When Pictures Speak Louder Than Words – Newsletter No. 15

Four days of the Human Rights Festival streamed online from Milan; the best gnocchi recipe (so you'll be ready next Thursday); a preview of the new Ombre e Luci (issue No. 150!); and Italy's real athletic champions: welcome to newsletter No. 15.
When Pictures Speak Louder Than Words – Newsletter No. 15
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uman Rights Festival – With some reservations, Cristina Tersigni takes us through the 2020 Human Rights Festival (Up Close, No One Is Disabled), which just wrapped in Milan, streamed entirely online. Four days that shone most brightly for their selection of photographs, short films, and documentaries. Claudio Cinus reviews two of them: When We Walk and À l'école des Philosophes. Could it have been better? Yes. But it was a necessary first step for a country like Italy that—as Luigi Manconi pointed out—still clings to a "stubborn cultural backwardness" in how it treats people with disabilities.

Stairwell Dinners – Every Wednesday evening, Emanuela pulls out the potatoes and flour. By Thursday, her mother knows what to do: make gnocchi. For family, for friends in the building. Even now, gloves and masks and all. "Without home care and the day center to stay safe from coronavirus, I'm cooking more than ever," says Nunzia Giancola, offering some tips along the way (though it won't be easy without Emanuela there to remind you).
In the Spotlight – "In Ancient Greece, women were forbidden from acting on stage, so men played all the female roles. If someone landed on Earth in 2020, they might easily think the same rule applies to disability on screen: in the vast majority of cases, able-bodied actors and actresses play characters with disabilities," writes Giulia Galeotti. Starting from this absence, the new Ombre e Luci (issue No. 150!) shows us moments when disability takes center stage: an Italian actor brave enough to dive in swimming trunks (Daniele Cogliandro); a British actress so convincing at her audition that the writers rewrote the entire plot of a TV series around her (Ruth Madeley); animated films; the Ruderman family and their foundation's work on authentic disability representation on screen. These aren't small details. Seeing disability means accepting it. Seeing it told well means honoring it rightly. In this issue, you'll find Lucina Spaccia's powerful and poetic testimony, and the Sensuability project on sexuality and disability (Matteo Cinti). Then there are Ombre e Luci's journeys: Cristina Tersigni's interview with Olga Gurevitch takes us all the way to Russia, while Enrica Riera retraces the steps of don Panizza, a worker-priest who in 1976 left Lombardy for Lamezia Terme. The rest you'll discover yourselves—but remember always, as Tersigni writes in her editorial, that "hope blooms in being together."

Benedetta's Blog

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Redazione

Author of articles published in Ombre e Luci.

In total 349 authors have contributed to Ombre e Luci.

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