Bearing Witness

The Italian Cultural Institute of Washington presents “Bearing Witness”, a photo exhibition on 40 years of conflicts around the World covered from the frontlines.

The exhibition, curated by Giorgia Rivera, presents photos by Fausto Biloslavo, a veteran war reporter, and by Francesco Semprini, a war correspondent who now covers the United States and the United Nations.

The exhibition spans four decades of conflicts, starting from Lebanon in 1982 moving through post-colonial Africa, bridging the crossroads of Asia to the Middle East, only to return back to Europe with the conflicts in the Balkans and Ukraine.

Reservations are required to visit this exhibition.

LOCATION : Embassy of Italy - 3000 Whitehaven Street NW, Washington, DC 20008

REGISTRATION AND PHOTO ID REQUIRED

Please note that dates are subject to change.

This event is free but registration is required for security purposes.

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ABOUT FAUSTO BILOSLAVO

Fausto Biloslavo is an Italian born veteran war reporter with a degree in Political Science. In his long lasting career he has had the opportunity to witness and record many conflicts around the World, starting from the civil war that erupted in Lebanon in 1982, where Biloslavo, at the age of 21, witnessed the siege of Beirut. In 1983 with two friends Almerigo Grilz and Gian Micalessin he founded the freelance press agency Albatross Press Agency, through which he produced TV reports, and first hand war correspondence from the world’s hot spots, selling its works to major international networks. In Italy, Biloslavo and his agency gained notoriety for selling his stories to Panorama magazine and to State owned television channels, RAI TV. His
stories covered conflicts ranging from Iran to Cyprus, from Libya to Sudan, from Uganda to the Philippines and Afghanistan. In 1987 Biloslavo spent four months with the Mjaheddin in Pakistan and was arrested on his re-entry into Afghanistan. He was sentenced to seven years in prison but was eventually released thanks to the intervention of the Italian government. He returned to Afghanistan in 1989 during his Soviet army withdrawal, where he was targeted and seriously injured.

Biloslavo covered several wars from Croatia to Bosnia, the NATO mission in Kosovo, in 1997 he was in Chechnya. He was the first Italian journalist to enter Kabul freed from the Taliban after September 11, 2001. In 2003 he went into the Iraqi desert after the Western mission to bring down Saddam Hussein. In 2011 he was the last Italian reporter to interview Colonel Gaddafi during the uprising in Libya. He documented the rise and fall of Islamic State strongholds Sirte (Libya), Mosul (Iraq), and Raqqa (Syria). In 2021 he covered the Kabul airport evacuation and then he entered Afghanistan, controlled by the Taliban. Finally, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he spent more than four months reporting from the frontlines there.

Biloslavo works with the Italian daily news Il Giornale, and contributes to the magazine Panorama and to Mediaset TV. He’s the author of several books among which “Prigioniero in Afghanistan”, “Le lacrime di Allah”, “Gli occhi della guerra”,“Libia kaputt”, “Guerra, guerra, guerra”, “I nostri marò” and “Verità infoibate”. His most recent work is “Ucraina, nell’inferno dell’ultima guerra in Europa”.

Biloslavo received several awards, including the Cesco Tomaselli journalistic prize for “Libia Kaput”. In the last 40 years covering conflicts and humanitarian crises around the world he wrote over 7,000 articles along with photos and videos for major Italian and international newspapers.

ABOUT FRANCESCO SEMPRINI

Francesco Semprini is a long-time journalist based in New York. Francesco is a multimedia journalist focused on economic and foreign affairs with over ten years of experience around the world in war reporting. He currently works for Italian daily La Stampa, where he employs his deep knowledge of the ongoing financial crisis and the evolution of international relations in the global context. For La Stampa he covered the most important US and UN political and economic events of the New Century and has been a war correspondent in the main crisis areas such as Ukraine, Afghanistan, Libya.

In 2022 Francesco has received the “UNCA Gold Medal Award”, the most prestigious prize of the UN Correspondent Association, for his story on the UN inspectors (IAEA) heading to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant targeted by bombing, up to the gray zone, the no man's land where Russians and Ukrainians face off with artillery.

Semprini has been awarded with the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize for coverage of the UN and UN agencies via print, online media and broadcast tv and radio. Created to honor the memory of Elizabeth Neuffer, the Boston Globe bureau chief at the United Nations, who died while on assignment in Baghdad in 2003, the award is sponsored by the Alexander Bodini Foundation.

He produced “Siete Mil”, a short documentary on the Venezuelan crisis and for Signs Publishing he wrote “Twenty: The new American Century”. He is also co-author of “E’ la guerra bellezza” published by Paesi.

ABOUT GIORGIA RIVERA

Giorgia Rivera is a Master's student enrolled in the International Sciences Middle East North Africa profile course at the University of Turin. Every year since 2020, she participates in European Parliament and United Nations Security Council simulations through the Student Movement for International Organization (MSOI), which represents the youth and the university sections of the "Società Italiana per l’Organizzazione Internazionale" (SIOI) and is the Italian member of the World Forum of the United Nation’s Youth Association (WFUNA YOUTH). Over the years, through this collaboration, she has won several awards as Best Delegate, Honorable Mention and Best Coalition, with her most recent award being the one she earned during the European Parliament simulation on the Media Freedom Act, which was passed in 2024.
She began working for Fausto Biloslavo and Francesco Semprini at the age of 21, first collaborating as a social media manager and then dedicating herself to curating the photographic exhibition "Bearing Witness". In 2023, she curated the opening of the exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York. This same year, she graduated with a thesis titled: "The Evolution of the Great Game (1979 - 2023): the geopolitical contention of Afghanistan between the Eagle and the Bear." As of September 2023, she has began writing as a junior analyst for the Institute for Analysis of International Relations, covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) area, and is continuing her studies focusing on domestic and foreign security.