41st edition, 13 - 19 October 2019
Palermo, Cinema De Seta | Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa

The winners of the 41st edition of the Golden Efebo
The jury composed of Yervant Gianikian (artist), Wilma Labate (director), Egle Palazzolo (president of the Research Center for Fiction and Cinema), Clara Sanchez (writer) and Alessio Vassallo (actor) assigns the Golden Efebo for the Best Film taken from a literary work at the film Once Upon a River by Haroula Rose with the following motivation: “A creativity that of the Roses, which naturally draws on generational experiences but which in the course of the film takes on mature values, lets us understand how to the film, as to his verse to the novel, young and old, have responded with moving conviction ".

The jury composed by Ludovico Caldarera (actor), Nicoletta Romeo (producer and co-director of the Trieste Film Festival) and Francesca Martinez Tagliavia (professor of Fine Arts Academy of Palermo) awards the Prize dedicated to the first and second works in Fuga (Fugue) by Agnieszka Smoczyńska “For her mature and concessions look, for the artistic partnership between the author and the protagonist - co-screenwriter Gabriela Muskala, for having built an emancipated female character especially in the current global context of the audiovisual industry crossed by struggles against gender inequality ”.
To the Canadian director Mike Hoolboom goes the New Languages ​​Award - City of Palermo "For its ability to dismantle every mechanical attribution of meaning and to probe the depths of human interiority. Mike Hoolboom manipulates archive material and symbolic fragments of the audiovisual culture making them flow with extraordinary intensity into the most intimate rivulet of their autobiographical vicissitudes to rediscover the material and bodily dimension of cinema, a place of contrasts, space, real and virtual, in which the viewer can imagine new forms of interpersonal connection ”.

The Special South Rotary Award goes to the Palermo actress Valentina D'Agostino, the Andes Prize - Cinema Donna - is awarded to Haroula Rose for the film Once Upon a River, while the Special Lions Award Vespers goes to Amanda Sthers for the film Holy Lands taken from his own book.
The 41st edition of Efebo d'Oro was organized by the Research Center for Fiction and Cinema, chaired by Egle Palazzolo and with the artistic direction of Giovanni Massa. Main Sponsor Banca Popolare Sant’Angelo. Created with the contribution of the Sicilian Region, Department of Tourism, Sport and Entertainment / Sicily Film Commission within the framework of the Contemporary Senses Program - Cinema and Audiovisual; City of Palermo - Department of Culture; Palermo Culture; Ars; Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa. With the support of the Institut Français Palermo; Goethe-Institut Palermo; Instituto Cervantes Palermo; National School of Cinema - Sicily Office; Andes Palermo; Lions; Rotary; Rotary of the Madonie; Ferribotte film.