Walter Veltroni | The Words That Remain

Walter Veltroni | The Words That Remain Saturday, 10 October 2026 | 8:45 pm | Piazza del Sole, Bellinzona Sconfinare Festival

There are words that endure through time. Words spoken in the public sphere, entrusted to books, cinema and collective memory; words that tell the story of a life, a generation, a country. Some are consumed by the speed of the present, while others continue to speak to us even when they seemed to have faded into silence.

A writer, journalist, director and leading figure in Italian public life, Walter Veltroni has moved across different forms of expression and assumed a range of responsibilities, building over time a path in which collective history often intertwines with individual lives. In his novels, essays, documentaries and films, storytelling becomes a way of questioning the past, interpreting the present and giving a voice back to what risks being forgotten.

At Sconfinare Festival, Veltroni will reflect on the value of words as memory, responsibility and a means of connection. An encounter that asks which words truly remain, which stories we choose to pass on, and what space can still open up when storytelling manages to listen also to what time seemed to have consigned to silence.

The conversation will be moderated by Lorenzo Buccella, cultural journalist.

Walter Veltroni is a writer, journalist, director and leading figure in Italian public life. He has served as editor of l’Unità, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Cultural Heritage, Mayor of Rome and first secretary of the Partito Democratico. Alongside his institutional career, he has developed an extensive body of literary, essayistic and cinematic work devoted to civic memory, Italian history, cinema, politics and the individual lives shaped by major collective transformations. His most recent publications include Iris, la libertà (Rizzoli, 2025), Buonvino e l’omicidio dei ragazzi (Marsilio, 2026) and Il bar di Cinecittà (HarperCollins, 2026).