Not only coffee departs from Sicily. From this region, in the southernmost area beyond the Italian boot, Moak chose to spread culture, to keep on investing for young people, those who probably took some pictures from their room or wrote some story, thinking that these would be just images or empty words, but hide great artistic ability instead, which only need to be recognized, popularized and awarded. With the same persisting enthusiasm, the organisational machine of the Moak Cultura project doesn’t stop and indeed already launched the 2015 edition announcements of Caffè Letterario and Fuori Fuoco Moak contests.

As for the historical national award, arrived at the 14th edition, Moak wants to recall the well-known and eclectic writer and Italian partisan Italo Calvino, celebrating his 30th death anniversary. Participants will have to keep to the topic, which is as usual focused on coffee, and will obviously have to arm themselves with a good dose of phantasy and originality, in order to narrate the master of beverages. To take part, you just need to send an unreleased story with a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 20 pages to the address letterario@caffemoak.com within June 30th.

Proclamation of the winning story will be held on October 10th in the Moak office district in Modica. Even those placed second and third will be awarded and will receive prize money. Furthermore, the top ten stories chosen by the panel of judges will be published within the Anthology 2015 “Stories about coffee”. Moak confirmed also this year’s participation in the 2015 literary cruise edition “A Ships of Books for Barcelona”, arranged by Leggere:tutti in cooperation with Grimaldi Lines, from April 21st to 25th.

Info:

www.caffe-letterario.it
www.facebook.com/caffeletterariomoak
www.twitter.com/letterariomoak

It’s an illusion to think that photos are made with the camera (…) they are made with eyes, with heart and with head (Henri Cartier-Bresson)

Photographing (with the heart). This is what the participants of the second edition of Fuori Fuoco, international photography contest promoted by Caffè Moak, are asked to do. Rather than keeping to a topic, this year young photographers and accomplished artists will be able to freely reveal their feelings through snapshots; those who take pictures are often out of the setting, not only because they are not on the picture, but also because they nearly inevitably take the role of spectators. Photographing (with the heart) will therefore be an act of turning this logic upside down: I don’t watch, I take part and put in all of the emotional charge of that moment. It’s an invitation to use the camera as empathetic tool of awareness, eliminating the distance with the pictured subject. Because in life, it has to be said, there are no spectators. Coffee can obviously be interpreted to one’s liking (plant, seed, drink or public place, colour). Everybody can take part: photographers, professionals and amateurs will have to develop – through a sequence of 3 pictures, vertically or horizontally – a story or a photo feature connected to the coffee bean. Deadline to send the pictures is the coming 31st of August.

Fuori Fuoco Moak

“Coffee and new myths” was the topic that inspired professional and amateur photographers, who described and reported, through a mini reportage including three pictures, the social mutations we are actors and spectators of. Today’s models, more or less reachable aims that sometimes turn into real obsessions. The task to select the three winning works was assigned to a mixed panel of judges, from the photography masters, President Cesare Colombo and Massimo Siragusa, to Cinzia Ferrara, vice-president of Aiap (Italian Association of design and visual communication), Marco Lentini, graphic designer of Moak, Matteo Maggiore, executive Board Member of Adci (Italian Art Directors Club), and Laura Leonelli, journalist and photography expert for Il Sole 24 Ore and Panorama Travel.

1° place

“Cafè, Storie incrociate” (Café, crossed stories)

by Anna Quartuccio (Milan)

Coffee meant as meeting place of stories, feeling and moods.

Motivation: “With her pictures, the author expresses classical and contemporary nature, and we could even say the need of a “coffee” place, through a certain fullness in controlling the frame. The furniture of the place and the clients’ attitudes allude to intimacy, complicity and communication, cultural values connected to the history of coffee”.

2° place

“Affollata Solitudine” (Crowded loneliness)

by Fabiano Venturelli (Crema)

Is loneliness possible in a time where connections are possible anytime and anywhere, which allow getting in touch with large groups of other persons?

Motivation: “The panel appreciated the research of a symbolic reading of protagonists, places, colours and feelings connected to coffee, all entirely included in an unconventional space with a very contemporary language”.

Recommended song for the reading of the present article: Pictures – Benjamin Francis Leftwich