16-26 July 2026
I don’t want to waste time, so I’ve decided to use a compass that has never let me down: fear. Tracking the footsteps of fear—your own and other people’s—always leads you to your destination.
Alessandro Baricco, The game
It is said that deep down in the abyss, beneath the frozen earth and rocks, in a network of caves and tunnels, there lived two sisters, endowed with a single eye, which they exchanged so that they could see. It is said that while one was handing him over to the other, Perseus, enveloped in darkness, reached out his hand and stole the eye. And from the abyss, he reached unknown and dense cliffs and gloomy woods, and crossed seas and deserts, until he reached the home of the Gorgons. There, a tremendous silence reigned and an endless series of men and animals, all turned to stone, terrified by Medusa’s gaze. Perseus blindfolded himself to hide his fear from her eyes. He would walk through that graveyard of statues, guided by the eye he had stolen from the two sisters. And he would find Medusa, absorbed in sleep, quiet with her head of repulsive snakes. And, it is said, without seeing her, he would sever her head from her neck.
Then, the first miracle occurred: two horses were born immediately, one of which was winged, Pegasus. It is then said that Perseus, riding on Pegasus, stopped at the seashore and washed his victorious hands. To prevent the sand from damaging the severed head, he softened it with leaves and sea rushes. He then laid Medusa’s head with its terrifying snakes on top. Then, the second miracle occurred: the blood, which was still pouring from the head, reduced the leaves to dust, while giving the sea rushes an unknown rigidity, turning them into coral. Since then, it is said that the blood of the hideous Medusa can turn what lies inert in the water into precious coral, or what rests on the ground into hard stone and dust.
This is what happens with fear: it is all in the expectations, in what we imagine it will be. Fear is the primary emotion that anticipates events, it does not follow them. It is already there. It arrives and points the way, as in the allusive geography of myth. Yet, while it predicts succumbing to every fatal challenge, it prevents the outcome. All you have to do is go beyond what your eyes believe. Because sight is often deceiving: it does not notice what is in front of it, but what the mind already expects. The gaze, it is said, only registers differences.
Our story, then, may be similar to that of Perseus: do not yield to Medusa’s gaze, do not turn to stone in the face of terror that is already known, in the face of what the mind fears will happen. Instead, shielded by a stolen eye, keeping our fearful gaze locked, we can return victorious, riding our Pegasus, laden with precious corals.
Will it happen? Who knows: if, while observing things, we begin to see them with new tools and different eyes, some pleasant surprise may await us. If the fear that lurks in our thoughts were overcome by our actions, some miracle might reveal itself. Instead of running away from it, why not follow every fear wherever it leads us? Why not accept its adventures? Maybe we will find stones, maybe corals.
Giacomo Pedini
Artistic Director Mittelfest
Event
Anja Medved
Sala Sociale della SOMSI di Cividale del Friuli
Theater
Fabio Condemi / Christian La Rosa
Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Battuti
Event
Igor Bezinović
Sala Sociale della SOMSI di Cividale del Friuli
Theater
Fabio Condemi / Christian La Rosa
Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Battuti
Event
Lo strano caso del dottor Jekyll e del signor Hyde
Il Curtîl di Firmine
Theater
Fabio Condemi / Christian La Rosa
Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Battuti
Event
Chi perdona (Under the shade of a tree I sat and wept)
Il Curtîl di Firmine
Music
Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Tartini di Trieste
Chiesa di San Francesco
Music
Conservatorio Statale di Musica J. Tomadini di Udine
Chiesa di San Francesco
Event
Soroptimist International d’Italia – Club Cividale del Friuli
Museo Archeologico Nazionale Cividale
Theater
Ivor Martinić / Aleksandar Švabić
Teatro Ristori
Theater
Laura Marinoni / Michele Santeramo / Gianluca Barbadori
Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Battuti
Circus
Caterina Mochi Sismondi / Compagnia blucinQue
Teatro Ristori
Theater
Laura Marinoni / Michele Santeramo / Gianluca Barbadori
Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Battuti
Music
Alessio Boni / Flavio Santi / Orchestra La Corelli
Teatro Verdi di Gorizia
