This article is published in issue 6 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 7, 2023
Among those who criticize the planned connection with the Ukrainian president Zelensky at the Sanremo Festival there are certainly people in good faith. With those in bad faith, the Salvinis, etc., it’s not worth talking. Among those in good faith there may be those who feel uncomfortable at the thought that a song festival can connect with a country where there are people who die and suffer, as if ours were a voyeuristic and morbid act. To these I would like to tell my experience. Three weeks ago I returned from Odessa, where I went to tell something about how everyday life is lived in a country at war. A country that could be ours, in a beautiful European city, a Turin on the Black Sea, a small Paris, where people like us do everything to continue living normally, pretending not to hear the air raid alarms and not to notice the curfew or the lack of light and heating. The day I left, an Odessite driver accompanied me to Chisinau, from where I would have taken a flight to Milan. We left at dawn and traveled just over four hours. We spoke little, it was too early, too dark, it was too cold. But at the airport, as he said goodbye, Igor hugged me and said: «Thank you for what you do for us. In order not to leave us alone, to tell what is happening to our country, keep doing it, we need it”. He was a stocky, self-effacing gentleman of 50, but at the time he had the bright, inspired gaze of a teenager. Before going to Ukraine, I too had wondered if there was something intrusive in my desire to see and tell stories, but all the people I met, young, old, my peers, were happy to talk. In Sanremo, serious topics have always been touched upon: violence, disability, disease, poverty. Whether this year we want to offer such a large and attentive audience a moment of reflection on a war that has been going on for almost a year just 2,400 kilometers from us, the distance between Palermo and Berlin or between Rome and Lisbon, it seems to me a choice of public service.
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Source: Vanity Fair
I’m Susan Karen, a professional writer and editor at World Stock Market. I specialize in Entertainment news, writing stories that keep readers informed on all the latest developments in the industry. With over five years of experience in creating engaging content and copywriting for various media outlets, I have grown to become an invaluable asset to any team.
