It’s in its fourth edition, but it’s now a cult appointment in the agendas of podcast enthusiasts. From Friday 9 December to Sunday, the world of audio meets in Florence for the Lucia Festival, curated by Radio Papesse, which celebrates the art of storytelling without images, through voices and sounds. On the program at Cantieri Culturali Goldonetta (via Santa Maria 25) productions from all over the world presented in international previews (in the presence of the authors), workshops, masterclasses and live performances. The themes that inspired this year’s work are very current: we will talk about civil rights, emancipation of bodies, social inclusion and exclusion, love, passions and mourning. This year’s novelty is the subtitling in Italian – in addition to English – of foreign works.
It begins on Friday 9 December with the podcasting seminar for children, “Children listening”, which inaugurates the festival. Researchers, podcasters and producers will discuss international case studies and best practices. Gianfranco Bandini, full professor of History of Pedagogy at the University of Florence, will bring his contribution with “Narrating childhood, an ever new experience, between family context and territory”.
Mass hysteria and ultra-women
“Le village des fous by Pauline Augustyn, on Saturday morning, will retrace one of the most famous cases of mass hysteria in modern history. In 1951 the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit is struck by an inexplicable plague of madness. From one day to the next, the inhabitants go crazy: what’s going on? “Finn and the Bell” by Erica Heilman instead tells how a small community in Vermont reacts to the suicide of one of its young members. The listener is guided through the pain of loss which turns into a celebration of life. “De Buffalo Bitches, 20 Jaar Later”, presents the stories of Kimberley and Tiffany, the only two women within the ultras of Gent, a Belgian football team. Among the most anticipated events, then, the live broadcast of “Io ero il Milanese”, one of the most successful podcasts of 2022.
The pioneers of the podcast
There is also room for the rediscovery of ante litteram podcasts, radio dramas. In “Focus Giorgio Bandini” one of the great masters of the experimental season of Italian radio at the turn of the 60s and 70s is told. His “Il Guerriero in Provincia” is the first case of audio diary for Italian radio, a journey from Rome to a provincial city in the South.
All the audio productions can be listened to on the luciafestival.org website and will be available, at the end of the event, also on the DigiToscana and MediaLibraryOnline portals.