by Chiara Ruberti
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For Cortona on the Move 2021 was an important turning point. From the next edition the direction will be entrusted to Veronica Nicolardi and Paolo Woods will be artistic director. We asked the new director to tell us about this transition, between the past and the future of the Festival.
The 2021 edition of Cortona On The Move was the last one under the direction of Antonio Carloni and Arianna Rinaldo. The Festival is closing a circle, what has COTM built in these ten years and what are the most significant legacies of their direction?
Arianna Rinaldo and Antonio Carloni gave birth to Cortona On The Move, allowing its growth and development, making it what it is now: an internationally recognized festival, a point of reference in Italy and in Europe.
Keeping an eye, Arianna’s, always closely on what was happening in the world, the festival evolved, starting from changes in the visual language, and used a wide range of storytelling tools. Antonio’s incessant proactiveness, fueled by his incredible vivacity of ideas, has made it possible to integrate the festival’s offer with special and innovative projects that have involved important partners such as Intesa Sanpaolo and Canon.
They have been incredible years, enriched by a continuous growth of both the festival and the team that, over time, they have built and developed under their direction. My meeting with Antonio, in particular, was decisive for my career path. The two of us, more than anyone, have made Cortona On The Move our main focus, we have never given up or stopped raising to the challenge. When I graduated in Management Engineering, I would never have imagined that my passion for photography, which led me to approach Cortona On The Move, would have totally conditioned and outlined my working future.
You have been part of the COTM staff since the very first editions of the Festival, among the projects you have pursued in recent years is there one that you particularly care about and that has given you greater satisfaction?
I arrived in Cortona in 2013, less than a month after the inauguration of the third edition and only the year after, in 2014, we developed a project starting from an idea of the photographer Alessandro Penso, European Dream-Road to Brussels and that is the one I feel closest to. In collaboration with UNHCR we set up an exhibition inside a truck that, leaving from Bari, traveled across Italy (Ancona, Rome, Florence, Milan) and Europe (Geneva, Strasbourg) and reached Brussels, with the aim of raising awareness on risks that migrants face on their journey and the relative European laws, trying to fight prejudices and stereotypes that fuel conflicts. The images of the truck parked at the Imperial Forums and in front of the European Parliament still fill me with emotion.
In 2015 we participated, in partnership with 16 European festivals, in the Flâneur project created thanks to the support of the European Union Creative Europe program. A project that allowed me to travel a lot, discover and get to know authors and experts from the world of European photography.
I obviously must include The COVID-19 Visual Project. At Time of Distance, the project that has had a major influence on the festival. In March 2020, most countries in the world were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. As organizers of the festival, we had to cancel the planned 2020 edition and revise our plans, a painful decision that actually affected most cultural workers. Adapting to completely new scenarios, with the support of our partners we reacted quickly by creating, in just two months, the multimedia platform The COVID-19 Visual Project, A Time of Distance with the aim of creating, through commissioned content from different parts of the world, a historical memento of the moment we were living. The COVID-19 Visual Project. A Time of Distance then became the protagonist of the physical edition of the festival: exhibitions, albeit fewer, and events carried out with some restrictions.
The new direction of COTM is entrusted to you and Paolo Woods, what will change? What is your vision for the future of the Festival?
What we want is that the festival continues to be an international point of reference. It will be a festival focused on investigating our era and, at the same time, exploring how photography is evolving to be able to tell us about it. The theme will be selected on year to year basis to gain perspective on the contemporary world. The innovations that we will bring and that will give the festival an immediately recognizable identity are many and we will soon announce them!
Website Cortona On The Move: www.cortonaonthemove.com
