage.
"The collaboration with Giffoni stems from a shared commitment to the cultural growth of children and young people on the theme of sustainability, which for Toyota is a founding element of its vision of the future," explained Mauro Caruccio, CEO of Toyota Motor Italia, while the founder and director of Giffoni Experience, Claudio Gubitosi, said he was honoured to inaugurate the partnership with the carmaker "that has given us the opportunity to speak to young people and families not about cars, but about mobility in the broadest sense of the word and about how it is possible to overcome — with commitment, perseverance and intelligence — the limits that life and society so often impose on us."
