Festival 2026

It is interesting to note that in landscape architecture the term “desire lines” is used to describe unofficial paths – those marks left on the ground that show everyday comings and goings, where people deviate from the paths they are supposed to follow. These deviations leave traces on the ground that can generate alternative lines crossing the terrain in unexpected ways. These lines are truly traces of desire, where people have taken different routes to reach this or that point. Indeed, it is desire that helps generate a queer landscape, formed by the paths we follow when we deviate from the straight line.

Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology. Orientations, Objects, Others, Duke University Press, 2006

Like a small magnifying glass that helps us not to look away from the increasingly indecipherable events of the world, in this edition Festival ORLANDO wishes more than ever to insist on drawing attention to words, rights, sensibilities and subjectivities that are increasingly at risk. The 2026 Festival has been built around a theme that sounds almost like a new field of study: affective and sexual geography. By choosing this theme, the aim is to respond to a political context that obstructs debate on consent, affection and sexuality. Through training sessions, performances, films and meetings in different spaces of Bergamo, we ask ourselves how we move within our affective, emotional, bodily and intimate spheres. It is necessary to explore this geography in order to take responsibility for the questions and needs of younger generations regarding affection and sexuality.
Our affective and sexual geography seeks to move beyond the usual, limited cardinal points that have allowed only “normal” and dominant orientations. Instead, we look to the possibility of multiple cardinal points. If orientation leads us in directions taken for granted, it becomes necessary to investigate disorientation, where things appear strange, out of place and temporarily unreadable, and the body no longer finds itself on familiar ground. As Sara Ahmed suggests in Queer Phenomenology: "Moments of disorientation are vital. They are bodily experiences that subvert the world or pull the ground from under your feet."
If disorientation can lead to an impasse, can the impasse become a state of alertness? And what is the precise moment when that alertness allows us to recognise new directions that are reason enough for hope?
Our affective and sexual geography is therefore made of deviations from directions taken for granted. Deviation – echoing the word deviance, with which society has often labelled the queer community – becomes a wish for a change of course from the direction the world seems destined to follow.

VENUES
In Bergamo

• CULT! Atrium | Piazza della Libertà
• CULT! Auditorium | Via N. Duzioni 2
• CULT! Sala dell’Orologio | Piazza della Libertà
• GAMeC – Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bergamo | Via San Tomaso 53
• Il Circolino della Malpensata | Via L. Luzzati 6b
• Il Galgario | Via del Galgario 3
• Performatorio – Centre for the Performing Arts | Via N. Sauro 3A
• Piazza della Libertà
• Sala Ex Scuderie – Borgo Palazzo | Via Borgo Palazzo 16
• 2Skate Arena | Via W. A. Mozart 2

All venues provide nearby parking for people with disabilities and are accessible by public transportation.

RADIO AUT

This year, in certain spaces and at specific moments during the Festival, you may be approached by speakers from Radio Aut, present at Festival ORLANDO on Tuesday 5th, Friday 8th, and Saturday 9th May to share and explore the Festival from an additional perspective.

Radio Aut is a web radio project conceived by Tino Manzoni, president of Spazio Autismo Bergamo APS, and Vito Reina from the Chitina Artistica association, as a platform where people with different cognitive conditions can express themselves.

We are pleased to host an organization that shares with ORLANDO the mission of valuing the plurality of voices that make up our world.

ACCESSIBILITY

ORLANDO continues the path begun in 2021 to make the Festival an accessible cultural space. We are aware that accessibility is an ongoing process: a constant questioning of habits rooted in our thinking that hinder participation in culture and social life. This year we continue our work by making communication clearer, programming proposals that represent a plurality of subjectivities, maintaining actions aimed at economic accessibility and expanding our cultural offer to more territories. We want culture not to be the privilege of a few. We hope an increasingly wide audience can benefit from our cultural initiatives and, together with us, imagine possibilities that take us beyond differences.

The accessibility sheets available on each event’s page have been developed by Festival ORLANDO with the consultancy of Elia Zeno Covolan, a member of the association Al. Di. Qua. Artists. The icons used in the sheets are part of the Iconic Accessibility Toolkit, a project by Elia Zeno Covolan released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

Consultancy for visual disabilities and digital accessibility in 2025/2026 is provided by Oltre i Limiti ETS, thanks to the initiative Spazi aperti per una cultura accessibile by Fondazione della Comunità Bergamasca, promoted by Fondazione Cariplo, developing a network-based collaboration with seven other organizations in the city of Bergamo.

TICKETS – PAY WHAT YOU WANT

As in 2025, we are reintroducing the “Pay What You Want” system. When purchasing your ticket you can choose the price range that suits you best. For cinema screenings there are three options: € 7, € 5 or € 3. For performances you can choose between € 15, € 10 or € 5. Where possible we recommend purchasing tickets online at: www.lab80.18tickets.it. Those accompanying people with disabilities in a mediation role are entitled to a free ticket upon request at prenotazioni@orlandofestival.it.

NOTE ON LANGUAGE

Language changes, and the reflections we carry out as the Cultural Association Immaginare Orlando are renewed every year. Words transform, shift, sometimes disappear and at other times renew themselves in both form and meaning. In our communications we choose words that represent the multiplicity of subjectivities and sentences that take into account different ways of understanding. For this reason the generic masculine is not used. “Generic masculine” indicates the usage of the masculine form to represent the plurality of people. Always mentioning only one gender means giving it an advantage in terms of visibility and possibilities. We avoid graphic symbols for neutral endings (asterisks, schwa, etc.) even though we recognise their innovative potential, because they may create decoding difficulties for people using screen readers. However, there are instances when it is difficult to find alternatives to graphic symbols, and if they are present in the text, we hope they can make us reflect on how language has to be alive and ever-evolving. 
When referring to people with disabilities, we prefer not to use expressions indicating a lack of something, so as to recognise the entirety of the person. We edit texts so that the language used is the clearest possible. However, we are aware that some terms are the result of recent language evolutions, and therefore are not always comprehensible.
Using inclusive language means making choices, questioning habits, deciding what to keep and what to let go, and accepting the effort of stepping outside one’s comfort zone. It is an imperfect exercise made of attempts and mistakes. Through the texts we write, we invite readers to welcome new linguistic possibilities and to reflect on who might be excluded by the meanings of words.

For more information about the accessibility of performances and venues, trigger warnings and the minimum age requirements for each event, please refer to the accessibility sheets available on this website. For specific needs, please write to info@orlandofestival.it: we will do our best to welcome you and accommodate your needs.

Festival ORLANDO
Festival ORLANDO is an international queer festival of film, dance, theatre, and talks, open to a diverse audience. By bringing artistically significant experiences to Bergamo, the Festival transforms the city into a meeting place where stereotypes can be challenged and the horizon of possibilities expanded. Founded in 2014 and now in its twelfth edition in 2025, it features a rich programme of films, performances, parties, talks, and workshops. The Festival — and the Association it is part of — takes its name from Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name, and stands as a concrete example of how cultural, gender, ethnic, and affective differences are essential to the formation of a cultural identity that is plural, vital, and in constant transformation.

Follow-us!
Facebook @orlandobergamo

Instagram @orlandobergamo

MEMBERSHIP
Make a difference. Dream with Orlando
Throughout the Festival it will be possible to become a member of the Immaginare Orlando Cultural Association and join its community. Membership entitles you to discounts and agreements with many organisations across the city. More information is available on the website www.orlandofestival.it.