Author:

Boring Interesting

Non tutte le storie audio sono personali; non tutte sono cariche di emozioni. The Allusionist – il pluripremiato e longevo podcast di Helen Zaltzman – è uno show sul linguaggio: le storie che racconta, appartengono a centinaia, milioni, persino miliardi di persone, alcune ancora in vita, altre morte da migliaia di anni. Il suo obiettivo non è […]

Radio Papesse / LUCIA Festival, along with the National Diary Archive Foundation Pieve Santo Stefano, present the third edition of the LUCIA Award for audio production. 

Since 2006, Radio Papesse has promoted and supported experimental audio production, inviting artists and producers to challenge the rules of radio and audio narration. We continue to do so by joining forces with the Diary Archive and inviting podcasters and authors to engage with its incredible heritage, which includes almost 10,000 diaries, memoirs and epistolaries that have been collected in Pieve Santo Stefano since 1984. 


The LUCIA Award 2022 is aimed at an ever-growing community of talented producers and artists, it invites them to translate these small but great private lives into audio stories, to work around diaries that speak of bodies and their multiple and changing identities, their excesses, challenges and ruptures; of those bodies that are caught up in the folds of History – such as the First World War tormented and mutilated bodies Giuseppe Salvemini writes about; of those that have managed to rewrite their own story, like Tania Ferrucci – who speaks out loud about the long journey of transition and freedom of a woman born a boy – Thierno Sadou Sow and Seydi Rodriguez Gutierrez, who have gone beyond seas and borders to meet their dreams, or Valerio Daniel De Simoni, who left and never returned from an epic journey but who’s still affecting many other peoples’ lives.

Read the synopsis, choose a diary and think about how you would like to retell it.
Write us (2000 characters max.) how you would translate it into audio: remember, the LUCIA Award is for productions in Italian.

What do we expect?

A proposal for the production of a new work of max. 30 minutes in Italian.
We are looking for proposals that enhance the diaries, at the same time using all the possibilities of audio storytelling. We are looking for quality and sound-rich productions.

Who can participate?

The Award is open to young producers and established professionals. You can participate alone or with a production group, if you are a collective or a theater company: prior experiences in narrative audio production or familiarity with audio storytelling will be favorably valued. 

Whatever your language might be, the Lucia Award is only for productions in Italian. 

What do you get?

Lucia awards two projects with € 2,500.00 (1° prize) and € 1.000,00 (2° prize).

The audio works will be released on radiopapesse.org and on the digital storytelling platform of the Diary Archive. It will also be presented at the 2023 Pieve Award, and Radio Papesse is committed to supporting its national and international circulation. 

How can you participate?

To participate you must:

  1. fill in the registration form [where you will be asked to upload a portfolio and the receipt of payment of the € 10.00 registration fee];
  2. once you have filled in the registration form, you will receive a link to access a few extracts of the diary;
  3. send your production proposal to premiolucia@radiopapesse.org no later than 11.00 PM on November 25th, 2022.

We encourage you to fill in the application form as soon as possible, so that you will have enough time to read the diary, do some research and think your proposal through before the deadline.

For any further doubts or questions, please write to premiolucia[at]radiopapesse.org

The shortlist of selected proposals will be released by Monday, December 5th, 2022. 

The winning projects of this third edition of the LUCIA Award will be announced during the LUCIA Festival, on Sunday, December 11th, 2022.

The jury’s motivation will be published on the luciafestival.org website. 

The diaries

  • Seydi Rodriguez Gutierrez – Non ti avrei conosciuto

    How many things might a Cuban outside of Cuba in the Nineties? This is the story of Seydi Rodriguez Gutierrez who decided to leave Cuba in the 90s.

    Read

  • Valerio Daniel Simoni – Diario di viaggio

    In June 2010 Valerio Daniel De Simoni planned something extraordinary: to cross Europe and Africa and find his way back to Australia to beat the world record for a quad travel, to raise funds with Oxfam and help two African villages. Unfortunately he never came back…

    Read

  • Giuseppe Salvemini – Con il fuoco nelle vene

    Giuseppe Salvemini Con il fuoco nelle vene Giuseppe Salvemini died on October 13, 1918. He was 21 years old. He had been back from the Great War for a year due to asphyxiant gas poisoning. Two years earlier he had abandoned his studies to attend the Military Academy in Modena and finally enroll as a…

    Read

  • Tania Ferrucci – Nei miei okki

    Tania Ferrucci is a woman born a child. Writing her memories has allowed her to make sense of her past and find redemption.

    Read

The JURY is composed of the following members: 

  • ADN – Natalia Cangi, Tiziano Bonini
  • Carolina Valencia Caceido
  • Todo Modo Libreria – Maddalena Fossombroni e Pietro Torrigiani 
  • Radio Papesse – Ilaria Gadenz and Carola Haupt

Carolina Valencia Caicedo is a Colombian podcast producer based in Boston. She studied Philosophy at the Universidad del Valle (Cali, Colombia), Art History and Criticism at the Università Statale in Milan and she holds a master’s degree in Audio Storytelling from the 24 Ore Business School. Since 2015, he has been involved in writing and producing sound and audiovisual documentaries in Colombia and Italy. In 2021, her podcast series Catarsis, un proceso consentido was among the finalists of the Hearsay Audio Festival. In 2020, he co-founded the production company Botafuego Audio, a sound storytelling laboratory that produces and promotes radio works and podcasts, in Spanish and Italian, as well as educational projects and audio storytelling workshops.

Tiziano Bonini is Associate Professor in Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena. He works on radio, social media, digital culture and the political economy of digital platforms. 

He has published books on radio (including Radio Audiences and Participation in the Age of Network Society, Routledge, 2015), on media and globalization (Così lontano, così vicino. Tattiche mediali per abitare lo spazio, Ombre Corte, 2010). 

He’s been doing radio since he was a student at the University of Siena. Between 2004 and 2019 he worked for Radio Svizzera Italiana, Radio2 Rai, Radio24, Radio3 Rai.

Maddalena Fossombroni and Pietro Torrigiani are the co-founders of Todo Modo bookshop and initiators of Testo, an independent publishing fair promoted by Pitti Immagine.

About Us

Radio Papesse is a webradio and online audio archive devoted to contemporary art. It works with museums and cultural institutions to talk about art practices today. It hosts and commissions experimental sound and radiophonic works, inviting artists and producers to renew the rules of broadcasting and audio narration.

Among its current projects are:

YASS! an international mentorship & training program for audio makers; LUCIA Festival, a festival dedicated to the listening of radio works and podcasts; Süden Radio…

Between 2018 and 2020 it was associate researcher of Pratiques d’Hospitalité – Platform for critical research and political imagination at ESAD Grenoble • Valence. It is a member of the scientific board of the Interdepartmental Research Center for Radiophony at UNIRSM – Università di San Marino. It adopts the Creative Commons License and is part of the RADIA network.

The Fondazione Archivio Diaristico Nazionale (ADN) was born in 1984 out of the desire of its founder Saverio Tutino to build a place of memory, in which to collect and preserve private records (diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, correspondence…) that could gradually outline and narrate the history of Italy, as well as its social and cultural evolutions. From its origins, Savero Tutino wanted the Archive to be a ‘memory nursery’, to disseminate and promote its documentary heritage, to make this collective history accessible to all.

Nowadays the Archive stores more than 9,000 diaries: they convey the many historical, socio-cultural and even linguistic changes of Italian and European society.partecipi dei molteplici cambiamenti storico-socio-culturali ed anche linguistici della società italiana ed europea.

Premio Lucia is possible thanks to the support of Fondazione CR Firenze, Comune di Firenze, Regione Toscana Toscanaincontemporanea 2022, Città Metropolitana di Firenze, Unicoop Firenze.

SANTINI. A hand when you need it

GATHERINGS We have never liked speed dates much, elevator pitches make us anxious, the industry in Lucia comes to listen and often stays incognito. But this year we have an event dedicated only to podcasting professionals because independent producers often has to face difficult and lonely choices. Thus SANTINI: if you don’t know how to […]

Loss, Rain and Listening as an act of intimacy

MASTERCLASS A central aspect of audio making is listening. For Nanna Hauge Kristensen, listening entails a bodily attentiveness – an attunement to the Other, it creates a space where openness and exchanges can unfold. Her audio pieces often revolve around loss and beginnings, and her work moves across anthropology, documentarism and art. In her sonic […]

Listening Kids

SEMINAR With talks by Gianfranco Bandini (UNIFI), Radioimmaginaria, Tjeerd van den Elsen (Radiorakkers), Sébastien Schimtz and Florent Barat (Le Collectif WOW!), Ana Gonzalez (Terrestrials – Radiolab) and a masterclass by Sara de Monchy Lucia Festival will open with a seminar dedicated to audio storytelling for children. Bambini all’ascolto / Listening Kids welcomes researchers, podcasters and […]

1. YASS! Masterclass Program 22

Radio Papesse and Lucia support creative authorship, new voices and innovative productions that play with and around the limits and rules of radio production and podcasting. 

YASS! You are so sound is a training and exchange program for producers, audio makers and sound artists – emerging or otherwise – who have a proven track record in audio storytelling; it provides them with skills and resources to advance their projects and careers.

This series allows participants to discover and listen to peers from different latitudes, traditions, languages… and discover methodologies and insights for sound creation along with them. Each masterclass will provide them with tools and behind-the-scenes perspectives to discover how others work and learn from good practices. 

The 2022 edition of YASS! features Helen Zaltzman, Mitra Kaboli, Felix Blume, Sara de Monchy and Nanna Hauge Kristensen.

2. (Almost) everything you want to know about YASS!

How do I register for the masterclasses?

TO JOIN, PLEASE FILL IN THE ONLINE FORM

Up to 30 people may take part in each masterclass. If the seats in the masterclass(es) you have decided to attend are sold out, please send an email to yass@radiopapesse.org with the following subject line: Waiting list + Masterclass name.

How much do the masterclasses cost?

We would have liked to keep the series free of charge, but we do ask you for a small contribution to cover organizational costs: €5 per lesson, €25 for the entire programme. The value of what we’ll share is much greater, we know that as much as you do. We always strive to ensure that our content and activities are accessible, also economically, to the community we share our profession and passion for audio with. But we also have to think about the sustainability of what we do – Radio Papesse is a non-profit cultural association – and for free is never cost-free for us… However YASS! is free of charge for all students who can prove they are enrolled in the current year.

What are the requirements for participation?

YASS! is a programme designed for authors, artists and audio producers, but also for those who want to fine tune their own voice and improve their tools and techniques.

Participants in the masterclasses must have at least a basic knowledge of audio production. Participants must have a good knowledge of English.

Where do the masterclasses take place?

YASS! masterclasses take place online (Felix Blume, Mitra Kaboli e Helen Zaltzman) while Sara de Monchy’s e Nanna Hauge Kirstensen’s classes will be both virtual and live in Florence.

All participants will be sent detailed instructions and a private link to access the streaming.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for here, write to yass@radiopapesse.org

3. 2022 Digital Masterclass / Masterclasses

Helen Zaltzman

Boring Interesting
November 10th, 6pm

Not all audio stories are personal; not all are emotional. The Allusionist is a show about language, so the stories belong to hundreds, millions, even billions of people, some currently alive, some of whom may have been dead for 2,000 years. The purpose of the show is not to showcase an individual’s lived experience, but to make the depersonalised relevant to whichever person is listening, whether it is as devastating as the oppression of people via language, or as dry and dispassionate as indefinite hyperbolic numerals. How do you carve a narrative from such a gigantic, idiosyncratic, sprawling mess as language, then make something so complex into an easily digestible 25-minute entertainment podcast for all ages and knowledge backgrounds?

Helen Zaltzman is a multiple award-winning podcast host and producer. She is entirely self-taught and works mostly alone, usually from bed. Her linguistics entertainment podcast The Allusionist covers topics ranging from oppressed language and queer history, to protest cakes and weird facts about falcons. The live theatrical spin-off has appeared on stages around the world. Answer Me This, the comedy show she began with Olly Mann in 2007, was one of Britain’s longest-running and most successful independent podcasts, ran for 400 episodes and nearly 15 years. She founded the Podcasters’ Support Group on Facebook to provide a home for all podcasters’ most tedious questions about microphones and hosting sites.

Mitra Kaboli

Behind the scenes of Welcome to Provincetown
November 17th, 6pm

In 2021, when Ben Riskin – one of the founders of Room Tone – asked her to work on a series about Provincetown, Mitra Kaboli did not expect to move there for the whole summer. Too good to be true. And yet… PTown – the Massachusetts beach town best known for its popularity in the LGBTQ+ community – welcomed her. 

Welcome to Provincetown is a series somewhere between the immediacy of a reality show and the multifaceted depth of the best documentaries: it is an extraordinary example of how a distinctive auteur like Mitra Kaboli can put herself at the service of other people’s stories in order to sketch a portrait that is ultimately and exquisitely collective. 

In this behind-the-scenes review of Welcome to Provincetown, Mitra Kaboli will talk about the challenges and choices that have accompanied her over this past year of work. Mitra Kaboli is an award-winning audio documentarian and multimedia artist who has been working professionally in radio and podcasting since 2012. Her work has been featured on The Heart, NPR’s Latino USAMaking Contact, ESPN’s 30 for 30 and Audible Productions. Currently, she is the host of the critically acclaimed podcast Welcome to Provincetown.

Felix Blume

Listening to the other(s)
December 1st, 6pmm

More than sound, listening is the central point of Felix Blume’s work: listening as a way to relate to others, to meet and learn from the other(s). Revisiting previous projects, such as his audio piece Los gritos de México – which earned him the “Pierre Schaeffer” Prize at Phonurgia Nova Festival 2015 – and the 2019 film Curupira, creature of the woods, he will delve into the collaborative approach of his practice and talk about his relationship with listening. 

Félix Blume is a sound artist and sound engineer. He currently works and lives between Mexico, Brazil and France. He uses sound as a basic material in sound pieces, videos, actions and installations. His process is often collaborative, working with communities, using public space as the context within which he explores and presents his works. He is interested in myths and their contemporary interpretation, in human dialogues both with inhabited natural and urban contexts, in what voices can tell beyond words

His sound pieces have been broadcast on radios all over the world, and he has participated in international festivals and exhibitions including Rotterdam IFF (2021), Berlinale (2019), Thailand Biennale (2018), CENTEX Chile (2017), CTM Berlin (2017), Fonoteca Nacional Mexico (2016), LOOP Barcelona (2015) and Tsonami Arte Sonoro Chile (2015, 2018). 

Sara de Monchy

How to make exiting youth audio
December 9th, 5.45pm

Sara de Monchy is a theater and podcast director. She graduated from the Royal Theatre Academy in Maastricht, and has several successful theater productions to her credit. Her love for fantasy, audio and theater comes together in her well acclaimed podcast Sara’s Mysteries, in which she solves mysteries with kids: who is the owner of that creepy little shed, where is my dog who suddenly disappeared, and what is hidden in the basement of my school? The podcast was nominated for different prizes and is a binge worthy ritual for many Dutch families!

In this interactive workshop, with the help of raw material, failed and successful scenes, Sara retraces the steps she took as she created Sara’s Mysteries. We discover the importance of ‘excitement’ for youth, how to get into the head of elusive 11-year-olds and how to make them talk freely about their biggest questions. We discover where you really can’t get away with making audio for children, and why ‘the car’ is a returning location in Sara’s Mysteries.
After this workshop, you will have a fresh ground for creating your own podcast for children!

Nanna Hauge Kristensen

Loss, Rain and Listening as an act of intimacy.
December 10th, 2.30pm

A central aspect of audio making is listening. For Nanna Hauge Kristensen, listening entails a bodily attentiveness – an attunement to the Other, it creates a space where openness and exchanges can unfold. Her audio pieces often revolve around loss and beginnings, and her work moves across anthropology, documentarism and art. In her sonic explorations of lifeworlds and atmospheres, she seeks to cultivate a deep ethnographic listening: “What attracts me – Nanna says – both as an audio maker and a listener, are the intimate, sensory, and open-ended representations of the complex world that we share.” For this masterclass, she will invite us into her practice, sharing examples of her work, and offering some reflections on listening as a creative method. 

Nanna Hauge Kristensen is an audio producer and anthropologist based in Copenhagen. Her work has won several international awards, including the Third Coast International Audio Award for Best Foreign Documentary.

YASS! is organized thanks to the support of Regione Toscana Toscanaincontempornaea 2022, Comune di Firenze, Città Metropolitana di Firenze, Fondazione CR Firenze, Kingdom of the Netherland, Unicoop Firenze.