the first European festival on creativity

Previous editions

2013

Programmazione 2013 en Download

Dear friends of Festival della Mente, thank you. On the Festival’s 10th anniversary, we wish to express our gratitude to you all for the unforgettable editions spent together. Like all good things, these ten years have passed fast. The memories of past editions make up a snapshot of our country the way we would like it to be always: a country full of people who are keen on listening and reflecting, of thinkers and intellectuals who enjoy the challenge of discussing things in depth and share an interest in the common good. The Festival has shown that Italy has a lively, strong culture not based on the narcissism of loud statements or impressive figures but on quality, on real excellence, on openness to dialogue, on the desire to know and share – in one word, to improve. This is the goal that guided us in these first ten years, and we have worked to achieve it together with the many people who flocked to Sarzana from distant places, as well as with the more than five hundred speakers who helped make the Festival della Mente one of the most popular cultural events in Italy. Popular even among youngsters – more that four thousand of them – who offered their volunteer work for the Festival and thus became part of its audience and its ambassadors as well.

We hope that the memories they hold of the Festival’s events will encourage them to better understand reality. All of us together are proof that Italy is different from what many think – a country not so inclined to exhibitionism as to work hard and to appreciate the nourishment of culture. This year we have once again tried our best to build an original, stimulating program, beginning with the quality of our speakers, some of whom will be back again on this 10th anniversary. We hope to build on the dialogue established in 2004 between speakers and audience and make it an ever-renewed opportunity for encounter. So once again, dear friends, thank you from Giulia Cogoli, the Festival’s director for ten years, and from the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio of La Spezia and from the City of Sarzana, that have offered the Festival their unwavering support in spite of all the difficulties due to the economic crisis. Together, we have created a small but bright spark of the future.

Previous editions

2013

Programme of the 10th edition

Ideas and their responsibility in good and evil

Crossing the shadow line

The body as a canvas: depicting/defacing the body

What will change our future. Artificial man

Swann’s Way

Italian Journey. Grand Tour with Bach and Scarlatti

Incredible Middle Ages: the Terror of the Year 1000

Archives in art: a new contemporary genre?

The gap

Sense of humour: a lifestyle

Has TV killed creativity and culture?

Woman is an invention

Speaking of food in times of crisis

Apprentices of the moon in the meditation room

On the other side of things: The Initiation Journey

Old fears, new fears

Between art, philosophy and science: the adventures of truth

To inherit or to be creative? Art in the time of disoriented generations

Imperfect knowledge

The future? It is past

Sing me a poem

Incredible Middle Ages: The ius primae noctis

Calligraphy: creativity in writing

Memory and photography

Brain aging: a 3rd millennium epidemic

Why Europe?

What we talk about when we talk about irony

In conversation with literary creativity

The love of art

Empathy, sympathy and compassion: resources for a threatened world?

Nulla dies sine linea-Not a day without a line

About beauty

The creativity of love

What will change our future. The secret brain

Before other people’s eyes

Stop the geniuscide!

Incredible Middle Ages: The flat Earth