Storytelling Festival 2025: Bari celebrates the power of words at the Teatro Piccinni.

Bari is preparing to welcome the “Storytelling Festival 2025”, come to his fifth edition and, for the first time, included in the theatrical season programme “Collective Human” promoted by Municipality of Bari and organized by Puglia Culture – Theatre Circuit.

The event, created by Christian Carrier and produced by The Content, represents an important recognition for a project which – born in the world of communication – is Today a point of reference for companies, managers, students and professionals.

This year, the Festival will welcome over 400 participants, together with the students of Communication Sciences, DAMS, Master of Journalism of the University of Bari and two high school classes Palmieri.

The big news of the 2025 edition will be a third date open to the public, Sunday 26 October, With the sociolinguist Vera Gheno star of the show "Grammamanti. Imagining Futures with Words".

The word as a space for encounter and transformation

During the presentation press conference, in the council room of the City Hall, theCouncilor for Cultures, the manager Giulia Delli Santi andcreator of the Cristiano Carriero Festival they illustrated the program, underlining the value of the word as a tool for relationships, knowledge and citizenship.

The Festival will bring to the stage of Piccinni Theatre Some of most authoritative names in Italian communication and culture: Annamaria Testa, Pablo Trincia, Martina Marchiò, Gianluca Diegoli, Elvio Carrieri, Andrea Girolami, Vittorio Pettinato, Emanuele Frontoni, Giovanna Loi, Donata Columbro, Mafe De Baggis, Simona Ruffino, and Valentina Vellucci.

Through talks, meetings and four training workshops, the Storytelling Festival will explore the creative and social power of language, from critical thinking atartificial intelligence, restoring to the word its role as gesture, theatre and encounter.

“Our goal is transform the Piccinni Theatre into a multidisciplinary cultural square, an open place where everyday reality enters into dialogue with the artistic language" – he explained Giulia Delli Santi, responsible for the Theatrical Activities of Puglia Culture.

“The word,” he added, “is the tool for understanding the past, interpreting the present, and imagining possible futures. The Storytelling Festival is a fundamental piece of this vision.”

Christian Carrier, creator of the Festival, underlined how “storytelling is today a cultural and economic lever capable of impacting the way people choose, companies compete, and communities grow. Bringing it to Piccinni means consolidating a path that unites culture, dialogue and participation".

Storytelling Extra: The Word as Freedom

The 2025 edition will close with Storytelling Extra, free spin-off scheduled Sunday 26 October at 11pm, which inaugurates the exhibition “Present! Stories for the here and now”, edited by The Content e Apulia Cultures within the project “Collective Human / Arteries – Paths between theater and city”.

He will be the protagonist Vera Gheno with the monologue "Grammarians. Imagining Futures with Words”, an invitation to reflect on language as tool for inclusion and freedom.

The appointment is open to citizens and marks the will to make the theatre accessible space and generator of new communities.

Lo Storytelling Festival 2025 is supported by TP Italy as Main Sponsor and from Maldarizzi Automotive, Gift Campaign, Manduria Producers, SocialWeb Solutions, TMShell, Bari Containers, Pepe Graphic e Ciape between partners. Municipality of Bari e Apulia Cultures appear as institutional partners.

Another novelty will be the Storytelling Festival Podcast Car, created in collaboration with Maldarizzi Automotive: a traveling podcast station which will produce live content and insights from the Festival together with the protagonists.

“Storytelling is not just narration, it is identity, memory and future" - he has declared Gianluca Bilancioni by TP Italia. “Doing it in the South, where every word carries with it resilience and beauty, is an act of faith and vision. Every story can change the world.”

Additional information is available on the official website of the Storytelling Festival.

To participate in the Storytelling Festival and the Vera Gheno show, for which it will be possible to book until the morning of the 26th, further information is available on the official website of the Storytelling Festival.