We live in disorienting times that force us to question our position, to speak up and to be there. It is for this need that ORLANDO comes back for its twelfth edition, with an increasingly firm step.
This year we choose to look into the open field of failure. If success is the outcome of a system of strict rules that does not take into consideration the plurality of perspectives, identities, bodies, possibilities and different solutions of inhabiting the world, “maybe failure is easier in the long run and offers different rewards” (J. Halberstam). Even if it is associated with a spectrum of unpleasant emotions, failing also means having experienced the flaws of a system that demands only one type of success. We wonder whether those flaws are the fertile space where new ways of making the world bloom.
ORLANDO Festival 2025 therefore invites you to look at what success does not want to look at: to observe what hides under the carpet, to face the elephant in the room that might turn out to be a giraffe, just like in the image of the photographer Martin Kollar we have chosen to represent this edition.
The agenda we have prepared combines on one hand the outcome of art projects that allowed us to get close to contexts and people we otherwise would not have known, on the other, performances of Italian and international artists that reclaim the margin as a vaster point of view. Thanks to them, we want to become aware of the fact that, as Virginia Woolf said, it is better to be locked outside than inside a system that benefits only a few people.
We prefer to go not towards the podium of the best, but towards a horizon of plurality where there is room for everyone, because “when we fail, we never fail alone” (Halberstam).
In this times, we observe the world and see that we did a lot wrong, but not everything, therefore we want to train ourselves to use a grammar of possibility in order to express the fundamental desire to live life another way.
Hall, CULT! diffusione culturale | piazza della Libertà
Auditorium, CULT! diffusione culturale | via N. Duzioni, 2
Club Ricreativo Pignolo | via Sant’Elisabetta, 11
Fondazione Serughetti La Porta | viale Papa Giovanni XXIII, 30
Performatorio – performance art center | via N. Sauro, 3A
Piazza della Libertà | piazza della Libertà
Sala dell’Orologio, CULT! diffusione culturale | piazza della Libertà
Sala Ex Scuderie – Borgo Palazzo | via Borgo Palazzo, 16
Spazio Giovani Edonè| via A. Gemelli, 17
This year, ORLANDO continues the process started in 2021 to make the festival an accessible place. We are aware that accessibility is not a finish line, but a continuous call into question of habits rooted in our way of thinking that are an obstacle to the participation to culture and social life. In order to do this, other than continuing the work on accessibility in the field of communication and including in our program disabled artists, we have implemented actions on economic accessibility.
TICKET OFFICE: PAY WHAT YOU WANT
We believe that culture should be accessible to everyone and that social justice also derives from the ability to participate without economic barriers. We, ORLANDO Festival, do not want art and culture to be a privilege for the few. In fact, we want more and more people to benefit from our cultural proposals and to imagine with us possibilities that can take us beyond differences.
This year we have therefore introduced the “Pay What You Want” system, already active in many European festivals and theaters: when you buy your ticket, you will be able to select the price range that works best for you: 7 €, 5 € or 3 € for films; 15 €, 10 € or 5 € for performances. When you buy the ticket, choose the amount you prefer and proceed with the purchase. You can choose differently each time, without any limitation! When applicable, we recommend purchasing tickets online on www.lab80.18tickets.it. Those who accompany people with disabilities have the right to a free ticket that can be requested by writing to prenotazioni@orlandofestival.it.
In the Italian texts, you will find words that end with *, instead of the usual Italian gendered word terminations. We know that it is not a grammatical habit that is easy for everyone, however, we want to invite you to experiment with alternatives while using verbal language, which has always used the masculine form to refer to plurality. We are therefore trying to glide towards a different use of words and to make up new ones, as we are convinced that a small form of thought revolution passes through the words we use and the way we use them. It is an exercise that implies the possibility of error, but we continue to do it to be mindful of all those who make the plurality of the world by self-determining and choosing the pronouns in which they recognize themselves.
Being mindful not only of gender-based language, but also of accessibility, we recognize the limits of the use of the asterisk which, like other symbols, creates problems with its decoding for those who experience texts using reading and writing software. We choose * because, as the transfeminist research group CRAAAZI says, “it is a North star at the end of a word, a small and visible firework, an explosion between the lines or a continuous reference to something in the margins of the text”.
For special needs, write to info@orlandofestival.it: we will try to do everything to welcome you in the best possible way!
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