“Donne Tra Ricordi e Futuro” (Women between memories and the future)

The “Women between memories and the future” literary prize, now in its sixth biennial is an itinerant and free event. The main sponsors of the prize are the Municipality of Pratovecchio Stia, where the prize was established, the Casentino Forest National Park and FIDAPA BPW Italy. The prize is aimed at those interested in embarking on a journey of writing about their experiences and beyond. The aim is to identify and promote “women’s stories”, stories that will become books to be published and tales to be shared.
The award is for unpublished works in Italian and is open to women and men who want to retrace and tell stories of women through the lens of memory, linked to values, traditions and emotions, both past and present.
The sections: Novel and Short Novel, Poetry, Family Cooking, Environment, Short Stories.
The President of the Award, Lorena Fiorini, lives in Rome but has always remained very attached to Pratovecchio-Stia, her childhood town. In recent years, she has often returned to her homeland, accompanied by a wealth of knowledge, affection and loved ones. This project constitutes a “full circle” moment, with her love for the place and its people remaining intact.

PROJECTS

Stories of families in search of fortune

Recovering the stories of families who left their homeland in search of fortune.
The book “Betty, sono Bruno” tells, among other things, the story of a family who left Casentino to give their daughters and grandchildren a better future. A story told by a woman who will inspire us to pay tribute, through writing, the development and dissemination of culture also beyond national borders.to those women who pursued a better future, sought their own identity, and whom we find alive in our memories and hearts. We take our cue from the women of Italian unification: they had the task of making the history of women known.
Let us go back, rebuild the rope team, and bring our companion back to the summit. This is where the desire to recover and create a digital archive of the many stories sent to Donne tra ricordi e futuro (Women between memories and the future) was born.

Memories recounted

Lorena Fiorini and Elisa Piezzo, known as Dalisca, present the proposal outlined below, at different times, with the aim of building sharing between institutions, schools and memory eighty years after the start of the Second World War, which saw two beloved fathers as protagonists, whose memories they have both collected through:

Set up of the Exhibition “DNA La memoria raccontata”, starting with the two relays, Lorena Fiorini and Elisa Piezzo (known as Dalisca), direct descendants of two prisoners of war, Bruno Fiorini and Michele Piezzo. These two artist daughters, whose stories share strong similarities, present a video/sound installation with the aim to keep alive the memory of their fathers, who were prisoners in the Second World War.

Carrving out an impossible interview with two protagonists, an actor in the role of Bruno Fiorini, who was born and lived in Casentino and Rome, and the writer Lorena Fiorini, who will interview him. The story aims to be a fresco of a historical moment with a strong emotional component, a theatrical reworking of the book “Betty, sono Bruno”, which was the catalyst for the creation of the “Donne tra ricordi e futuro” literary prize.

A round table to restore honour to prisoners, intended primarily for meetings with schools, which will follow the visit to the exhibition La memoria raccontata (Memory told) and the Impossible Interview, to be performed in the conference room of the Casa della Memoria e della Storia in Rome, but also elsewhere. Col. Antonino Zarcone, former head of the Italian Army’s Historical Office, who is available to accompany the two artists,said: “The aim of the project is to highlight the value of the soldiers who were enlisted and obeyed the military orders of the Armed Forces during that historical period.

Women guardians of peace and memory

Proposal by Lorena Fiorini and Giuseppina Del Signore of the Rome Section of FIDAPA BPW Italy Memory is the watchword of the project proposal. It all begins with the book “Betty, sono Bruno” (Betty, it’s Bruno). The story is seen through the eyes of those who lived it and can tell it to us. Bruno Fiorini was an ordinary man who told his story to a woman in his family. In the project, we intend to link
the experience of the Italian editions of the Award, which originated in Pratovecchio-Stia (Casentino area, Tuscany, Italy) with Glenluce in Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway area).
The Association’s proposal, with a view to developing and collaborating between cultures, is to build an ideal bridge between Italy and Scotland, exporting the model of the award based on the memory of a man, a prisoner of war in Scotland during the Second World War, and the Scottish woman who loved him in such difficult times and helped him overcome the horrors of war.
We therefore propose a transnational cultural initiative to recover the values, traditions, memories and emotions shared by the two peoples and to discover the geography of these two countries, which have so much in common, from unspoilt landscapes to castles, hermitages and monasteries.

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