Fondazione Campania dei Festival was created in 2007 following a Tender issued by MIBACT, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Activities and Tourism. The previous presidents are Rachele Furfaro (2007-2010), Caterina Miraglia (2011-2014), Luigi Grispello (2015-2017). Since 2018 Alessandro Barbano has been President.
In the thirteen years since its founding it has developed into a wide-ranging cultural institution that produces, promotes, and manages a large number of projects on a permanent basis. The first was Napoli Teatro Festival Italia, the international theatre, dance, and music festival held at the beginning of summer in Naples and other sites in Campania region. Renato Quaglia (2008-2010), Luca De Fusco (2011-2014), Franco Dragone (2016) and, since 2017, Ruggero Cappuccio have been the Festival’s directors.
Other projects managed by the Fondazione include Punta Corsara (2008-2010), the cultural enterprise project for Teatro Auditorium of Scampia, featuring a program of theatre workshops and performances; and World Urban Forum (2012), organized in collaboration with the United Nation agency UN-Habitat, that attracted more than 6000 visitors from all over the world.
For the 2009 and 2010 festivals, the Fondazione organized the E45 Napoli Fringe Festival, which was based on Edinburgh Fringe’s model, and supported young companies; and the Campania Teatro Festival Italia, a series of events organized in collaboration with the San Carlo Theatre that included symphony concerts, operas, and ballets.
In 2013, the Fondazione participated in Culture for all, the European cooperation project for Kosovo.
Since April 2014, the Fondazione has been an in-house supporter and producer of projects for Regione Campania. The projects launched in recent years include Quartieri di Vita, that started in 2016 and takes place in December. Quartieri di Vita identifies and supports organizations operating in at-risk areas of Campania via workshops that use theatre as a tool of integration and professional training.
The Fondazione also supported, promoted, and organized the Cantieri Viviani (2016-2018) and Totò, l’arte e l’umanità (2017) projects, which involved several local artists, scholars, and cultural institutions celebrating the works of the two important Neapolitan talents.
In 2017, Fondazione Campania dei Festival also launched the Dramma antico alle Terme di Baia, an event that immortalizes the historical and natural heritage of the Baia Archaeological Park via ancient theatre performances. That same year the Fondazione supported and organized the Sipari aperti. Festival degli altri mondi in collaboration with the Council for Culture of the city of Avellino. The project supported city theatre focusing on social themes and was aimed at improving the theatre’s cultural offer.
In 2017, the Fondazione participated in the Ministry’s three-year Tender for Ruggero Cappuccio’s project of Artistic Direction.
In 2018, the Fondazione joined Performances beyond two shores, the European project of cultural workers’ cooperating with and encouraging the professional growth, mobility, and production of young Arab artists in Europe.
The Cultural and Tourism General Unit invited Fondazione Campania dei Festival to create a digital archive of live performing arts within the innovative Ecosistema digitale della cultura in Campania (Digital Ecosystem of Culture in Campania) platform. The Move to cloud project assigned the Fondazione the institutional leadership to establish a media library that will represent and promote the performing arts sector of Campania.
In 2019, the Municipality of Naples was chosen to host Universiade 2019, the sporting event for university athletes from all over the world. For the occasion, Napoli Festival Italia presented a selection of shows that took place in landmark sites.
In 2019 Adotta un filosofo was launched. The project’s mission, curated by Massimo Adinolfi, was to promote high school lectures on the theme of Europe, held by twenty philosophy professors and scholars. About eighty institutes from Campania region joined the initiative, whose success prompted the Fondazione to launch a second edition on “Law” in 2020.