XVII Edition
This 17th edition of the Festival arrives at a time when reality is increasingly hard to see and understand.
To the conflicts, inequalities and environmental emergencies that mark our present, something subtler is now added: generated images, fabricated news, a constant flow that blurs what really happened with what has been manufactured. That is why telling the true from the plausible has never been so difficult. And never so necessary. That is why photojournalism matters more than ever. It is a form of storytelling born from presence, from someone who chose to go and to stay, often at their own risk, where things happen.
As always, the exhibitions of this edition bring to Lodi the gaze of the greatest international photographers: women and men who have documented events, who have seen them with their own eyes and who give them back to us without mediation. Theirs is a first-hand testimony, and today first-hand testimony is a rare thing.
The Festival asks for something simple and, at the same time, countercurrent: to devote at least one day to observing the real world, slowly and attentively. The crises we face are ever larger and cannot be solved with quick answers. They require awareness, time, thought. Only in this way can we hope to slow down their impact and, perhaps, change their course.
The Festival of Ethical Photography exists because 38 years ago Jean-François Leroy managed to do something unique and extraordinary, and inspired many of us to keep working so that our society could be freer. We have been here for 17 years also thanks to the inspiration of a man who did so much for photojournalism. The legacy he left us is to carry on the same responsibility: to stand beside those on the front line to bear witness.
This year we wanted not only to tell the story of the world, but also to open up new places in the city. Culture must be agile in a time of great change, able to inhabit spaces as soon as they are ready. That is why we are entering theformer Linificio, the future Civic Museum of Lodi, which comes to life with projections of photographs from around the world; for the first time the Diocesan Museum, which has just opened; and the convent of Santa Chiara Nuova, which joins the official exhibition programme.
We thank the Mayor and the whole city for believing in us and in the thousands of people who will come to Lodi. In this 17th edition you will find all of this. You will find the work of an entire year, the care and the effort to build a project that has value and leaves a mark and a concrete impact on the cultural economy of a territory and beyond.
The photography we exhibit is an invitation to change our perspective on the world.
Thank you for being with us, thank you for choosing the real world.
The Artistic Direction
Alberto Prina, Aldo Mendichi and Laura Covelli
