Documenting DIG Festival 2025 Through the Lens: Bearing Witness to Truth

Documenting DIG Festival 2025 Through the Lens: Bearing Witness to Truth

Modena's ancient stones have witnessed centuries of discourse, but there was something different about these five days in late September. The light had that particular quality you only find in Emilia during autumn—golden, almost tangible—filtering through Renaissance architecture as the city transformed into something urgent and necessary. From September 24 to 28, the eleventh DIG Festival brought the world's investigative journalism to these historic streets, and I was there with my cameras, trying to capture what it means when truth-tellers gather.

The Theater of Testimony

Over one hundred events in five days. Talks, screenings, exhibitions, workshops—each one a piece of a larger story about what it costs to document reality when power prefers fiction. My role was simple: observe, record, stay invisible. Moving through packed conference halls and hushed screening rooms, I photographed the faces of people who've built careers on refusing to look away.

The Chiesa di San Carlo became our main stage—baroque vaults that once echoed with prayers now hosting investigations into surveillance, legal persecution, and the systematic silencing of journalists. Gaza kept coming up, again and again. The screening of "24 Hours in Gaza," the discussion "Silencing Gaza: The War Against Journalists"—these weren't abstract conversations. They were testimonies from people who'd been there, who'd filmed while bombs fell, who'd lost colleagues.

A Voice That Refused to Be Silenced

If you've followed international news, you probably know Francesca Albanese. She's the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, and her presence at DIG sparked exactly the kind of controversy you'd expect. Some people didn't want her there. Accusations flew on social media. But Modena? Modena showed up.

Saturday afternoon at the Teatro delle Passioni, the queue stretched down the street. Inside, every seat taken, people standing along the walls, sitting on the floor. Albanese spoke alongside documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux and others about "From the Economy of Occupation to the Economy of Genocide." Her words were precise, legal, backed by documentation—but what struck me through my viewfinder was the weight of them. How the theater seemed to hold its breath as she read from her June report, describing how the global economy "not only tolerates but sustains and profits from what has become a genocide economy."

Later that evening, at DIG headquarters, she presented her book "Quando il mondo dorme" (When the World Sleeps). Earlier, in Piazza Grande beneath the Ghirlandina tower, I'd watched crowds surround her with what one journalist described as "obstinate physical closeness." Hands reaching, people pressing close, eyes wet. Even hers.

From Modena, she called for something beyond symbolic gestures. Beyond Facebook posts and hashtags. "Boycott campaigns," she said. "Civil disobedience. Real commitment." The book signing afterward became this beautiful, chaotic thing—lines of people, open books, outstretched hands, and that chorus that kept building: "Palestina libera, Palestina libera."

Photographing those moments meant navigating crowds, finding angles that showed both her intensity and the audience's hunger for someone who refuses to soften the truth. The challenge wasn't technical—it was staying unobtrusive while documenting something that felt historically significant.

Other Voices, Other Truths

Fabio Bucciarelli's "Occupied Territories" exhibition at Palazzo dei Musei stopped me in my tracks more than once. There's something about still images—the way they force you to sit with uncomfortable truths longer than video allows. I found myself photographing his photographs, creating this strange second layer of witness.

The festival dove deep into environmental journalism. Sessions on visualizing desertification, screenings of "Deserted: Europe's Deadly Migration Policy" connecting climate catastrophe to border violence. In the intimate spaces of Fondazione San Carlo, workshops transformed attendees into potential investigators, sharing methodology like craftspeople passing down techniques.

Technology's double edge kept appearing. The performance "TRAP_OS – The Surveillance Game" made algorithmic control visceral. "In the Belly of AI" revealed the hidden labor behind artificial intelligence. And then the Paragon scandal discussion—Italian journalists spied on with Israeli spyware—packed the room beyond fire code. Everyone understood: this isn't just an Italian problem. This is what surveillance looks like now.

War correspondence sessions offered concrete survival strategies. Screenings documented Myanmar, Syria, Haiti, Tigray—places where journalism means genuine physical danger. Damir Šagolj's lecture on photographing genocide wrestled with impossible questions: How do you document atrocity? How do you respect victims' dignity while providing evidence of their suffering?

"A Loneliness Too Silent" might have been the most quietly devastating discussion—about the isolation of investigative journalists facing SLAPP suits, economic pressure, threats. I moved through these sessions as a silent chronicler, capturing speakers mid-gesture, audiences leaning forward, that particular quality of attention when people are trying to understand something that matters.

The DIG Awards ceremony Saturday evening felt both celebratory and somber. These weren't comfortable achievements being honored. These were investigations that provoked death threats, documentaries filmed under constant danger, exposés that led to legal retaliation. Costly work. Necessary work.

Modena: The Perfect Frame

There's a reason DIG keeps returning to Modena. The historic center becomes this walkable campus where you run into people between sessions, where international journalists share espresso in centuries-old cafés, comparing notes on surveillance techniques over tiny cups of caffeine.

Beyond the city walls, the Emilian plain stretches toward the Apennines—vast agricultural land that's sustained people for millennia. It grounds you. Reminds you that journalism ultimately serves human communities. Their resources, conflicts, survival. The autumn harvest visible in surrounding fields, the changing light over distant mountains, even the quality of air—it all keeps the abstract discussions tethered to physical reality.

My Technical Companions

I need to talk about the equipment for a minute, because it mattered more than usual during these days.

My Fujifilm X-T5 became an extension of my seeing. That 40-megapixel sensor captured everything from subtle speaker gestures to wide auditorium contexts without breaking a sweat. The weather-sealed body meant I never worried about conditions—climate-controlled galleries one hour, atmospheric old churches the next. And that 7-stop image stabilization? It transformed shooting in dim conference halls from gambling to confidence.

What I love about this camera is the tactile control. Physical dials for ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation. When a speaker is mid-passionate-declaration and light is doing something interesting, I can adjust without taking my eye from the viewfinder, without diving through menus. That's the difference between getting the moment and missing it.

The X-T4 played backup and brought its own energy—faster shutter, beefier buffer, perfect for panel discussions with multiple speakers. Where the X-T5 excels at precision, the X-T4 brings dynamism.

Lens-wise, the XF 50-140mm f/2.8 became essential. That telephoto reach let me maintain respectful distance while staying visually connected. In venues like Chiesa di San Carlo with hundreds of people and speakers far from camera positions, this lens bridged the gap without intrusion. That constant f/2.8 aperture? Beautiful subject separation, soft backgrounds, sharp focus where it counts.

The optical stabilization working with the body stabilization meant handheld shooting at shutter speeds that should require a tripod—crucial when you need to minimize visible equipment to avoid disrupting concentration.

The XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4 handled environmental context. I know some people dismiss it as just a "kit lens," but Fujifilm built this thing right. At 18mm it includes rather than isolates—perfect for capturing the relationship between viewer and artwork, between gathering and architecture. During the Occupied Territories exhibition, I could document both individual photographs and their spatial context, how people moved through the space.

Fujifilm's film simulations, especially Classic Chrome, created visual coherence across both bodies despite different sensors. Those color profiles draw from decades of actual film manufacturing—they don't just render accurate color, they render emotionally resonant color. The warmth of conference lighting, cool projection tones, Modena's subtle earth tones.

The whole system stayed manageable across twelve-hour days. Two bodies, two lenses—one for context, one for reach—never became a burden. Just an extension.

And honestly? That's when you know equipment is working: when it disappears. When cameras respond so instantly and reliably that consciousness can focus entirely on what's unfolding, on the gestures revealing truth, on faces of people who've risked everything to document injustice.

Five days in Modena reminded me why this work matters. Not the photography specifically—though I hope my images serve the festival's mission. But the larger work of bearing witness, of refusing comfortable lies, of documenting truth even when truth is dangerous.

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