Weworld Bologna Festival: Films and stories from the margins

The WeWorld Festival was founded in Bologna in October 2024 as a free festival of cinema, talks, debates, and performances, open to all. Its aim is to bring to the forefront the stories of those living on the social and geographical margins of the world.

The event, which attracts between 3,000 and 5,000 visitors each year, builds on the legacy of the Terra di Tutti Film Festival, a historic social cinema festival co-organised by WeWorld and various local organisations, which concluded its 17th edition in 2023.

The Bologna edition of the festival joins the WeWorld Festival Milano , which has been active for more than 15 years to promote debate and awareness on women's rights, gender equality and the fight against stereotypes, and is hosted at BASE Milano.

Margins, whether political, economic, geographical or social, are often described by those who do not experience them. In doing so, listening is replaced by narrative, and the voices and experiences of those who live on these margins every day are overlooked.

For us, talking about margins means amplifying the voices of realities and people who are still too often not talked about, or misrepresented. Through films, exhibitions, performances, and discussion spaces, we give them the opportunity to tell their own stories, unfiltered and in their own words.

Since its inception, the WeWorld Festival Bologna has been designed for those who believe in human rights and intersectional justice: climate, social and gender.

It is for those who wish to rediscover empathy in an era marked by overlooked crises, normalized conflicts, and structural injustices.

The festival is dedicated to sharing the stories of people who experience these injustices firsthand, making them the protagonists of their own narratives. With the participation of voices from cinema, journalism, activism, art, and publishing,  we intend to open up a space for discussion, care and participation in order to tackle these urgent and interconnected global challenges together.

The WeWorld Festival Bologna gives ample space to social documentaries as a way of telling the stories of countries, communities and social struggles that often do not find a place on our screens. For this reason, thanks to our collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna and the Cinema Lumière and Modernissimo venues, every year we bring short, medium and feature-length social films to the city's cinemas, often as national or city premieres. One example is No Other Land, a filmbyBasel Adra and Yuval Abraham, winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary 2025, which opened the first edition of the festival in 2024 as a preview in Bologna at the Cinema Modernissimo.

Each year, the films selected for the festival are eligible for prizes and special mentions, awarded by juries made up of experts and enthusiasts of the festival’s themes. Past jurors have included director Anita Rivaroli, Lia Furxhi, director of the CinemAmbiente Festival, and Florencia Santucho, director of FINCA; journalists such as Anna Maria Giordano (Radio3), Giuseppe Ciulla (Rai2), and Sabika Sha Povia (Propaganda Live); as well as long-standing festival partners like EmilBanca and Coop Alleanza 3.0.

The WeWorld Festival Bologna features not only the images of the films but also the voices of their authors. In recent years, we have hosted debates and masterclasses, both in and outside the theatre, with directors such as Madalina Rosca (Little Syria, by Reem Karssli, 2025), Anna Recalde Miranda (Green Is the New Red, 2024), Lina Vdovîi (Tata, 2024), Patricia Franquesa (My Sextortion Diary, 2024), Myriam El Hajj (Diaries From Lebanon, 2024), Jochen Hick (Queer Exile Berlin, 2023), Elise Darblay and Antoine Depeyre (La Lumière des Femmes, 2024), producers such as Joe Mecca (Mediha, by Hasan Oswad, 2023), multimedia projects such as Boschilla (Pasturismo, by Andrea Chiloiro, Riccardo Franchini, Giovanni Labriola, Matteo Ragno.

The selection process for the WeWorld Festival film program would not be possible without the artistic direction of Jonathan Ferramola, journalist, radio author, and copywriter who has carried forward the Terra di Tutti Film Festival over the years, and Carlotta Piccinini, filmmaker, writer, and video artist who has long collaborated with the WeWorld Festival, sharing its vision and perspectives. The WeWorld Festival Bologna also collaborates with key organisations in the film sector, including the distribution company SMK Videofactory and the OpenDDB platform, the ESoDoc (European Social Documentary) programme, as well as other festivals such as Biografilm, Middle East Now, CinemAmbiente, Nazra Palestine Short Film Festival, and Gender Bender.

The WeWorld Festival Bologna is not just about cinema. We also offer off-programme events in various locations around the city, such as DAS – Dispositivo Arti Sperimentali. Talks, workshops, training courses, and our Chiacchierata Attivista e Femminista (Activist and Feminist Chat) format create spaces for dialogue and in-depth discussion on human rights, gender equality, and climate justice.

Over the years, the festival has welcomed guests including activists like Patrick Zaki; language popularisers such as Vera Gheno; journalists such as Valerio Nicolosi and Leila Belhadj Mohamed; writers like Wu Ming 2 and Giulia Blasi; artists such as Josephine Yole Signorelli (Fumettibrutti); and online communities including Mica Macho.

The WeWorld Festival Bologna is also an opportunity to showcase our work in over 20 countries around the world and to give space to the testimonies of colleagues and delegations of activists and speakers from countries such as Palestine, Ukraine, Mali, Tanzania, Syria, and many others.

Anche l’arte performativa trova spazio attraverso laboratori e bandi creativi, come la Chiamata alle arti della WeWorld Academy, e interventi di public art realizzati con collettivi come CHEAP, tra cui Legalize Mestruazioni (2024) e Nota a margine (2025). Coinvolgiamo inoltre giovani dai 17 ai 30 annni in laboratori teatrali e formativi, come accaduto nel 2025 lavorando sul tema delle disuguaglianze con il metodo del Teatro dell’Oppresso.

The WeWorld Festival Bologna is open to all, free of charge, and designed to be as inclusive as possible. Child-friendly spaces and activities, art workshops for children and teenagers, and educational initiatives in collaboration with Spazio Donna WeWorld in Bologna ensure that participants of all ages can engage meaningfully. Among the highly successful 2025 initiatives was a workshop on fake news for 8–13-year-olds, organised by Rassegna Stampa per Bambini and Ramo D’Oro.

At the Festival, we strive to ensure that everyone can participate fully and safely. That is why we design spaces and activities with a strong focus on accessibility, addressing physical, sensory, and communication barriers and accommodating the needs of people with disabilities or neurodiversities.

Our goal is to create an environment that adapts to people, not the other way around — a welcoming, open, and shared space where everyone can move freely, express themselves, and fully take part in the Festival’s experiences.

The WeWorld Festival Bologna is possible thanks to the support of organisations such as the Municipality of Bologna, the Emilia-Romagna Region, Emil Banca, Coop Alleanza 3.0, AICS, the European Union (DEAR, CERV and Erasmus+ programmes), and long-standing partners such as Cineteca di Bologna, SMK, OpenDDB, Vag61, DAS – Dispositivo Arti Sperimentali, and Fondazione Ordine dei Giornalisti dell’Emilia-Romagna.