The festival, from 6 to 8 September, will liven up the squares of the Municipality in the first weekend of the end of summer
REGGIO EMILIA – For 30 years Emergency has put “people” first and they will be the theme and leitmotif of the fourth edition of the Emergency Festival which will also be held this year in Reggio Emilia from 6 to 8 September, animating the squares of Common in the first weekend of late summer. Three days full of meetings and debates in which journalists, philosophers, writers, Emergency workers will try to answer the questions: what unites one person to another? What divides us? What is the moment when we feel part of a community? And when is a community capable of generating change?
Since 1994, the year of its foundation, Emergency has tried to guarantee the right to care to those who need it most, following the path traced by its founder, Gino Strada: treating one person at a time, without any discrimination. The global challenges and contradictions of our era can only be overcome by starting from the awareness of belonging to a common humanity. It is this awareness that has pushed Emergency, during its thirty years of activity, to put people at the centre.
The fourth edition of the Emergency Festival will develop around these themes, which will enliven the city of Reggio Emilia with debates, talks, music and films. The heart of the Festival will be in Piazza Prampolini where the Dialogues will be held, meetings between expert voices on the great themes of our contemporaneity. This square will also be the theater of the Emergency (Hi)stories conducted by Giampaolo Musumeci, Radio24 journalist, who will talk about the association’s projects over these 3 decades.
Piazza Casotti will host the Questions to Think in which historians, economists, journalists and experts will dedicate themselves to a key theme with a twenty-minute speech while an exhibition will be set up at the Palazzo dei Musei which will retrace some key words of these 30 years. The courtyard of Palazzo Ancini, ANPI headquarters, will then be the stage for the Make Art Not War format with meetings dedicated to the connections between art and conflicts. In the portico of the University of Reggio Emilia, 5 meetings will be held in collaboration with the editorial staff of Il Post. At the San Prospero Theater there will be, again this year, the review of films and documentaries Luci sui people. Inside the Panizzi Library, a minifestival dedicated to children, teenagers, families and teachers, which will be animated by stories, workshops and insights.
And then A lesson with Emergency in the University’s main hall, to satisfy the curiosity of those who want to learn more about the commitment of an NGO, the traveling space Un caffè con… in which to meet, over a coffee, the authors and the guest authors of the Festival, an interactive installation in Piazza Frumentaria which is also a sort of social experiment. Finally, there will be moments of lightheartedness with two evenings of DJ sets in Piazza San Prospero and the evening of Saturday 7 September, in Piazza Prampolini, with an entertainment show.
