The Cortona on the Move international photography festival has returned for its 2026 edition. This year the event presents the theme Beautiful Country, featuring over 30 separate exhibitions that examine the complex landscape of Italy. The program balances the classical concept of the grand tour with modern documentary photography to provide a look at a changing nation.
Participating artists present work that spans from the historical to the contemporary. Alys Tomlinson captures the masks and costumes of traditional festivals in Venice, Sardinia, and Sicily. Meanwhile, Alessandro Toscano addresses the pressures of mass tourism in major cities like Rome and Florence, showcasing how high visitor numbers impact the physical environment. Other projects focus on industrial history, such as the visual records of Agip service stations commissioned in the 1950s.
The festival also turns its lens toward societal change. Federica Sasso uses large-format photography and digital projections to explore how technology influences adolescence and self-representation. Mattia Zoppellaro and Chiara Fossati look back at the rave culture of the early 2000s in Aprilia, highlighting this specific counterculture movement. The exhibition also includes works on environmental themes, such as projects concerning the climate crisis and the physical transformation of landscapes like the Carrara marble quarries.
Curators have also placed a strong emphasis on the history of celebrity culture. One section focuses on the Paparazzi Project, which documents the life of photographers hunting for stars during the Roman nights of the 1950s and 60s. This includes images of figures like Sophia Loren and Federico Fellini. The festival uses these diverse visual narratives to challenge standard perceptions of Italian culture and identity, encouraging viewers to reconsider the country through both a historical and a critical lens.