Awarded by the EFA (European Festival Association) with the EFFE AWARD 2017-18 (Europe for Festivals Festivals for Europe), resulting in the six best festivals in Europe among more than 715 candidates. In 2018 it is included as a best practice in the annual report "Io sono cultura 2018" (t/n, I am culture), edited by Symbola Foundation. Also in 2018, the Italian Ministry of Culture awarded it the
"European Year of Heritage" label. Winner of the Funder35 (2016); SIAE-Sillumina (2017); Allianz Kulturstiftung (2019) calls. In 2018 Altofest leaves the borders of Naples for the first time, inaugurating a series of special editions, commissioned by different European Capitals of Culture: Altofest Malta 2018 for Valletta 2018 ECoC; Altofest Matera-Basilicata 2019 for Matera 2019 ECoC; and on 2022 a re-edition for Valletta, commissioned by the Valletta Cultural Agency. It is also included in the Kaunas 2022 and Trenčín 2026 nomination dossier, acting as a de facto connector of a “spontaneous” network among the cities sharing this title. Altofest is an indicator of the cultural interest of the city of Naples in the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor tool of the European Commission:
https://composite-indicators.jrc.ec.europa.eu/cultural-creative-cities-monitor/countries-and-cities/naples
Altofest (altofest.net) is a human-specific project of experimental sociality that is based on values such as proximity, gift, hospitality. The project was born in Naples in 2011 by TeatrInGestAzione, with the artistic direction of Anna Gesualdi and Giovanni Trono. It is conceived as an act of artistic and political resistance, "to give rise to" a large and heterogeneous community, generating critical thought. The artists are hosted in the homes of resident citizens, whom we call “space donors”. Citizens and artists live together for two weeks, including a period of artistic residencies and the following opening of the houses to the public. Altofest is a device conceived as a collective performance in the shape of a festival. The Altofest dramaturgy corresponds to the plot of itineraries and routes that guide the inhabitant of the Fest in an orchestrated sequence of urban landscapes and domestic intimacy that is crossed by performing artworks and talks. Altofest activates a transversal process, which calls to dialogue all the social components of the urban fabric in which it is engrafted, aiming to overcome roles favouring choral participation. This inclusive experience generates “original relationships” thanks to a semantic interference between the flow of daily life and the feat of artistic creation in the domestic space. Everyday life is permeated by the foreign vision, which is carried by international artists and languages of the live arts hosted in the program.
