by Beatrice Bruni
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SI FEST was born in 1992 as Portfolio in Piazza under the leadership of Lanfranco Colombo and with the enthusiasm and expertise of a group of “crazy visionaries” who, for the first time in Italy, created a cultural project of in-depth study of photography. Today the festival turns thirty, is internationally renowned, and can be counted among the most important ones, always admired and taken as a model. SI FEST can be proudly said to be the longest-running photography festival in Italy.
“We would never have thought of reaching thirty years of ‘Photography Meetings in Savignano’, says Mario Beltrambini, Vice President of the Savignano Immagini Association. In thirty years we have changed the name three times from Portfolio in Piazza to Festival Foto and then SI FEST: the change of the name went hand in hand with the transformation of photography. We often turned back to look at the past without realizing that we were already in the future of photography. Photography that is ever more ephemeral, temporary, constantly changing its skin. Today we are relieved in seeing so many young people following and making a contribution to our Festival, giving us hope for a future of the journey we have undertaken.”
There are numerous artists, authors, photographers and photography scholars who have passed through Savignano in these thirty years. They were organizers, directors, coordinators, artists on display: I want to mention some names, among the first who joined the project, as well as some of those I had the pleasure of seeing exhibited in the most recent editions.
Mario Cresci, one of the first authors present at SI FEST, has created a limited edition evocative manifesto for the 30th anniversary; then it goes from Guido Guidi to Franco Vaccari, from Gabriele Basilico to Olivo Barbieri, from Antonio Biasiucci to Nino Migliori, from Guido Harari to Toni Thorimbert. Just a few names from the most recent editions: Max Pinckers, Richard Renaldi, Alessandro Imbriaco, Pietro Paolini, Mike Brodie, Larry Fink, Jacopo Benassi, Laura Pannack, Martina Bacigalupo, Emanuele Camerini, Giulia Mangione.
“FUTURA. I domani della fotografia”(The photography of tomorrow). With this title, the artistic director Denis Curti wanted to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the festival, with a reflection on the present, starting from the past and in an attempt to give a physiognomy to the future of photography. The program of this thirtieth edition was very rich, as befits the greatest occasions; the small Romagna center, like every year, welcomed enthusiasts and experts in its streets, squares, palaces and exhibition spaces. The atmosphere was very pleasant, warm and inclusive.
It has been difficult to carry on with the festival in these last two years, when the pandemic has dictated the rules and changed our way of life; a real challenge. SI FEST has won this battle, and the credit goes to the great professionalism of the organizers, of all the participants, of the artistic director Curti, who has been back to the management chair since 2019.
This territory has always been imbued with art and photographic culture. The administration supports the project with passion, reliability and an active presence. A festival that finds one of its assets in a strong connection with the territory, the citizens and the institutions. The festival was born as Portfolio in Piazza and the tradition of portfolio reading has remained essential over time: the prestigious “Werther Colonna” Portfolio Award is linked to it. This year the award was won by Luca Meola with Crackland, an intense work, still in progress, on the life of the people of Cracolândia, San Paulo, Brazil.
Another important prize awarded by the festival is the one dedicated to the memory of the prematurely deceased documentary photographer Marco Pesaresi. A bond, the one between Savignano and Marco, which, every year, brings moments of deep emotion. This year Isa Perazzini, the photographer’s mother, and his daughters donated the entire Pesaresi archive to Savignano, once again underlining the link between the author and this place. In addition, some photographs from I megastore series were exhibited, and the town created a space dedicated to his works.
The Marco Pesaresi Award was won this year by Andrea de Franciscis with Delhirium, a tale of the heterogeneous city of Delhi, which will be on display in the next edition of SI FEST, in September 2022.
The festival every year offers talks, side events, book presentations, shows, guided tours of the exhibitions. During the opening weekend which, as usual, took place in mid-September, the public was able to attend a Lectio Magistralis by the Finnish photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen, present with Same But Different, a very famous collection of his images in which he portrays himself naked in harmony and fusion with nature and the wild landscape.
One of the most characteristic and significant aspects of the SI FEST is the OFF section.
SI FEST OFF has existed for twelve years, and over time it has grown exponentially, so much so that it has become a real small festival within the festival, led from the first year by the artistic director Tomas Maggioli, of Associazione Cultura e Immagine. The projects on display at SI FEST OFF are selected among the most deserving ones in the thematic open call: emerging artists of great value have exhibited in recent years at Palazzo Don Baronio, a recently renovated heritage site.
Last year, due to the pandemic emergency, they decided to change the formula and present an organic collective story: the collective Cesura took care of it, with the Interludio project, narrating the impact of the pandemic on our society. In the 2021 edition, it was decided to continue along this line and the task of telling the state of things was entrusted to a new collective, Covisioni, born during the first lockdown.
Covisioni involved forty photographers from all Italian regions, called upon to analyze, document, interpret the changing human relations in the era of Covid-19. Among the founders and curators of the project Jana Liskova, Francesca De Dominicis, Francesco Rucci. A very elegant installation, authorial works, projects that dig deep; a photographic campaign with an anthropological and social background. Among the works on display, I was very impressed by the images of Emanuela Bava, with the beautiful Serre series.
The future of photography starts here.
Website SI FEST: https://www.sifest.it
