Creatures Festival

A festival to rethink our relationship with other animals

The Creatures Festival is a cultural project that addresses the coexistence between humanity and other animals in an open and secular way. Conceived and organized by the association Palindroma APS - Umanity and other animals, the festival was born in Assisi in 2025, following the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis' Canticle of the Creatures, and has quickly transformed into a traveling journey across several Italian regions.

In 2026, the festival took the form of a national tour, and the opening stage took place in Rome, within the territory of the V Municipality. The chosen venue was the Casa della Cultura e dello Sport Silvio Di Francia, nestled in the greenery of Parco di Villa De Sanctis, between the Alessandrino and Centocelle districts: a public space that has become a reference point for community life in the city's eastern suburbs.

The heart of the Rome stage: the new municipal regulation

The day in Rome had a very concrete goal: to publicly present the proposal for the new animal welfare regulation of Rome Capitale. A long-awaited text, discussed before citizens, associations, veterinarians, animal welfare officers, and administrators. The debate involved municipal and regional institutions and opened a reflection on a Lazio Agenda for animal welfare, aimed at creating a more uniform framework of rules across the Lazio Region, which currently varies significantly from one territory to another.

The festival's formula is deliberately dual: the institutional morning is followed by an informative and family-friendly afternoon, designed for those who live with an animal or simply want to better understand the mind and needs of a dog or cat.

Outreach, children, and the human-animal bond

The afternoon is dedicated to experiential meetings and workshops. Topics include science explained to children, feline ethology, and dog communication, always with a practical, non-academic approach. This part of the program makes the festival suitable for families: children can participate in guided activities while adults attend the panels.

• Scientific outreach for children and teenagers, with experiments and environmental observation
• Feline ethology: understanding the cat's perspective, its signals, and its territory
• Dog training: experiential meetings on how to read canine body language
• Conscious tasting break featuring selections curated by Slow Food Rome
• Institutional roundtables open to the public regarding regulations, protection, and control

A journey connecting Rome, Greccio, and Assisi

The Rome stage is not an isolated event. After Rome, the festival continues in Lazio at Greccio, in the province of Rieti, a Franciscan site par excellence, where the Creatures Award will be established alongside a national summit between the Regions. The journey then concludes in Assisi, where the second full edition of the festival takes place with panels, international guests, and live streaming.

This itinerant model is one of the most recognizable features of the event: instead of concentrating everything in one place, the Creatures Festival brings the same discussion to different contexts, from the large Roman metropolitan periphery to Umbrian villages, adapting the focus of the meetings to the host territory each time.

Why it is worth attending

The tone of the festival is one of dialogue, not preaching. It addresses bioethics, animal rights, biodiversity, stray animals, feline colonies, and urban coexistence with accessible language, free from ideological bias. For a city like Rome, which lives with a huge urban animal population including dogs, free-roaming cats, wild boars, and birds, it is a rare opportunity for serious public discussion.

Admission is free: however, booking is recommended for children's workshops, which have limited spots.