Rome, August 21 (Adnkronos) – Beauty and commitment at the fourth edition of the Emergency Festival, scheduled from September 6 to September 8, in Reggio Emilia. This year the theme of the event organized by the association founded by Gino Strada will be “People”: what unites one person to another? What divides them? At what point does one become a “community”? When are communities capable of generating change? The global challenges of our present can divide people or push them to mature the awareness of belonging to a common humanity. A belief that inspires the action of the NGO that guarantees the right to care “one person at a time”, to use the words of its founder.
For three days, the squares, courtyards and symbolic places of the city will be animated by artists, writers, journalists, researchers, linguists, musicians, directors and operators of Emergency. The event, this year too, was organized thanks to a memorandum of understanding with the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and with the patronage of the Emilia-Romagna Region. The free and open to all meetings can be booked starting today through the website https://www.emergency.it/festival/ but you can access the events by queuing just before the start.
The first day of the Festival, Friday 6 September, opens in Piazza Casotti with the format Questions to think, short twenty-minute speeches to reflect on the issues of our time. It starts at 4:30 pm with the meeting “Is thinking changing?” by Matteo Saudino, alias BarbaSophia, professor and writer, who talks about the most common questions in school to rethink the present. Later, at 7:15 pm, the speech “Is participation the key word?” by economist Fabrizio Barca on open, informed and reasonable debate as the only tool to deal with the complexity that surrounds us, and at 8:45 pm “Can data discriminate against people?” in which Donata Columbro, data humanizer, explores the role of algorithms, data and digital tools in the amplification or deconstruction of discriminatory language.
In the main square of the Festival, Piazza Prampolini, the ‘Dialogues’ will be held, meetings between expert voices on the core themes of the event. The format opens on Friday 6 September with the appointment “The person, the people: resistant bonds” with the partisan courier Flora Monti, the writer Djarah Kan, the writer Bernardo Zannoni, with the moderation of the Sky Tg24 journalist Tonia Cartolano and the participation of the journalist and presenter Marco Damilano. At 7:45 pm the theme will continue with “Thinking and acting beyond war” with Tomaso Montanari, rector of the University for Foreigners of Siena, Sami MH Alajrami, journalist and former correspondent for Ansa and La Repubblica from Gaza, Rossella Miccio, president of Emergency and with the moderation of Giammarco Sicuro, correspondent for Tg3.
The first day of the Festival will end at 9:30 pm, again in Piazza Prampolini, with the “Emergency (Hi)stories”, testimonies on the three decades of the association, which will be conducted by Giampaolo Musumeci, photographer, filmmaker and journalist of Radio24, accompanied by Beppe Salmetti, actor, author and presenter, Fabio Magnasciutti, illustrator and cartoonist and the Primitive Mule, Alt-Rock Band. We will begin with 1994-2004: the first ten years with the professor and writer Matteo Saudino, the photojournalist Lynzy Billing, the volunteer of the Technical Division of Emergency Ennio Rigamonti, the nurse and head of Human Resources Sar Emergency Luca Radaelli and with the extraordinary participation of the singer-songwriter Piero Pelù.
Also on Friday 6 September in the courtyard of the University (Viale A. Allegri, 15), the first of the events Stories of people and things, explained well curated by ‘Il Post’ will be held: at 5.15 pm the director Luca Sofri will reflect on some songs to understand the connections between music and our history.
The Teatro San Prospero will host the film festival Luci sulle Persone, with films and documentaries on the topic. At 5:00 pm, “Long Night” by Lynzy Billing will be screened (with English subtitles) on the work of the association in Afghanistan through the testimonies of patients and staff, followed by a Q&A with the author. Finally, the Panizzi Library will be the theater of the meetings dedicated to children, teenagers, families and teachers organized by Emergency, the first appointment will be at 8:40 pm with the show “Il circo delle nuvole – Il teatro disegno di Gek Tessaro”, writer and artist.
On Saturday 7 September the Festival opens early in the morning at 7:30 in Piazza San Prospero with the music at dawn of a string quartet together with violinist Valentina Del Re. At 14:30 the appointment is always here with ‘A coffee with …’, a format hosted by journalist Pierpaolo Lala: this time he will meet Amalia De Simone journalist Rai 3 and Vera Gheno sociolinguist to talk about people who claim rights. At 23 for the closing of the day the Piazza will fill with music with the DJ set of Ex-Otago. And again, always on Saturday appointment at 9:30 at the Infopoint in Piazza Prampolini together with Giammarco Sicuro, correspondent of Tg3 and Roberto Maccaroni, nurse and health manager of the Emergency Sar Project to talk about the migratory phenomenon. The morning continues in the main square at 10 with the Dialogue “Freedom of the press in peace and war” with the editorialist of ‘Repubblica’ Massimo Giannini, the journalist and former correspondent of Al Jazeera English from Gaza Youmna El Sayed and the moderation of the director of Domani Emiliano Fittipaldi.
At 5:30 pm, Francesca Lagioia, Senior Assistant Professor at the University of Bologna and Part-time Professor at EUI Florence, and Telmo Pievani, philosopher of science and evolutionist, will discuss artificial intelligence and human intelligence, moderated by physicist and science communicator Massimo Temporelli. At 7:00 pm, the second appointment with Emergency (Hi)stories will be held with Francesco Strazzari, professor of International Relations at the Sant’Anna University School; Laura Cappon, journalist of Rai in-depth programs, photographer Giulio Piscitelli, Floriana Pati, nurse of the NGO; Mauro Destefano, cultural mediator and coordinator of Emergency’s Calabria Project. At the end of the day, Piazza Prampolini will be the theater of Carlo Amleto’s show “Scherzo n.1 opera prima” at 9:30 pm.
Also on Saturday 7 September, Piazza Casotti will be the setting for the ‘Questions for Thinking’. At 11am we will start with a speech by journalist Nico Piro “How do you promote a war?”, a meeting on the tools that form the basis of war propaganda. At 12.15pm we will continue with the meeting in English “What is the state of journalism in Afghanistan?” and the speech by Lotfullah Najafizada, founder and CEO of Amu TV. At 3.15pm Marta Serafini, journalist for Corriere della Sera, will discuss the dehumanization of the enemy with the meeting “Is the enemy a person?”, while at 4.30pm journalist Ferdinando Cotugno will reflect on the health of the Planet, individual actions and political choices. The second appointment of the format ‘A coffee with…’ will be in Piazza Fontanesi at 11.45 with the economist Fabrizio Barca and the journalist Ferdinando Cotugno to talk about people fighting for the future, new poverty and possible horizons.
There will be two ‘Make art, not war’ events on Saturday in the Courtyard of Palazzo Ancini: at 11:30 there will be the meeting “CHEAP – Posters against war” with the co-founders of Cheap Sara Manfredi and Flavia Tommasini and the moderation of the sociolinguist Vera Gheno, at 14:15 it will be the turn of “L’info-grafica va alla guerra”, an illustrated conversation between the historian Paolo Colombo and the illustrator Michele Tranquillini. At 11:30 at the Teatro San Prospero “20 days in Mariupol” (in the original version with Italian subtitles) by Mstylav Chernov will be screened and at 15 “Mourning in Lod” by Hilla Medalia (Vo with English and Italian subtitles). In the Aula Magna ‘Pietro Manodori’ of Unimore, ‘A lesson with Emergency’ will be held at 11 on the right to health in Italy with Emergency operators Sara Chessa, coordinator of the Sassari Clinic, Andrea Bellardinelli, director of the Italian Program, Loredana Carpentieri, cultural mediator and coordinator of the Milan Project and the moderator of the Rai 3 journalist Amalia De Simone.
On Saturday there will be two appointments with ‘Il Post’: at 3 pm “Humanitarian crises not to be forgotten” with Francesca Sibani, Africa editor for Internazionale and Pietro Parrino, director of the Humanitarian Projects department of Emergency with the moderation of the journalist of ‘Il Post’ Alessandra Pellegrini De Luca and at 4.15 pm “Reggio Emilia: navel of the world” with Claudio Caprara, author of the podcast ‘L’ombelico di un mondo’ of Il Post and Alessandra Pellegrini De Luca, journalist of Il Post. While at the E-35 Foundation, Francesco Pistilli, documentary photographer and filmmaker, will lead the workshop “How to see the world” at 2.30 pm on the use of images in the news and how they shape the contemporary world. During the day, the Panizzi Library will host a series of events dedicated to children, young women and men and their families: the meeting “I Don’t Understand You” with author Federico Taddia at 11:30 am and at 5:30 pm the Edu-Lab “Your Voice Matters” by Amir Issaa, rapper and writer.
