Europe's leading festival dedicated to investigative and reportage journalism is back in Modena from September 24th to 28th. This year's eleventh edition will tackle a wide array of pressing global issues across more than 100 events over five days, including genocide and wars, the climate crisis, extremism and new fascisms, civil rights, organized crime, artificial intelligence, attacks on freedom of information and justice, and the future of the internet. Guests include Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur, writer and journalist Marco D’Eramo, British documentarian Louis Theroux, data journalism expert Donata Columbro, Russian opposition journalist Ilia Shumanov, and senator and former magistrate Roberto Scarpinato.
This packed eleventh edition features exclusive screenings of investigative reports and documentaries, talks, conferences, lectures, concerts, art exhibitions, and the highly anticipated DIG Awards 2025 and DIG Pitch presentations. The jury will be presided over by celebrated French investigative journalist and writer Edwy Plenel, who spent 25 years at Le Monde Le Monde before founding the independent news outlet Mediapart. However, DIG's vital space for expression, denunciation, and criticism is at risk: to save the festival, a crowdfunding campaign, "Watchdogs of the world, unite!," is active on GoFundMe..
Over the past ten years, DIG Festival has become a global benchmark for reporters, investigative journalists, filmmakers, and independent producers, offering a unique opportunity for in-depth learning and information for its ever-growing and broader audience. It is now the most important investigative journalism and contemporary culture festival in Europe, with over 13,000 attendees at its last edition, its most successful yet.
The new edition of DIG Festival, from September 24th to 28th, brings over 100 events to Modena in five days. The festival will showcase its exceptional film programs, featuring a selection of the best investigative reports, reportage, and documentaries from around the world, in both video and audio formats. During DIG Festival, discussions will revolve around genocide and wars, the climate crisis, extremism and new fascisms, civil rights, organized crime, artificial intelligence, attacks on freedom of information, attacks on justice, and the future of the internet.
FIRST SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED!
Thirty public talks are scheduled with prominent national and international guests, some organized in collaboration with global journalism powerhouses like the BBC, Financial Times , and JournalismFund. Confirmed guests include: writer and journalist Marco D’Eramo; Louis Theroux, the BBC documentarian, journalist, and TV presenter, who will present his latest film made in the West Bank; writer Djarah Kan; essayist and human rights expert Oiza Q Obasuyi; author and right-wing extremism expert Valerio Renzi, and Russian opposition journalist Ilia Shumanov; writer Wu Ming 1, the audio editor-in-chief of El Pais, Silvia Cruz Lapeña. Dr. Maurizio Bini, director of the fertility and gender dysphoria center at Niguarda in Milan, will lead a panel connected to the screening of GEN_, a documentary dedicated to his work by Gianluca Matarrese, GEN_ , acclaimed at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
The fight against the mafia, massacres, cover-ups, and revisionism will be central to the meeting with Senator and former magistrate Roberto Scarpinato. Highly anticipated is the return of Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who delivered the inaugural lecture in 2024. Her presence reaffirms the festival's immediate focus on the genocide in Gaza, which will again be central to this year's programming, with special moments and exclusive film premieres. Also attending are Stefano Feltri, Silvia Boccardi, Donata Columbro, and DIG's steering committee members: Alberto Nerazzini (President), Valerio Bassan (Vice-President), Francesca Coin, Davide Fonda, and Philip Di Salvo.
DIG is also cinema and great documentaries: for five days, the historic Cinema Astra will screen the finalist films in the five video categories of the DIG Awards, with authors traveling from all over the world to attend. In addition to the competing titles, the festival will, as always, present a rich section of extra films and premieres, also utilizing the Sala Truffaut.
Three mornings (September 24th, 25th, and 26th) are dedicated to secondary schools from Modena and Bologna, with over 800 students from five institutions invited to participate in screenings of three investigative documentaries, followed by in-person Q&A sessions with the authors.
As always, the festival will also host the DIG Academy sessions — where DIG offers 12 free advanced training workshops open to all and accredited by the Order of Journalists — located within the Department of Law at the University of Modena. Panels with authors and protagonists of the most interesting national and international podcasts are also scheduled.
THE DIG AWARDS AND THE JURY
During DIG Festival, the international DIG Awards will be presented – a competition that has attracted record participation this year, with approximately 400 submitted works from around the world. The awards will be decided by DIG's international jury, comprising authors and producers from the world's leading investigative journalism and documentary brands. Associazione DIG - ETS is particularly proud to bring Edwy Plenel to Modena as the 2025 jury president: an important investigative journalist and writer, former director of Le Monde, he co-founded Mediapartin 2008, an online publication that has become a benchmark for independent investigative journalism in France, uncovering some of the biggest political and financial scandals.
Among the confirmed jurors are Manisha Ganguly, Investigations Correspondent for The GuardianGabriela Manuli, Director of Special Projects at the International Press Institute; Axel Björklund, journalist and documentarian for SVT, the Swedish public broadcaster; and Marco Nassivera, long-time head of news for ARTE. Notable new additions include Mexico's most important investigative journalist, Anabel Hernandez; Canadian academic and director Sophie Leblond; Hoda Osman, investigative journalist and executive editor of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ); Ulla Sätereie, president of the Swedish Association of Investigative Journalism; and Fabio Bucciarelli, the multi-award-winning Italian photographer (Robert Capa Gold Medal and two World Press Photos) who will also bring the Italian premiere of his latest exhibition, "Occupied Territories," to DIG Festival: an extraordinary eleven-year photographic report on Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Lebanon.
In addition to the DIG Awards for the five video categories (Short, Reportage and Investigative Medium, Reportage and Investigative Long), the DIG 2025 jury will also decide the winner of the DIG Pitch (scheduled for Friday morning): production teams from all over the world have registered, but only one will receive €15,000 in funding for an investigative documentary. Today, the DIG Pitch is supported by the Matteo Scanni Foundation, established in Milan to keep alive and spread the passion for investigative journalism of Matteo, who served as DIG's president until his premature passing in 2022.
ART, MUSIC, PERFORMANCES
The program is enriched by other exclusive exhibitions, in addition to Fabio Bucciarelli's photographic display. These include a group show curated by Galleria D406, featuring Marco Barbieri, known as DEM – an eclectic artist whose work spans wall painting, illustration, ceramics, and canvas painting – and AtaK (pseudonym of Georg Barber), an illustrator, cartoonist, graphic designer, and journalist, considered among the most brilliant exponents of Berlin's contemporary art scene. For the first time, the festival has chosen not one but two internationally renowned artists to provide a double authorial interpretation of its traditional annual logo, the DIG Watchdog.
DIG also means music: the traditional exclusive Friday and Sunday evening concerts will be announced soon, while on Wednesday, September 24th, the Chiesa di San Carlo will host "TRAP_OS – The Surveillance Game," an audiovisual performance specifically conceived for DIG Festival 2025 by the SYNCTRL artistic collective in collaboration with the Centro Musica of the Municipality of Modena. This immersive and participatory experience will offer the audience a critical reflection on the ethical implications of technological surveillance, blending sonic glitches, holograms, and synthetic voices.
Watchdogs of the World, Unite!
DIG Festival is an independent event, with funding almost exclusively from public entities: in 2025, from the Emilia-Romagna Region and Film Commission ER, the Municipality of Modena - City of Media Arts, and the Modena Foundation. Ahead of the upcoming edition, DIG has launched a crowdfunding campaign upon which the festival's survival depends. Organizing the event has become increasingly complex and costly, partly due to a general increase in prices. Furthermore, the Association has long been the target of ongoing legal actions that have severely tested its resilience. This is why the "Watchdogs of the world, unite!" campaign was born, active on GoFundMe until the end of the 2025 edition. It's an appeal to anyone who wants to support free and independent journalism and help keep alive a space for expression, denunciation, and criticism.
All information on how to donate is available here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sostieni-dig
