Festival della Mente » 2022

Event #24

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 19:30:59 +0000

“There is a hunger for words which can describe what we care about most. And what we really care about has not changed over the centuries. It is always love, pain, the unspeakable mystery, our children, death, flowers, clouds – everything which does not change in this peculiar universe. There is a longing to say thank you, to say forgive, to say we, you, to care, tree, forest, my love, the dead, the species, and I will put there all these beloved words that now vibrate so strongly and show their trembling when they meet the verse, their being in danger amid the poor running language. All this is Catching the Breath. The breath, our primary movement, the footstalk which keeps us hanging on to life, like breathing fruit, inside the air of all, inside the motion of everything”. Mariangela Gualtieri

Event #25

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 19:30:26 +0000

Throughout his life, Iosif Brodskij – winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, “a Jew, Russian poet, English essayist and American citizen” as he described himself – proclaimed the poet’s right to concern himself exclusively with his art, ignoring politics, social commitment, and the message. Yet his poetry is a merciless critique of the Soviet Union's decline and the West's soullessness. Decades later, he has something prescient to say even about the tragedy of the war in Ukraine.

Event #23

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 17:00:38 +0000

“You will not discover the limits of the soul by wandering, even if you travel every way, so deep is its logos” wrote Heraclitus. However, maybe only poets can explore the mystery of logos – the word which measures and reveals. In ancient times, the perfect example comes from a woman with a tormented life whose name shines beyond time: Sappho. The verses she dedicated to lived or lost loves shed light on the movements that run through our souls like a breath. Psyché, after all, means “breath”. We can also find breath through the verses of the greatest Greek-language poet of the 20th century: Constantine Kavafis. In his erotic lyrics as well as in his historical ones, the journey to the borders of the soul is constant. And the place where it stops is a dimension beyond space and time. For only in the soul we – as mortal human beings – can rediscover ourselves eternal.

Event #22

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 15:00:54 +0000

Moving to survive hunger: for Velasco Vitali, the Branco (Pack) is a metaphor for the human experience, it is the eternal relationship between good and evil. The 54 sculptures of stray dogs making up the Branco installation are like the shadows of nomads moving among borderless places and diversity of race, language and habits. For Vitali, it is fascinating “their way of living without roots, of searching with slowness, of pausing in the sun, of breathing with their eyes closed”. A visionary artist and a witty journalist meet to investigate “the mystery of the natural world that breathes beside and with us and our astonishment in looking at it” through art. A symbolic journey that takes us through the streets of our history, from the streets of Milan and Palermo to the Capaci and the Via d'Amelio bombing.

Event #21

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 14:45:19 +0000

In David Grossman’s novels, the characters are often on the move: they run away from bad news or travel in search of an explanation, take a walk around the neighborhood or go round in circles to come up with a good idea, as the writer himself confesses to do when he is struggling with a new plot. For Grossman, in dialogue with Alessandro Zaccuri, movement is not only a matter of space, but is also a challenge against time, seeking a deep relationship which never fails to engage the readers of an author appreciated all over the world. Furthermore, movement represents the belief that immobility does not prevail and that there is always a possibility for the path of hope, coexistence, and peace.

Event #20

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 12:45:54 +0000

The space adventure is apparently distant and extremely specialised, but is actually very close to our everyday reality. With his eyes turned up to the sky, Maurizio Cheli shares with us his experience that took him aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1996: he describes a journey which both changed him and allowed him to learn some important lessons on how to positively face a complex mission, manage difficult situations in often extreme conditions, work in harmony with the crew to achieve goals, and face challenges we all share in our daily orbit.

Event #19

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 12:45:36 +0000

Pandemics and catastrophes have focused the attention on the increasingly urgent issue of children's mental health. Mental suffering of children and adolescents had been steadily increasing for many years, but the issue was ignored, being often relegated to the back burner of public debates. Social isolation, addiction to technology, self-harm, suicide, antisocial behavior, exasperation – reading the statistics, the scenario becomes daunting. Beyond public alarmism, how big is the problem? What dilemmas await us in a reality that seems to be more and more insane? What measures and strategies can give hope to children and parents? What challenges should we take up as individuals and as a community?

EVENT MOVED TO PIAZZA MATTEOTTI.
Tickets marked with Teatro degli Impavidi location will be valid for admission to piazza Matteotti.

Event #18

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 10:15:23 +0000

How is a film made? Which journey does the director take in conceiving it? How are characters created and placed in a historical context? What is the relationship between reality and fiction? And how dynamic should the director’s gaze be? Starting from the emotional places which inspire the writing of a film – a sort of map where the external world represents the inner landscape – Giuseppe Piccioni describes the work of the director as the ability to make choices and to get to the end of the film with as few regrets as possible about the choices made.

Event #17

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 10:00:30 +0000

Thanks to research, we are able to defeat diseases before they even occur. Prevention is better than cure, especially regarding cardiovascular risk and cancer. A good lifestyle – not smoking, eating healthy, avoiding excess weight and training regularly – can significantly reduce the risk of serious diseases and their consequences. The war we fight against cancer is extremely costly and is therefore a discriminating factor between social strata and geographical areas. If it were possible to reduce the need for treatment – because we get sick less or discover the disease in time – pharmaceutical expenditure would decrease in favor of preventive expenditure, and the success could be impressive.

Event #37

Festival della Mente — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 08:16:45 +0000

Workshop ages 7-10 – 60 minutes; 15 participants

Words have great power: they can sting, grip, dazzle but also soothe, embrace, lift. In this workshop, children will discover the many facets of words and try to give emotions a form which can be felt, seen and even touched.