Fotografia Calabria Festival Award 2025

Shared roots: places

Contestants are invited to interpret the topic of the IV edition “Shared roots: places” by proposing photographic projects that reflect on one or more of the following aspects:

• Everyday Places: Spaces that we live on a daily basis , which belong to our individual or collective history, that we want to document, celebrate, and crystallize, or that we have taken for granted, only to suddendly rediscover them.

• Popular Places: Locations that embody images that everyone knows and are expected to be seen constantly the same (e.g., the gondola in Venice, the sunflower field in Tuscany, the snowy village at Christmas). How can we narrate them in a different way?

• Imaginary Places: spaces that exist only in the imagination of those who create them but resonate ideas and widespread visions.

The aim of this edition of the festival is to encourage participants to reflect on how “Shared roots: places” not only connect us to places, but also define the way we live them and how we narrate them. How do the invisible roots of a place that lay in the past, in our imagination and in our culture, influence our perception of it? How can we bring out these roots, making the invisible visible, and telling the stories of places in a new and authentic way?

DEADLINE

Entries can be submitted from March 21, 2025, until 11:59 PM (Italian time) on May 2, 2025.

The Jury

Elisa Medde  is an Art Historian specializing in Photography and Visual Culture. With a background in Iconology and Photographic Studies, her research reflects on the relationship between image, communication and power structures. She has been nominator for a number of prizes and chaired various juries, including the Luma Rencontres Book Award and MAST Foundation for Photography Grant. She currently lectures for various Universities in Europe, including ECAL, Lausanne, HSLU in Lucerne and UWE in Bristol. She curated many photobooks and exhibitions for various institutions, and her writings appeared on FlashArt, PhotoEye, Time Magazine, Foam Magazine, Something We Africans Got, Vogue Italia / L'Uomo Vogue, YET Magazine, the Aperture PhotoBook Review and many artists’ books. She has been Editor-in-Chief of Foam Magazine between 2012 and 2023, twice recipient of a Lucie Award for Best Photography Magazine. She is the recipient for the 2023 Royal Photographic Society Award for outstanding achievement in Photography Publishing.  

Elena Boille is the deputy director and photo editor of Internazionale. A graduate in art history and a journalist, she is one of the founders of the weekly, which was established in 1993. She is on charge for the photographic department and the columns dedicated to science. She has been part of several photographic award juries, she  conducted workshopsand taught photo editing. Internazionale is a weekly magazine that selects and translates articles from the international press into Italian language. In each issue, it publishes a photographic work in the Portfolio section, focusing mainly on long-term projects that can be either photojournalistic, documentary, or artistic. 

Gabriella Macchiarulo is responsible for organizing exhibitions and enriching the library at Archivio Luce Cinecittà. She has worked at the Istituto Luce since 1986, where she was involved in film production, distribution, and rights management. Since 2014, she has been responsible for organizing the exhibition activities of the Archivio Luce (including exhibitions like La Dolce Vitti, Troisi poeta massimo, War is Over, Anni Interessanti, Il Sorpasso, and more recently I mondi di Gina and Architetture inabitabili). From 2016 to 2020, she managed the exhibition program for the Istituto Luce Cinecittà at the Teatro dei Dioscuri al Quirinale. 

Marco Pisciottani has been with Terna S.p.A. since 2010, where he works in communications. From 2022 to 2024, he conceptualized and coordinated the three editions of the Premio Driving Energy – Contemporary Photography. He is currently involved in projects and communications for the newly established Fondazione Terna. He has written a novel (Diecimila alberi), a critical essay (Bussola per lettori coraggiosi: Moby Dick by Herman Melville), and a literary article (“Gli allegri compari,” or: Robert Stevenson in a single story). 

Francesca Marani rom 2015 to 2023 she was the visual editor of Global PhotoVogue and co-curator of the PhotoVogue Festival, the first conscious fashion photography festival dedicated to the common ground between ethics and aesthetics. In 2024 she curated photography exhibitions in Rome for the Leica initiative 'Roma ChilometroZero' (in collaboration with Contrasto) and was a portfolio reviewer for PHEST Monopoli. Francesca regularly collaborates with various photography festivals and schools as a portfolio reviewer and lecturer. 

Ilaria Sponda has been the Distribution Manager and Online Editor at Der Greif since 2022. She holds a BA in Arts, Media, and Cultural Events from IULM University, Milan, and an MA in Cultural Studies from Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Her writing has been featured in the British Journal of Photography, NERO, Lampoon, Over Journal, and Trigger, among other platforms and magazines. Her areas of interest include photographic art, media ecologies, globalization, and image circulation. 

Anna Catalano, is the artistic and project director of the Fotografia Calabria Festival. A freelance photographer, she collaborates with companies, NGOs, universities, institutions, and media outlets. 

Prize for the winner

  • Cash prize of 3,000 euros

  • Production and setting up of the exhibition

  • Publication in the 2025 Fotografia Calabria Festival’s catalogue

  • Visibility through all the communication actions of the Fotografia Calabria Festival

  • Publication in a permanent section of the Fotografia Calabria Festival website

How to partecipate

Partecipation fee

  • 35 euros per each project

Payment via PayPal.

No refunds are provided in case of withdrawal from participation.

To participate in the photographic contest, you need to register and upload your project on the HPCM platform, owned by HiHo S.r.l. - Via G. Donizetti, 52 50018 Scandicci (FI).

To help you manage your participation, here are some guidelines and materials you will need during the upload process:

  • After completing the registration form, you will be logged into the area dedicated to uploading your project.

  • The payment of the fee must be made in the section dedicated to uploading the project.

  • “Portfolio Title”: Note that you need to write the title of the project with which you have chosen to compete in the Fotografia Calabria Festival Award.

Required materials, which we recommend you prepare in advance:

  • PDF file with the project statement and, if available, captions for the photographs, which should have the same naming denomination and the same sequence as the images you upload: “project_title_1”; “project_title_2”; “project_title_3”; etc. (max 3 pages).

  • PDF file with a brief professional bio (not a CV or portfolio), including links to your social profiles and website (if available) (max 1 page).

  • Title for each photo. This field should include the title of the project and the progressive numbering of the images. Note: duplicate titles are not accepted.

  • JPEG images in the proper sequence for the project: at least 10, maximum 25 photos, minimum 1000 px, maximum 2500 px on the long side.

  • A portrait photo of yourself.

Your photographic project can be reviewed and modified in your user area until 11:59 PM on May 2, 2025. There is no need to request confirmation of your submission, but if you wish, you can click the “Send me the report of the photos submitted by email” button.

© Andrea Salvucci