Return to Andria again this year, from 7 to 16 June 2024, The Festival of Despair, now in its eighth edition. With the usual ironic and irreverent tone, the theme chosen for this year is “How do you make mistakes”. The subject of the review will be the error in all its forms and contradictions, starting from those we make in our daily lives up to current social and political events: the event – organized by the Circolo dei Lettori di Andria – will be held at the Episcopal Seminary. Climate crisis and possible futures, green themes will be the center of the Festival of Despair: issues of great urgency will be addressed in meetings with the writer Barbara Bernardini, the science journalist Roberto Inchingolo, the face of The Third Secret of Satire Massimiliano Loizzi, the correspondent for Geo Sara Segantin, the activist Alice Franchi and the writer Paolo Pecere.
The first date Saturday 8 June, at l‘Andria Harvest Vegetable Garden (9 am): the writer and editor of the newsletter Stolen arms Barbara Bernardiniauthor of the volume Dallgarden in the world (Edizioni nottetempo), will talk to us about how it is possible to “change the world with a furrow”, that is, how the practice of‘garden can become a pretext to reflect on the environmental crisis and resist its effects, recovering a connection with the earth and imagining another possible future. To accompany the debate, the planting and weeding workshop between the furrows. The writer will also be at the festival on the same day Paolo Pecereauthor of the essay The sense of nature. Seven paths to the Earth (Sellerio) who will hold a psychedelic dialogue with writers at 6.00 pm (Episcopal Seminary) Andrea Piva And Nicola Lagioia, the three will start from the Eleusinian mysteries until arriving at the encounter with other animal intelligences. A journey through the history of thought that looks both at the past and the future of the Earth, a future yet to be written: in recent years the destructive impact of human civilization on nature has been recognised, made evident by climate catastrophes, extinctions of entire animal species , desertification and disappearance of landscapes. Yet, this awareness does not produce any real change in our ways of living, in the solutions adopted by industrial societies to avoid calamity. At the same time, we are witnessing the spread of a passionate love and a profound nostalgia for uncontaminated nature, a refuge from the deafening disharmony of the world.
Monday 10 June (9.30pm, Episcopal Seminary) appointment with the writer and actor Massimiliano Loizzi, face of The Third Secret of Satire, with his meeting Stories for the end of the world. The end is coming. An urgent, profound and current story, made up of fragments of tragic yet comical stories: an intense collection of fairy tales for adults made to reflect on the environmental emergency, a project created in collaboration with Mediterranea and Plastic Free which shows the evocative power of stories and how much our ability to imagine a different world can influence the current one.
Thursday 13 June (7pm, Episcopal Seminary) will instead be the turn of the writer, sent for Geoconsultant to the artistic direction of Do the Right Thing Sara Segantin and the environmental activist Alice Franchiwho will tell us about their project The right to R-Exist. Women on the brink of a climate crisis. In the footsteps of Harriet Chalmers Adams, the first female photojournalist in the world, the young women ventured into the most threatened territories of Central America, to see, listen and document the stories of struggle and resistance of activists, communities and associations fighting for human and environmental rights: they crossed Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, territories among the most affected by the climate crisis, where environmental disasters reduce more than two million people per day into extreme poverty year for create a network of collaboration between women and communities who struggle every day and give them visibility whyand become an example of sustainable development at a national and international level.
Friday 14 June Sara Segantin will return to the Festival to talk to the scientific journalist Roberto Inchingoloauthor of the book Revenge of the Orcas (Editions code): with the two we will discuss our relationship with animals, which we tend to consider under our control, and as well as the Earth and the environment around us, moldable for our use and consumption. But – from the flamingos that escape from zoo cages to the pigs that eat their breeders, up to the killer whales that destroy the boats that crowd the sea – the animals do not always agree: Inchingolo and Segantin will tell us stories that they will invite us to reflect on our relationship with animals and to talk about evolution and coexistence (7pm, Episcopal Seminary).
Then meet in Andria to participate in the only cultural festival in our country which celebrates the transformative and catastrophic power of desperation in literature and modern life which brings, like every year, writers, actors, journalists, musicians and artists to the Apulian town. The entire program of the event will be available on the website www.festivaldelladisperazione.it
It will be possible to purchase tickets from 05/13/24 both on www.festivaldelladisperazione.it and at the Festival secretariat located in via Largo Seminario 18 in Andria (9.30am – 12.30pm / 4.30pm – 8.30pm) .
The Festival is conceived and organized by the Andria Readers’ Club. We thank the San Tommaso D’Aquino Diocesan Library, the Immaculate Conception Archconfraternity and the Presidi del Libro for their support and the partners Cristal Palace Hotel and Collettivo 32 for their collaboration.
