“Giffoni 55”, here is the image of the festival

Becoming human is a choice. It requires will, awareness and responsibility. It is a path of growth in which we learn to cultivate empathy, listening, patience and understanding. A challenge that calls us to rediscover ourselves and our ability to generate change, transformation, positive impact. This is the theme chosen by Giffoni for the 55th edition of the festival , scheduled from 17 to 26 July and dedicated to over 5,000 jurors from 30 countries .

The official image of 2025 – Becoming Human , created by the creative director of Giffoni, Luca Apolito – is a visual threshold. A face that is both young and ancient at the same time, divided in two. On one side, the recognizable identity, the clear eye, a shoot growing from the shoulder, a sun, a flower, signs of life, warmth and possibility. On the other side, the vertigo of an irregular path. A labyrinth unfolds like thought when it searches, gets lost, questions itself. The labyrinth scheme makes the face incomplete to evoke the complexity of individual identity, but also to remember that every personal path – with its needs, its rhythms, its choices – must intertwine with a larger story, the collective one, made of bonds, memory, shared responsibilities. Becoming human is not only an intimate fact, it is also an act of belonging.

The labyrinth speaks of an identity that is not given, but to be built. An identity that is fulfilled over time and in the relationship with the other. It is an ancient symbol, present in myths and cultures of every era. It is not a puzzle to be solved. It is a rite of passage . In Greek mythology, Theseus explores it to face the Minotaur, but the true adversary is often internal, representing fear, doubt, disorientation. In many traditions, the labyrinth does not lead to a definitive destination, but accompanies those who pass through it towards a transformation.

Here, in the image of #Giffoni55, there is the sign of a unique and necessary journey that every human being must face to truly become himself . It is different for everyone, and no one can avoid it. There is not just one path, there is no definitive point of arrival. At the center of the path there is not an answer, but a question mark. Every conquest turns into a new question, every experience opens new paths.

Of all the elements of the image, there is one that speaks louder, the invisible one that imposes itself through an absence: the relationship. No face exists alone. Even the most solitary labyrinth is inhabited by presences, it recalls the steps of those who traced it before, the shadow of those who walk beside us, the perspective of those who will cross it after. The invisible links between one life and another, between one story and another, are the essential ingredient of our world. We do not become human alone, we become human only together . In listening, in caring, even in conflict, but in dialogue, in the word, in the question addressed to another.

The moon and the star on the side of the labyrinth, symbols of the night and the unknown. The sun and the flower bloomed on the opposite side, on the complete, clear, fertile and open side. The face itself is inhabited by symbols that tell our journey. The hourglass, to remind us that time is not only waiting but construction; the book, guardian of memory, of thought, of the stories that have shaped us. Two birds, one natural, one technological. Two symbols of a humanity that dreams, but also invents. Two creatures in conflict that seek a balance.

Becoming human means accepting that we are constantly called to a search, always under construction. Each generation must continue to ask itself what it means to be human, to choose empathy instead of closure, imagination instead of automatism. We often live as aliens to ourselves and to others , hyperconnected but disconnected in emotions, bodies, looks. Becoming human also means recognizing this distance, and trying every day to bridge it.

In an era that seems to reward rapid response, favors simplified identity, that crushes and compresses opinions to fit them into a like, the proposal told in the image becoming human is to accept complexity. It is choosing to advance by trial and error, contemplating error as part of the journey, living uncertainty as a creative condition.

Becoming human does not mean completing a journey, but accepting that we are always on the move . An act of resistance, a gentle revolt against homologation. It is the refusal to reduce the human to predictable behavior or to an acquired and definitive condition.

In the image Becoming Human there is this invisible invitation. This face does not tell who we are, but who we could become. It is the face of a generation that does not ask for simple truths, but for opportunities for research and growth.

It is the new proposal of a festival that for 55 years has invited young people to question themselves, to create, to share.