About the Festival

Born in Turin in 1985, Carini is an independent thinker. A curator, photographer, and visual educator, Carini’s main focus is education, visual literacy, and indigenous production of documentary works. He has conceived, designed, curated, and produced exhibitions in Italy, Europe, and the Middle East, collaborating with festivals, galleries, and museums of photography and contemporary art. Between 2014 and 2015 he led Metrography, the first Iraqi photo agency through the documentation of the war with ISIS. In 2016 he co-founded DARST Projects, a nomadic platform for documentary projects, with which he produced and published groundbreaking documentary projects (such as Over My Eyes and Map of Displacement). Carini trains photographers and visual storytellers in Europe and the Middle East and has lectured in photography, photojournalism, and visual literacy at photography and art institutions across the world. He is the creative director of NOOR Images an international not-for-profit foundation dedicated to advancing visual education and documentary arts. He resides in Turin, Italy where he lives with his two children. Along with his long-term commitment to the world of images, Carini also co-organizes community-building events to disseminate knowledge on our relationship with plants. He also studies permaculture and cultivates hundreds of endemic species of plants for regenerative and therapeutical purposes.

Lars Lindemann is a Hamburg-based curator, editor and photography consultant. He is currently working on a number of exhibition projects in and outside Germany. Lars was and is a jury member of various national and international photo competitions, including the Prix Carmignac du Photojournalisme and the World Press Photo Awards in 2020 and 2021. From 2015 to 2023 he was Director of Photography at GEO magazine and from 2020 to 2023 in the same position responsible for the GEO and PM group. Another focus of his work is the promotion of photographic talent, to which Lars is committed as a lecturer at various photography schools, but especially as co-founder of the Hamburg Portfolio Review and long-time partner and mentor of the Canon Student Development Program. Lars has been International Projects Curator of the Italian photo festival Cortona On The Move since 2023. In 2019, he was appointed to the German Photographic Society (DGPh) for his services to photography.

Fernanda Prado Verčič was invited by Turizem Bohinj to serve as the Artistic Director of the newly launched OKO Foto Festival Bohinj, a photography festival in the Slovenia’s Triglav National Park. A journalist with over two decades of experience in photography, Fernanda is also the co-founder and director of Kranj Foto Fest, another prominent photography festival in Slovenia. Originating from São Paulo, Brazil, she has been based in Slovenia, since 2011, and has been a player in connecting photographers to important venues in Slovenia and abroad. With a passion for discovering new works, she is constantly on the lookout for photographers who are pushing the boundaries of the medium and exploring new ways to tell their visual stories. What makes her move is to create opportunities for photographers to showcase their work. As an editor, curator, producer, and festival director, Fernanda is deeply committed to fostering a community where artists, critics and audiences can come together and engage around photography.

Over the last two decades, Nika Perne has worked as a curator, producer, project manager, and expert advisor with several non-governmental organisations, public institutes, and private initiatives. In recent years, she has focused more on producing festivals, cooperation projects, and the management of networks. She is driven by inspiring storytelling and care for communities with a focus on photography, light art, and digital technologies. She is currently a Community Manager for The VII Foundation (US), where she is responsible for VII Community, a programme that provides ongoing education and support to a network of The VII Foundation’s alumni as they develop sustainable careers. She is the curator for the Water Light Festival in Bressanone (IT) and RE.LIGHT Festival in Regensburg (DE) and the program manager for the IBSIC Conference in Lille (FR).

Marija Skočir works at the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana as a senior curator for photography and as the artistic director of two public galleries. Over her 18-year career, she has curated more than 30 exhibitions showcasing the works of Slovenian artists as well as internationally renowned photographers, while establishing what is now Slovenia’s leading photography gallery. She has overseen more than 80 exhibitions and other art and cultural projects, including two Slovenian pavilions at the Venice Biennale. She has contributed to numerous monographs, photobooks, and catalogues as a (co) author and editor. She actively participates in educational and community-building initiatives, offering mentorship to year-round study groups for photographers, and several portfolio reviews, including the Kranj Foto Fest and the Photo Folio Review at Les Rencontres d’Arles.