The 27th edition of the cultural event 'La Milanesiana', conceived and directed by Elisabetta Sgarbi, concluded on July 22. This year it involved 18 cities with 64 events that reached over 100,000 people.
"La Milanesiana 2026," Sgarbi commented, "was an exciting journey, animated by the joy of reuniting with loyal friends and the surprise of discovering new ones. We celebrated 10 years of the festival in Bormio, 9 in Ascoli Piceno and 7 in Emilia-Romagna, and inaugurated in Seregno the luminous and sonorous rose by artist Marco Lodola. But we also brought La Milanesiana where it had never been before: into the wards of Humanitas hospital, where beauty and care came together with great intensity; and into San Vittore prison, for two moving and surprising encounters."
"The law of La Milanesiana," Elisabetta Sgarbi added, "is the desire to live many lives that are not our own, through the stories of great writers (including Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, Booker Prize winner David Szalay, Premio Strega winners Sandro Veronesi, Paolo Giordano and Edoardo Nesi), international film directors (Park Chan-wook, Abel Ferrara, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Régis Wargnier, Maurizio Nichetti), comic artists (Milo Manara, Art Spiegelman), theatrical previews (Anna Valle in 'Essere Armani'), and then through exhibitions, concerts and conversations. In celebrating anniversaries, beginning with Nicola Piovani's 80th birthday through to the 100 years since the Nobel Prize was awarded to Grazia Deledda, with readings by Laura Morante."
This year La Milanesiana presented the Premio Scuola Pitagorica for Sciences to Alberto Mantovani; the Premio Omaggio al Maestro to South Korean director Park Chan-wook, Maurizio Nichetti and Bruno Bozzetto; the Premio SIAE to singer-songwriter Ermal Meta; the Premio Rosa d'Oro to Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly; the Premio Jean-Claude e Nicky Fasquelle for Literature to writer Olivier Guez; and the Premio Jean-Claude e Nicky Fasquelle for Cinema to director Régis Wargnier.
The 2026 edition, titled 'Desire and the Law', was dedicated to Daniela Benelli and Dario Salvetti, who passed away last year, and to Giorgio Gosetti, director of Noir in Festival. Among the guests, in addition to the award recipients and those already mentioned, were Martin Scorsese, Paolo Jannacci, Rita Pavone, Vittorio Sgarbi, Cristiana Capotondi, Anna Valle and Giancarlo Giannini.
