Feo Fest

An ecological-cultural festival in the heart of Val Fortore

Feo Fest was born in 2021 from an idea by the Collettivo_Gea—Matteo Fioretti, Angela Cerritello, and Alessandra Facchiano—and has quickly established itself as one of the most original events in the Sannio hinterland. Organized and funded by the Municipality of Foiano di Val Fortore, in the province of Benevento, the festival inhabits a village of just over a thousand inhabitants every summer, perched at an altitude of 520 meters. It is nestled in a valley on the left bank of the Fortore River, surrounded by high mountains, at the extreme eastern border of Campania, near Molise and Puglia.

The formula is as simple as it is ambitious: bringing contemporary arts, folk music, theater, and body-based practices into an untouched natural setting to convey—as the organizers explain—a powerful message of green revolution and ecological responsibility.

Bosco Frosolone, a natural stage

The heart of Feo Fest is Bosco Frosolone, known as the area's green lung: over one hundred hectares of trees in the Fortore valley, just minutes from the town center. This is where dawn concerts, site-specific performances, nature walks, and sound installations take place, while the historic center—its squares, alleys, and the municipal theater—hosts workshops, exhibitions, and evening shows. This dual setting, forest and village, is the festival's signature.

Arts, workshops, and encounters

Each edition weaves together different languages into a multidisciplinary and largely participatory program:

• Music: world music, folk and traditional singing concerts, vinyl DJ sets, and dawn concerts in the forest;
• Theater and storytelling: musical-theatrical plays in dialect, civil testimonies, readings, and collective silent reading sessions;
• Free workshops: dance for children, analog graphic design, writing in the forest, crochet, and musical masterclasses;
• Nature and science: astronomical walks after midnight with the Sannio Astronomical Observatory, excursions, and outdoor yoga;
• Visual arts: sound installations among the trees, exhibitions of maps and visual diaries, and photographic documentation of past editions;
• Local gastronomy: promotion of typical Val Fortore products alongside evening events.

The editions, from «Terre Nostre» to «Nocturna»

Every year, the festival adopts a thematic title that guides the program. The third edition, in July 2023, was titled Arcipelago Tradizione and brought Southern folk music icons like the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare, Bandadriatica, and Folkamiseria to the forest and village from July 26th to 30th, alongside climate change conferences held with the Kyoto Club. In 2024, it was the turn of Sporae, dedicated to spores and the minimal life forms that regenerate the forest. In 2025, the fifth edition, Nocturna, explored the nocturnal dimension of the territory from July 17th to 20th, featuring Peppe Servillo & Solis String Quartet, Faraualla, Ulderico Pesce, and stargazing walks.

A project against depopulation

Feo Fest is not just a summer festival: it is explicitly a community tool. The Municipality and a group of local youths built it as a response to depopulation and the isolation of inland areas, aiming to bring audiences, artists, and fresh perspectives back to a village that empties out in winter. For this reason, admission to shows and workshops has always been free and open to everyone, with direction provided by the collective and support from the municipal administration.

When it takes place

The festival is usually held in the second half of July, spanning three or four consecutive days, with events distributed from the afternoon until dawn the following day. The exact dates and the title of each edition are announced by the Collettivo_Gea and the Municipality on the festival's social media channels, usually a few weeks before opening.