WORLDWIDE AWARDED TALENTS WILL BE PRESENT AT THE FESTIVAL OF ETHICAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN LODI SHOWING IMPACTFUL IMAGES OF SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEMPORARY REALITIES
Text by: Fiammetta Cesana
The 10th edition of the Festival of Ethical Photography is proving the incredible, international boom of the event of Lodi (Lombardy). Taking place from October 5th to 27th, the festival presents different awards, exhibitions, parallel events, including guided tours with the photographers themselves, books’ presentations and educational activities for students.
From the scourge of alcohol and methamphetamine abuse in America, to the relationship between tigers and the Indian people, to the medical train that crosses Siberia, to the yellow vests in France… this year the festival, legitimately affirmed in the European panorama of photography, will tackle many different themes but with only one big goal: “to create a virtuous circuit able to allow photography to reach the public and ask questions to consciences” – affirm Alberto Prina and Aldo Mendichi who organize the event with Gruppo Fotografico Progetto Immagine.
WHAT DOES ETHICAL PHOTOGRAPHY MEAN?
The aim is to use a photographic language accessible to an increasingly wider public developing a cultural awareness on a global level. Each of the various talents offers a unique gaze, so as to involve different sensitivities and points of view… “Sometimes this gaze can be raw and without filters, while others are mediated by a visual poetic that smooths the edges of reality to return anyway an idea of hope and sharing.” – Prina and Mendichi stated
AWARDS
The 2019 World Report Award has collected well over 600 applications from photographers of 44 nationalities. Based on the 7 categories, these were evaluated by a jury of excellence composed by, of course, both Prina and Mendichi, Rick Shaw, former director of Picture of the Year, Pierre Fernandez, multimedia content manager for Agence France Press, and Jon Jones, head of photography at Tortoise Media.
For the MASTER section, Darcy Padilla wins with “Dreamers”, a powerful portfolio on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, considered the poorest place in America, where the community is struggling with alcohol and methamphetamine abuse.
Senthil Kumaran Rajendran is the winner of the SPOTLIGHT section with “Boundaries: Human and Tiger Conflict”, which documents the complicated relationship between tigers and the population in India, in the vast wild areas near sanctuaries.
For the third section SHORT STORY, the German Emile Ducke is awarded for the reportage “Diagnosis”, which tells of a medical train traveling to remote, underserved cities in Siberia, thus ensuring a free health screening for the population.
“Faith, Custom and Homeland” by the young German Arne Piepke wins for the STUDENT section, which investigates the centuries-old, and unique in the world, marksmen’s clubs in Germany and festivals that reinforce the sense of community.
For the new section WORLD ITALY, created just to celebrate the Festival’s 10th anniversary, Mariano Silletti presents “Serra Maggiore”.
Giulia Frigieri for the SINGLE SHOT category shows her photo entitled “Surfing Iran”.
And finally the NO PROFIT section awards the Emergency organizations with the reportage “Zakhem-Ferite, La guerra a casa”, and Médecins du Monde Foundation with the work “Unwanted Pregnancies among Adolescent Girls in Ivory Coast”, and Positive Change Can Happen with the “Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World’s Poor”.
The traditional Voglino Prize this year, then, has awarded the ethics section to Gabriele Cecconi and his “I miserabili e la Terra”, which tells of the exodus of the Rohingyas, fleeing persecution in Myanmar.
SHOWS
The Festival will also present two exhibitions, in collaboration with Agence France Press, dealing with two very contemporary themes such as the yellow vests in France and that of the myriads of migrants in South America, from Honduras to the US border in Tijuana. A third exhibition then is by the photographer Nick Hannes with his project in Dubai to document the follies and paradoxes of this luxurious artificial oasis in the desert. Marco Zorzanello instead will take us to places like Greenland, the Dead Sea and the Dolomites, areas that are suddenly undergoing climate change and where a particular form of tourism is raising.
The Corporate for Festival section will also be held with an archive display of the Banca Etica celebrating its 20 years. The Thematic Space, then, will be dedicated to Italy, presenting the works of important national photographers, such as Marco Valle with his “Mare Mostrum”, a reflection on the future of the Italian coast, and Letizia Battaglia with her documentary shots.
Alongside the Festival, it will take place FFE-OFF, a series of photographic shows, exhibited in shops, bars, restaurants, galleries, cultural clubs and public areas of Lodi.
Cover image: Festival della Fotografia Etica 2019_Raffaele Gianluca Colonnese © Raffaele Gianluca Colonnese
Festival of Ethical Photography
Lodi, Italy
From October 5th to 27th
