Italy for Giffoni Film Festival

Hey guys, Giffoni Film Festival Gist here. I know it’s been so long since I posted anything. I’ve been sooo busy with Honey B Fashion (my sewing gig), moving, and life in general. The struggle is real outchea.

So last year, July 2015. I was chilling in Serbia and my Aunt Nkem asked me to come to Salerno, Italy to be a chaperone to the Nigerian teens at the Giffoni Film Festival. Of course you know I said yes.

The organizers of this event must be loaded because the people that attend (invited participants) don’t pay for accommodation or feeding, just their flight ticket there. So basically my trip was all expense paid, cause my aunt paid for my ticket. TBH I was really rich (broke) at the time (had just come back from America) so I didn’t even travel with any money, but trust me to make it work, y’all know your girl 😉 and my aunt did eventually give me about $200 as pocket money.

My aunt and I were put in a hotel room together at the Grand Hotel Salerno. She had to pay extra for the room while I was paid for cos I was the chaperone. The room came with buffet breakfast everyday, lunch and dinner we had at giffoni. We had lunch and dinner tickets and could use the lunch tickets at listed restaurants in collaboration with the festival, while dinner was at this former monastery in form of a little soirée every evening. The organizers had buses leaving the hotel to giffoni and back at different times, so never had to transport myself anywhere. Actually didn’t even go anywhere else apart from down the street from the hotel and when I eventually went to Amalfi and Positano with some of the other chaperones.

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I was chaperoning a teenage girl and boy from Nigeria. The boy I had met before on a previous trip to California in 2014. They weren’t much trouble, except I hardly saw the boy. The kids were hosted by Italian families and got to have Italian brothers and sisters (they did this for all the participants from all countries, except Qatar, they lodged their kids in the hotel). We met a lot of famous stars, only shook one’s hand (Mark Ruffalo a.k.a. “The hulk”) the rest I just saw really up close. They include, the guy from the Hobbit (Martin Freeman), the hot gay guy from glee (Darren Criss) , Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter (Tom Felton) and Orlando Bloom 😍😍 (his swag was on a hunnid, with a really nice bum). Meeting/seeing these stars was really the highlight of the programme for me, (of which they apparently lodged in the same hotel as us, but never saw them there though 😔) and of course visiting Positano and Amalfi, although that wasn’t part of the festival, we just decided to do that as well, since they were close by.

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I had met this lovely lady who owns a clothing shop the first time I was in Salerno with my aunt in 2011, she remembered us and it was nice to catch up and see how much her daughter had grown. The first time we met, she was so generous, gave a lot of discounts and gave me a lot of free stuff. She did the same this time. You know the Nigerian boy actually forgot his stuff he had paid for, in her shop and went back to Nigeria, when my aunt went again this year (2016) the lady gave them to her to bring for the boy. Wonderful huh?

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Aunt, Shop lady and I[/caption]

I actually keep in touch with her on Facebook but I have to use a lot of google translate cos she really doesn’t understand English. It was also my pleasure to make Ankara outfits for her and her daughter when my aunt asked, also made for one of the facilitators (Natascia) and her daughter too.

It was a really fun trip and I think I only spent about €40 while I was in Salerno, most of what went to the ferry ride to and fro Positano and Amalfi and also on cheap food and drinks (lemoncello). I used my 3 network British sim while I was there, for Internet. Just paid for a month plan and had unlimited internet (only cost £15).

There was this old guy from Greece who seemed to be obsessed with me, he kept taking pictures of me all the time, I ended up liking the pictures though, so that was a plus, but it was pretty weird for me.

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I wore mostly stuff I made the whole time I was there (also braided my hair myself back in Serbia) and it got me a lot of attention and stares and people taking random candid photos of me when they thought I wasn’t looking but I caught a few of them, some even came up to me and confessed. I really did feel like the center of attention a lot of the time and may I say it wasn’t a bad feeling at all (you would think I’d be used to it by now but it never gets old). People were constantly complimenting everything about me, I blushed uncontrollably ☺️☺️ hehe.

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Ps: If anyone would want to attend the Giffoni Film Festival, I may be able to hook you up, but you’ll be paying for yourself of course, no sponsorship available these days.

Stay tuned for my next post on my day in Rome with the kids and also my stay in Milan.

Thanks for reading, until next time…

Take charge,

Sonia. 😘