CineCì – CortiCulturalClassic Award (Cinema and Food)

Cinema and food: a festival exploring identity at the table

CineCì – CortiCulturalClassic Award is a young and independent film festival that transforms Palma Campania into a hub for short-film enthusiasts every September. The concept is clear: telling stories about food through film, focusing not just on what we eat, but on the how, where, when, and why of our eating habits. Sustainability, conscious consumption, health, markets, and globalization are all woven into the competing stories arriving from every continent.

From the CortiCulturalClassic competition to the CineCì award

The event originated as a spin-off of a short-film competition organized for fifteen years by the Napoli Cultural Classic association, which has been collaborating steadily with the Municipality of Palma Campania since 2016. The 2025 edition marked the fifteenth anniversary, with a jury evaluating over 600 Italian and international films. The artistic direction is led by director and actor Massimo Andrei, supported by composer Lorenzo Maffia for technical and production management; the association's president is Carmine Ardolino, while the municipal administration supports the project through the Department of Culture.

Competition categories

• Short Films: works up to 30 minutes on the theme of eating habits, with free entry;
• Documentaries and Video Creations: works up to 40 minutes, including docufiction and animation, with dedicated prizes;
• Schools Section: reserved for productions by high school students on social issues related to food, with scholarships for the winners.

Foreign-language works must be subtitled in Italian or English; each director may submit only one work, produced within the previous two years. The organization provides hospitality, meals, and accommodation for finalists during the event.

Awards

The awards include recognition for best director, best screenplay, best cinematography, best soundtrack, and acting awards (lead and supporting actor/actress), in addition to the Best Cultural Classic Short prize. Two special awards give the festival its unique identity: the cash prize named after Salvatore Ferrara for the best short film and the Vincenzo Russo Award, presented in collaboration with local cultural associations to the work that best reflects the ideals of the martyr of the Neapolitan Revolution.

The Teatro Comunale and the Palazzo Aragonese courtyard

Screenings take place at the Teatro Comunale, while the closing ceremony is held outdoors in the courtyard of Palazzo Aragonese, a "pleasure palace" and hunting residence built in the late 15th century for Alfonso of Aragon and expanded over the following centuries. The piperno stone-framed windows and the double-ramp staircase provide a stunning backdrop for the awards: on September evenings, the courtyard transforms into an open-air cinema, with the screen set up amidst the historic palace walls.

A festival looking toward the youth

Beyond the international competition, CineCì focuses heavily on the local public and schools, particularly technical institutes linked to the agri-food sector. Food becomes a lens to discuss work, the environment, and cultural identity for a generation entering both the audiovisual and catering industries. The evenings blend screenings, meetings with directors and actors, and entertainment, featuring well-known faces from Neapolitan cinema and television.

Palma Campania, province of Naples

Palma Campania is a town in the province of Naples, in Campania, located in the area between the Agro Nolano and the Sarno Valley. The town is known for its vibrant tradition of popular festivals and an active community of associations: CineCì fits into this context as the cultural highlight of early autumn, bringing international authors and works to a provincial setting. For visitors, it is also an opportunity to discover historical heritage rarely frequented by mass tourism, just a short distance from Nola, Mount Vesuvius, and the Vesuvian coast.