Companies, Idea Prototipi creates the trophies for the winners of the ‘Far East Film Festival’

Each award is housed in a stainless steel display case with five mirrored sides that reflect the tree

ROME – This year too the prizes awarded at the Far East Film Festival, a film festival dedicated to Asian cinema, are represented by Gelso, conceived and produced by Idea Prototipi, an innovative company specialized in the creation of cobots, i.e. collaborative robots, based in Basiliano (Udine). “The story dates back 13 years ago – states Massimo Agostini, founder and administrator of Idea Prototipi – When the collaboration with the Far East Film Festival was born I was personally involved in the concept of the trophy that they asked us to create. My vision, to unite East and West, she focused ona tree, the mulberry tree, the home of the silkworms that produce Chinese silk. That tree, and the cultivation of silkworms, is also present in our territory. For two months I wandered through the woods of Friuli looking for the right specimen, until I found the right one, full of branches pointing upwards to form an open hand”.

For 13 years, therefore, the Far East Film Festival awards – which in this 2024 edition will be 9, one for each film category – have reproduced that mulberry tree. The production of the award is complex, but above all rich in meaning. It combines technique and philosophy, tradition and innovation. Let’s start with technology. “Initially – continues Agostini – the Festival organization turned to me because we specialize in metalworking. Today we use special innovative materials, with which we print the trophies in 3D. Each mulberry tree is different from the other in the most delicate details and also because the materials that make up the branches allow small movements during the day. In short, it is a living structure”.

Each award is contained in a stainless steel case with five mirrored sides that reflect the tree. “However, the case is open at the center and at the top, as a symbol of openness to the world; while the five mirrors – adds Agostini – represent the continents participating in the event”. Depending on the category, the award was gradually created in different colours, from the classic gold for the work classified first, to the more exclusive black, “a color which, unlike the meaning in our Western cultures , in the East it takes on spiritual values”. Spirituality was at the heart of Gelsi’s design for the Far East Film Festival. “The roots of the tree unite two distant geographical worlds which meet in Udine; the award in its overall conception represents the union of the potential of my company’s new technologies with the spirituality that guides us. Which means seeing things beyond matter, think about energy and spread a message of serenity, balance and love to everyone”, specifies Massimo Agostini.

Values that were also recognized by the award winners. Agostini participates every year in the awards ceremony of the Far East Film Festival, but discreetly, among the public, attending the presentation of “his” awards. He recalls an anecdote: “One year a Japanese master was awarded, one of those cold, unapproachable personalities. Everyone treated him with fear, without approaching me. At a certain point, I saw that he was looking for me, he approached me, thanking me for the work, he confessed to me that he was deeply affected by it. It was an episode that filled me with pride. I am also participating this year representing the company and my collaborators and the Friulian business world. its unmistakable character: producing goods that are only apparently small, but of immense value”.