Stories
Cimento Invernale – Winter trial
The annual winter dive into the icy Po River in Torino, organized by Rari Nantes at the Caprera Rowing Club, blends tradition, passion, and boldness. With over 100 participants in recent years—including adults, children, and even a hesitant dog—the event has a rich history dating back to 1899. Founded by Colonel Nino Vaudano, it aimed to promote swimming and respect for the river.Despite world wars, only COVID briefly halted this timeless tradition. Veteran participant Marcello describes it as an adrenaline rush followed by an invigorating sense of well-being. "The cold washes away tension, leaving you energized and euphoric—an experience everyone should try at least once."
Wild Thai
Elephants hold deep cultural and religious significance in Thailand, historically used in war and later in the logging industry. When logging was banned in 1989, thousands of domesticated elephants were shifted to tourism, leading to exploitative practices. Many endure cruel training to appear tame for activities like bathing, riding, and performing. The elephant tourism industry generates over half a billion dollars annually, fueling illegal trade and mistreatment. While some sanctuaries genuinely protect elephants, many prioritize profit over welfare. Tourists should choose ethical sanctuaries that allow elephants to live freely, recognizing that wild animals are not entertainment but deserve protection.
Long term breastfeeding
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the largest association of pediatricians in the United States, with the OMS and Unicef, has just updated its guidelines and supports breastfeeding for a period beyond 2 years of life, as it is the most physiological and beneficial way, as well as the most economical and ecological, both for the child and his emotional autonomy and for the mother. Yet the reality is different, mothers have to go back to work as soon as possible and, like it or not, they stop breastfeeding very quickly. Mothers who decide to continue after the year are seen as morbid, bizarre, non-educational and they’re victims of social judgment, so they breastfeed in secret. What if we started to consider long-term breastfeeding an individual, personal, intimate choice of the mother? And, even if it’s apparently rare, we respected it as it is? According to the American anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler, who has been studying the topic since the 1990s, the minimum ideal age for weaning is 2 and a half years, the maximum 7. To arrive at this statement, the researcher analysed the duration of breastfeeding both in non-industrialised societies and in the animals biologically closest to us: chimpanzees, who have a spontaneous weaning age, not affected by historical factors or cultural pressures, and with whom we share 98% of our genes. According to experts, if we leave children free to choose, on average they leave the mother's breast around the age of 3, when significant maturation of the nervous system occurs. This in-depth work, consisting in text and portraits, aims to normalise and clear long-term breastfeeding, which is often interpreted by our world as bizarre or even perverse.
Alpine Route
Every winter, in the mountains that connect Italy to France, migrants are crossing the border up to 2800 meters of altitude, with extremely low temperatures and about six hours walk. The route is characterised by a strong presence of migrants arriving from the Balkans, from Iran and Afghanistan, many of whom are families. Their choice is to cross the Alps to reach northern Europe, given that Italy and France are perceived as unsafe and unwelcoming countries. The daily flow varies from a few units to sixty and thousands of people have transited illegally since 2018 along the Oulx - Briancon axis. I’ve documented the rescue voluntary work of the Italian Red Cross, that every night, saves several groups of people out of the forest where they get lost and risk freezing. Every night the French gendarmerie pushes many of them back to Italy, but their motivation is too strong to stop and their spirit of survival prevails. Not even the risk of frostbite discourage families and the march, looking for a dignified and safe life, goes on. They have been traveling for years, looking for a better life through sacrifices and risks and here they are almost at the end of their journey. Not all of them succeed but the motivation to survive and to overcome those few meters called “border” is so strong that no one can stop them.
Sea Shepherd
Sea Shepherd's Operation Dolphin ByCatch on the Atlantic Coast of France. An average of 6,000 dolphins are killed each year just in France’s west coast by large industrial trawlers and fishing vessels, but the problem is about all Europe. That number could be as high as 10,000 dolphins, according to the scientific Pelagis Observatory, based in La Rochelle. This is much more than the dolphin massacres of the Danish Faeroe Islands and Japan's Taiji Cove combined. These vessels target sea bass spawning grounds during the breeding season, but also catch dolphins that typically live alongside them. Most of the dolphins die in the nets or from wounds inflicted by fishermen on board the vessels. On this way the extinction is closer, according to Pelagis, the scientific observatory of La Rochelle, since the beginning of the year 1000 dolphins has been found dead along the French coast. Year after year the Pelagis Observatory has published alarming reports about the declining dolphin populations, including a 2016 report signed by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) that predicts that the mortality inflicted on dolphins by fishing vessels jeopardizes the survival of the population in the medium term. However the French State has not acted on the scientists' warnings. Sea Shepherd has brought big awareness to this mass killing and has been reporting during three month in the European Atlantic sea last winter.
ForEverest – The climate crisis in Nepal through children’s eyes
Mount Everest, the “roof of the world”, is universally the symbol of an unreachable, unassailable and immutable nature. Yet the so-called Third Pole of the Earth, the Himalayan plateau, is today one of the frontlines that are being exposed to the effects of climate change the most. This area has been warming up faster than the rest of the planet. If we continue with current levels of greenhouse gas emissions, two thirds of the Himalayan glaciers will be lost by 2100. That will bring catastrophic consequences: the water stored in the perennial ice of the Himalayas feeds ten of the most important river systems, including the Ganges, the Mekong and the Indus, on which depend 1.9 billion people directly or indirectly. In Nepal, Mount Everest's home country, the effects of global warming are already a reality, despite the country's contribution to global emissions being almost irrelevant. Extreme weather events and landslides intensify, monsoons become irregular, watercourses are subject to shoals and floods that affect both agriculture and hydropower production. All this in an area that has already suffered natural disasters, such as the earthquake of 2015. Being ready for these changes is especially important for the younger generation. The environmental crisis, its impacts in daily life and the solutions adopted to overcome them are recounted here mainly through the eyes of the younger generation exactly for this reason. Children and teenagers met on a journey that traveled through Nepal from south to north, from the Ganges plain to the peaks of the Langtang via the Kathmandu valley. With special attention to the theme of education on the matter: because it is from there that the awareness and, consequently, the action begin.
Animal lover
This project started in 2015 trying to express the special relationship that some people establish with what she would call “unusual pets”. It surprised her to discover how much feeling and intimacy can be shared between people and animals and how many are the people who really care. So far, she has been working close to her own town, in Northern Italy. She came in contact with animal sanctuaries, vegan activists or with people who were just people who are fond of animals. Many of them have an interesting story to tell, some of them entered in a factory with a balaclava in the middle of the night to save a pig, others have described their character, over the years they have learned how to communicate perfectly. She has also discovered a big community of people who are involved in the unexpected world of insects. According to FAO reports we all will eat insects sooner than we think, it’s already common in certain cultures but the western people still have a kind of repugnance toward them. So she has focused this story also on insect breeders (or simply, insect lovers). These people - who often have a personal and even tender relationship with them – could explain how important bugs are for our planet, their beauty and character. Every portrait should speak by itself a personal story, it should show an unexpected connection that human could have with different species. The picture of the animal could be with or without including the physical presence of the human but they all suggest an interaction and a sort of “comfort feeling” with the human world.
Blue Water
Factories in Tehuacán, Mexico, produce distressed denim for big-name US brands like Levi's, Guess, and Gap. But, say local activists, some also produce harmful side effects - contaminating the water supply and sterilising the earth. Tehuacán has more than a hundred industrial laundries, both legal and clandestine, and it plays an important role in the textile industry. Sadly it has now become famous for the color of its water, that's blue ,or better, blue denim. Rivers and irrigation canals at a certain time of day are tinted by electric blue. It is the hour when the laundry discharge their waters after the "sand-blasting" process, because this is how jeans are fashionable now, "washed out". In the rural areas, now, it's forbidden to cultivate and grow up vegetables, as they would be toxics. The risk is a very hefty fine, especially if they are going to be sold in the city markets. Some farmers even confessed that they were threatened with being put in jail. Although in 2011 Greenpeace launched the "Detox my fashion" campaign and published the report Hilos Toxicos, referring precisely to the contamination in Mexico, in Tehuacán nothing has changed. The laundries, connected to the big brands, continue to discharge the residual water in the rivers, there isn't yet a purifier and the farmers are getting even poorer. In addition to the environment, workers are also suffering. Before being washed, the trousers are, in fact, treated with chemical agents. Lucia for example, who has worked for 35 years for a big denim company, is now suffering from a chronic lung disease and, she reveals, "The safety rules are applied only for a few days, when there's outside surveillance, the rest of the time they want us to work without masks and gloves".
Burning Man
Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening. The event is described by many participants as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.
