"Don't give up" is the title of the ninth edition of the most important European festival dedicated to investigative and reportage journalism, which returns to the city of Emilia with a hundred events over four days. An increasingly rich event with talks, screenings, workshops, theatre, art, music, the awarding of the DIG Awards 2023 and the DIG Pitch
In less than ten years, DIG Festival has become the most important festival of investigative journalism and contemporary culture in Europe. It is a global benchmark for reporters, investigators, filmmakers and independent producers, and is a unique experience of in-depth, enriching and informative reporting also for its valuable generalist audience.
Like every year, also DIG Festival 2023 'Don't give up"It offers its exceptional exhibitions with a selection of the best, worldwide, of investigation, reportage and documentary - both video and audio - competing for a DIG Award. Plus meetings with protagonists and authors, art and exposé exhibitions, concerts, theatre and workshops.
The new edition of DIG Festival, from 21 to 24 September 2023, brings almost 100 events to Modena in just four days. Florence Aubenas, Cory Doctorow, Nicola Gratteri, Erik Gandini, Ana Juan, Daniela Pesare just the first big guests to be announced.
It starts on Thursday 21 September at the Complesso San Paolo with the inauguration of the solo exhibition of the acclaimed artist Ana Juan, who was called upon by the DIG - ETS Association Board to realise the Watchdog of 2023, the "watchdog' symbol of investigative journalism and every edition of the Festival. Thanks to DIG's collaboration with Andrea Losavio's D406 Gallery, the Spanish illustrator, one of the most talented and appreciated in the world, brings to Modena her famous covers created for The New Yorker and the works recounting his splendid career, suspended between fairytale and reality. To follow, in the setting of the Church of San Carlo, the official opening of DIG Festival 2023 "Don't give up", in the presence of several special guests, including Luciana Castellina and Eddi Marcucci.
During DIG Festival 2023 Don't give up will talk about conflicts, information design, climate emergency and the major crises of our time, of AI, future of the Internet and technological authoritarianism, of work, health, organised and financial crimethreats to independent information and journalists threatened, silenced, killed. The call to not give up will be documented and shouted.
More in detail, a preview of some of the themes and guests at this edition of DIG Festival are:
- l'climate emergency and its repercussions in the media as well (several training workshops and panels are scheduled, such as those with journalists Stella Levantesi and Silvia Lazzaris, or those organised by DIG with one of its partners, Journalismfund, the organisation that coordinates and finances investigations in Europe and brings to the Festival some of the best European journalists who have worked on the impact of climate change thanks to the Earth Investigations Programme);
- algorithms and artificial intelligence will be the subject of several meetings, dedicated in particular to how journalism must and is already investigating their opaque application in sensitive contexts, such as welfare and justice, or their use by police forces. Among the most important guests is Cory Doctorow, the famous science fiction author and activist of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the world's best-known organisation for the defence of digital rights: his keynote is dedicated to the crisis of the large digital platforms and the rise of an Internet populated by content created by machines and non-human intelligences. AI and algorithms in sensitive contexts will also be discussed by Gabriel Geiger and Pierluigi Bizzini, respectively journalist at Lighthouse Reports and fellow at AlgorithmWatch, two organisations that have distinguished themselves in recent years for their investigative work on digital forms of power;
- work and its end (not only the meeting with the well-known Italian-Swedish director Erik Gandini who presents his latest film After Work, also panels and debates with Francesca Coin from DIG, sociologist, author of the successful essay Le grandi dimissioni, published by Einaudi);
- corruption, organised crime, freedom to investigate of journalists and magistrates (among the events dedicated to the topics is the exclusive meeting on Saturday 23 September with Prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, in cooperation with Fnsi).
This year the exhibitions at DIG Festival will even be three, all freeIn addition to Ana Juan's solo exhibition, satire is the protagonist, with the finalist works of the European Cartoon Awards of 2023, in collaboration with the European Press Prize, the continent's prestigious journalistic award, and the war in Ukraine, with Double ExposureKyiv artist's exhibition Inga Levi who presents new drawings from his war diary at DIG 2023 (the exhibition, in collaboration with Grabinski Point, also includes a video investigation by Forensic Architecture).
DIG is also cinema and great documentaries: for four days in the halls of the historic Cinema Astra will be finalist films screened in the five video categories of the DIG Awards, in the presence of the authors who will come to Modena from all over the world. In addition to the titles in competition, the Festival presents, as every year, a rich section of films and extra previews.
As always, the Festival will also host sessions of the DIG Academy - with which DIG offers 12 free advanced training workshops open to all and accredited by the Ordine dei Giornalisti - hosted within the Department of Law of the University of Modena.
During DIG Festival, the international prizes of the DIG Awards - the competition that once again attracted record participation this year, with around 400 candidate works from all over the world. The awards will be decided by DIG's international jury, which includes authors and producers from the world's leading brands of investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking.
DIG Association - ETS is particularly proud to bring to Modena as president of the 2023 jury Florence Aubenas, writer, journalist and great correspondent for Libération, Le Nouvel Observateur and then Le Monde, an indispensable reference in international journalism. Held hostage for almost five months in Baghdad in 2005, she became a media celebrity. In 2023 she returned to bookshops with Ici et ailleurs, a diary of eight years of crisis, from the Gilets jaunes to the war in Ukraine, through incisive testimonies and a terribly human gaze.
Florence Aubenas presides over a jury that confirms its high profile: alongside more historical jurors, such as the French Marco Nassivera (2015-2019, and then again in 2022), the British Tim Travers Hawkins (2020-2022), the Italians Andrea Scrosati (2015-2022) e Maria Bonsanti (2022), other prestigious members land at DIG 2023: Turkish photographer and filmmaker Coşkun Ashar; Axel BjörklundSwedish investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker; the well-known French freelance investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker Édouard PerrinEmmy award-winning artist and filmmaker for best immersive documentary, Francesca Panetta, English, director of the AKO Storytelling Institute in London, former executive editor of the Guardian's virtual reality studio; finally, the Indian Dr. Manisha Ganguly, investigations correspondent for the Guardian, award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker (winner of two Amnesty Awards), expert in OSINT techniques.
In addition to the DIG Awards in the five video categories (Short, Reportage and Investigative Medium, Reportage and Investigative Long), the DIG 2023 jury will also have to decide on the DIG Pitch winner (scheduled for Friday morning): production teams from all over the world have signed up, but only one will receive EUR 15,000 in funding for an investigative documentary. The DIG Pitch today is supported by the The Matteo Scanni Foundation is an independent non-profit organizationestablished in Milan to keep alive and spread the passion for investigative journalism of Matteo, DIG's president until 2022, when he passed away prematurely.
DIG Festival 2023 'Don't Give up' gives increasing emphasis on the audio category as wellby setting up a jury of equally prestigious members: in addition to Angelo Miotto there will be the podcast designer Jonathan Zentiinvestigative journalist and producer Adèle Humbertthe author and editor of RadioRai Giulia Nucci, e Andrea De Cesco, director of the Chora Academy, will also be the protagonists of panels dedicated to podcasts in Modena.
The last preview of the 9th edition of DIG Festival Modena is all about Daniela Pes, singer-songwriter, musician and composer of electronic music with a jazz background, winner of the Targa Tenco 2023 as Best First Work with its astonishing album Spirawhich on the evening of Sunday 24 he will bring to life in a unique location, particularly suited to his mysterious sound that mixes the ancient with the experimental: the Baroque Church of San Carlo.
The full programme for the 2023 edition will be unveiled in the coming weeks on the dig-awards.org website and on DIG's social channels.
"More than ever, we all urgently need the diagnosis, to understand where to look, to know what we have to take care of. And we, every year, together with our audience, find out the opinions of those who have ascertained, dug, and listened, we make choices," says Alberto Nerazzini, investigative journalist and President of DIG.
"With DIG our aim is to open wide the gaze of the participant, who is also provided with a magnifying glass, surgically precise, to analyse where an alteration, a mutation, a piece of evil is hidden. It is still worth it: if Gramsci's indifferent are still to be hated, DIG Festival 2023 Don't give up wants to defeat the resigned. Because if indifference is an incurable evil, resignation still is not'.
"Indifference is one of the evils of our times, DIG wants to be an antidote to these resigned times," comments Andrea Bortolamasi, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Modena, which has strongly supported the project since 2020 together with the Modena Foundation and the Emilia-Romagna Region - 'participation, confrontation, investigation are the key elements of a programme of absolute quality, which brings to Modena the best of investigative journalism, in a festival made up of a continuous contamination of cultural languages, from music to figurative and visual arts'.
Practical information
DIG locations
DIG Festival 2023 will be held in the spaces of the San Carlo College, the Astra cinema and the San Paolo Complex, including the adjacent spaces of the Unimore Department of Law, in the heart of the city's historic centre.
The 2023 Festival Partners
DIG Festival is an independent event. Funding comes almost exclusively from public bodies: in 2023, from the Emilia-Romagna Region and Film Commission ER, the Municipality of Modena and the Modena Foundation. Also supporting DIG are Fondazione Matteo Scanni, Fondazione e Ordine Giornalisti Emilia-Romagna, Fnsi and Aser, Coop Alleanza 3.0. The main partners include Fondazione Collegio San Carlo, Unimore, FEM and Festivalfilosofia, GIJN, joined by Librerie Coop, Bunker, Tintoria Emiliana, Galleria D406, Squadro Stamperia Galleria d'Arte, Journalismfund, European Press Prize, Grabinski Point, Cinema Astra, Juta, Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, Sartoria Comunicazione.
