Take care: the 2025 KUM! Festival, dedicated to health and the humanities, returns to Pesaro.

This morning, October 6, 2025, during the press conference held at the San Giovanni Library in Pesaro, it was The program for the 9th edition of Kum! Festival, the event conceived and directed by psychoanalyst Massimo Recalcati, has been presented., in the presence of: Federico Leoni, Scientific Coordinator of the KUM! Festival; Andrea Biancani, Mayor of Pesaro; Daniele Vimini, Deputy Mayor and Councilor for Culture of Pesaro; Paolo Marasca, President of the MOLO ETS Association; Marco Pellati, Coordinator of Pesaro Libraries.

At the center of the The 9th edition of the National Festival of Human Sciences focuses on the theme "Health. Taking Care.", the common thread of lectures, dialogues and conversations that 17 from October to 19 will enliven the city.

Kum! 2025 invites you to reflect on care and caring, on health and illness, on well-being and discomfort, exploring its many facets: philosophical and psychological, medical and scientific, social and political. Three days, more than 20 events which will see as protagonists more than 30 speakers including philosophers and theologians, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, writers and artists who will discuss the theme of the edition from various points of view.

“Avere cura,” the title of this year’s edition, means paying attention to singularity., they say Massimo Recalcati, Scientific Director and Federico Leoni, scientific coordinator, “It means not standardizing, not forcing pre-established patterns, not reducing to guidelines. It means being passionate about detail, about specific needs, about invisible wants. This is true for doctors, teachers, politicians, and artists. It's true when it comes to caring for a patient, a project, a city, a planet.”

“KUM! is one of the most important festivals in the country, for content and desire to to bring together different voices around the theme of Care. Naturally, thanks to the scientific direction of Massimo Recalcati and the indispensable scientific coordination of Federico Leoni. The MOLO association organizes it with a great sense of responsibility, both towards the public and the wonderful city that hosts us. We are sure that this will be a great edition.” - Paul Marasca, president of the MOLO Association.

Kum! is an event that we really wanted, because it makes you reflect and think. An initiative we needed, because today's society is increasingly frenetic and people are no longer used to stopping and reflecting.

Together with the organizers, whom I thank for having chosen, once again, our city, we called it “Festival of the Human Sciences”, to underline its national scope, also confirmed by the very rich program that will feature high-level speakers and guests including psychiatrists, theologians, philosophers, writers, and artists.

Kum! is an event that upholds the high standard of our cultural offering, much appreciated by the people of Pesaro, but which also aims to bring a huge number of people to the city.

I am very satisfied with the involvement of schools, aware that the presence of professors and students is an added value that has increased over time: thus the Mayor Andrea Biancani. The choice of spaces is also important: the Experimental Theatre, the Astra Cinema and the Scavolini Auditorium, a central location for city events.

Finally the hope: I'm confident the city will respond positively once again, and we'll do everything we can to make Kum! a home in Pesaro. Let's work together in this direction. And he concludes: thanks again to the organizers, sponsors, and trade associations that support Kum!.

For the Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Culture Daniele Vimini: It's a pleasure to host this new edition of Kum! in Pesaro! which I believe is a cultural resource not only for Pesaro and the Marche region but for all of Italy, and it landed in Pesaro because it perfectly resonates with our spirit, both from the point of view of cultural production and as a perspective for addressing currently pressing issues.

This is a metropolitan area festival and the commitment was to maintain it as a prerogative of Pesaro and the Marche region and of root it in the territory. It is an important event also because it does not host 'touring shows' but because it makes people think by creating specific original content starting from the direction of Massimo Recalcati. Very The theme of care was focused on, also investigated from the point of view of psychological well-being, an emerging issue for the younger generations.

Marco Pellati coordinator of Pesaro Libraries underlined: This year too, Pesaro Biblioteche is collaborating with the organization of the Kum! Festival. with a series of short bibliographies—compiled by the entire city library system—that explore the themes and authors covered by the festival. These reading recommendations are obviously not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to serve as a starting point for those who wish to delve deeper into Kum's topics by browsing the pages of books available in the city libraries. Let's not forget that we are in 'Pesaro, City that Reads' where a network of public and private entities work together to promote reading.

The Festival will be held in the city of Pesaro, which will host events in the prestigious spaces of the Scavolini Auditorium, the Salone Antonia Pallerini of Palazzo Gradari, and the Cinema Astra. places in the historic center of Pesaro that will transform it into the citadel of Kum! with information points, meeting spaces, and a bookshop open during the festival, offering a selection of texts by participating authors and much more.

 

The Festival will open with a dialogue between politician and activist Marco Cappato and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia., a discussion on care, rights, and freedom, which will reaffirm the need to develop new conceptual, ethical, political, and legal keys to giving direction to individual and collective existence.

The Festival will close with a speech by Massimo Recalcati, which will place a crucial question at the centre of the reflection: Every act of care is founded on the idea that each person's life is irreplaceable, but what happens when neglect prevails? What happens when we forget that there is no care other than for one individual?

The festival is promoted by the association ETS PIER with the support of Municipality of Pesaro and the contribution of AMGEN, Coop Alleanza 3.0, Lancia srl, Italian Buddhist Union, and Seragnoli Foundation. The Book partner of the festival is Cooperative bookstores.

For the 2025 edition, the KUM! festival has received the patronage of the Italian Network of Healthy Cities (OMS), the National Institute for the Deaf, Assofarm, the Orders of Psychologists and Social Workers of the Marche Region, the Universities of Camerino and Urbino, and the Province of Pesaro-Urbino.

THE PROGRAM

Friday 14th October

The Festival will be officially inaugurated Friday 17 October at 17.00 pm with institutional greetings at the Scavolini Auditorium.

The events program will open at 5:30 pm in the Scavolini Auditorium with the dialogue between the politician and activist Marco Cappato and the archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, a comparison on Care, law and freedom, which will reiterate the need to develop new conceptual, ethical, political, and legal keys to give direction to individual and collective existence.

We will continue at 18.45pm at the Astra Cinema with a dialogue between psychoanalysts Aldo Becce and Cristiana Fanelli, focusing on the role of the psychoanalyst today in the “post-human” era.

To close the day at 21.15pm at the Astra Cinema Film critic Andrea Bellavita, together with director and screenwriter Giorgio Diritti, will analyze the concept of cinema as a cure.

Saturday October 18

We get into the heart of the event with a program that will involve three locations simultaneously.

It starts at 10.00pm at the Astra Cinema with a dialogue between the writer Stefano Bettera and Walter Siti, writer, literary critic and essayist, focusing on the human condition in times of crisis between hope and despair.

Following the 10.15 am at the Pallerini Hall, Palazzo Gradari, the writer Paolo Marasca and the activist and trade unionist Marco Bentivogli will discuss the relationship between work and workers, a relationship that today is considered profoundly unhealthy.

What is a healthy individual for the inventor of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud? Why does his perspective disrupt the common representation of what we call well-being? These are just some of the questions Massimo Recalcati will answer during Freud's lesson scheduled for 11:30 am at the Scavolini Auditorium.

Not to be missed at 12.45pm at the Astra Cinema the dialogue Life that heals life. Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, PoetryWords and data will come together in the figures of Valerio Magrelli, Alessandra Brescianini, Marcello Ienca, and Vito Trianni to discuss the changing concepts of life, illness, and treatment with the advent of artificial intelligence applied to biotechnology.

Following the 14.30pm, Maria Vittoria Baravelli, curator of art and photography exhibitions, will underline the curative function of art and "beautiful speeches", which preserve memories, speak to the heart, and restore us to the world. From Van Gogh's madness to Kusama's universe, from Monet's water lilies to Louise Bourgeois's wounds.

Subsequently to the 14.45pm, at the Pallerini Hall, Palazzo Gradari, psychologist and psychotherapist Giulio Costa, surgeon, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Michele Rugo and psychologist and theologian Sandro Spinsanti, will analyze the theme of responsibility for care.

All 16.00pm at the Astra Cinema It will be Federico Leoni's turn to reflect on the figure and contribution of Bruno Latour, one of the most influential thinkers of the last thirty years.

Follows on 17.15 am at the Pallerini Hall, Palazzo Gradari la lectio Memoir of the cure During this session, writer Giorgio Vasta will present a collection of notes on treatment. Ideas, observations, brief investigations, and equally brief digressions on something that seems both familiar and alien to us.

Anna Li Vecchi, a mindfulness teacher, and Emanuela Pluchinotta, a clinical psychologist and instructor of mindfulness-based protocols, will focus on the role of the caregiver. The event will be held at 5:30 pm at the Cinema Astra.

The evening will end at 18.45pm at the Scavolini Auditorium with the special event The grace of fragility. A show between poetry and theatrePoet and writer Franco Arminio will read verses in which he recounts his most intimate frailties and those of the places he travels, offering a way to use poetry not as a linguistic engineering tool, but as the leaven of a new community life.

Sunday October 19

The last day of the festival will open at 10.00pm at the Astra Cinema with the portrait of the figure of the political thinker and activist Ivan Illich, explored in depth by the philosopher Rocco Ronchi.

While at 11.15pm, at the Pallerini Hall, Palazzo Gradari, psychologist and psychoanalyst Chiara Matteini will focus on the figure of the French intellectual and psychoanalyst Jean-Bertrand Pontalis.

We continue at 12.30pm at the Astra Cinema with writer Donatella Di Pietrantonio and literary critic Massimo Natale, they will be the protagonists of a speech on the importance of the healing word.

Subsequently to the 15.00pm, at the Pallerini Hall, Palazzo Gradari, the philosopher Riccardo Panattoni will outline the figure of the great photographer Luigi Ghirri through his images.

The afternoon will continue at 16.15pm at the Astra Cinema, space for the lectio by Don Luigi Epicoco which will explore the current misunderstanding that well-being is the same as happiness.

Forward to the 4:30 pm in the Pallerini Hall, Palazzo Gradari, with the intervention of the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Mario Colucci, will outline the figure of Franco Basaglia, retracing his practical and political commitment.

And to the 5:45 PM at the Scavolini Auditorium: Grand finale with a lecture by Massimo Recalcati focused on the humanization of care.

Logistic information

All KUM! events are free to attend with mandatory online booking. via the Festival website.

Some of these, selected by the scientific management for their greatest public appeal and located in the prestigious setting of the Teatro Sperimentale, are among those bookable with the KUMCard.

The possibility of subscribing to the KUMCard, in addition to covering only some of the events, also concerns only a portion of the available seats in the stalls; the remaining seats always remain free with free reservation. The KUMCard also gives access to exclusive content and the exclusive KUM!25 Kit.

As always, the Festival is attentive to issues of accessibility and inclusivity. This year, too, the Festival's planning includes simultaneous translation into LIS (Italian Sign Language) for many of the events, provided by ANIOS Marche.

Finally, thanks to the partnership between KUM! and APA Hotels, many hotels have decided to support the Festival by offering combined offers and discounts to visitors who present a KUM!25 reservation ticket. Offers and hotel booking methods are available in the dedicated section of the website. (https://www.kumfestival.it/kum-hospitality/).

The court of Gradari Palace, the true hub of the Kum! audience will host the festival's library With a carefully selected selection of texts by featured authors and a valuable thematic bibliography on KUM! Cantieri Salute topics, thanks to the consolidated collaboration with Librerie Coop, an information point available to participants, a photo opportunity, a press corner, and numerous opportunities for guests and the public to meet.

For its historic section "Portraits," Kum! confirms its fruitful collaboration with Le Voci dei Libri, recognized by the MiC as a 'City that Reads' in Pesaro since 2017, to entrust "professional" readers, capable of restoring the written page by stimulating attention and curiosity in the public, with extracts from meetings in which eminent personalities in philosophy and psychoanalysis are analyzed.

The Cultural Association for Social Promotion “The Voices of the Books” was founded in Pesaro on April 24, 2019, with the aim of carrying out cultural activities, with a particular focus on promoting reading aloud and books. Open to all, without distinction, it actively involves over 150 people: from the youngest readers to adolescents, from young people to adults, and even more mature voices. Why? “it’s never too late” and “it’s never too early” to become good readers aloud!

Finally, the renewed collaboration with Pesaro Biblioteche has led to the development of a series of bibliographies covering the authors and topics of "Avere Cura." Thanks to the city library system, the volumes relating to the ninth edition will be available for viewing in the online catalog and made available for borrowing. All information is available at www.kumfestival.it

DISCOVER THE PROGRAM ONLINE AT: kumfestival.it/programma-2025/