ANSA’s traditional photo annual, PHOTOANSA 2025, featuring the most telling and significant images of the year coming to a close, was presented at Rome’s MAXXI contemporary art museum Tuesday night.
It has been a year marked by the return of Donald Trump, who, as the events of recent days increasingly reveal, is changing the world order, amidst rifts and new global alliances, and complex and fragile attempts to restore peace in war zones.
The common thread that unites the first chapters of the book PHOTOANSA 2025, featuring the most representative photographs of the year now coming to a close, was also the underlying theme of the discussion that accompanied the book’s presentation at the MAXXI in Rome, moderated by Italy’s tp news agency’s editor-in-chief Luigi Contu.
Guests alternated on stage, commenting on events that images can often describe more directly than a thousand words, as well as ANSA journalists who shared their experiences on the ground.
“The many things you find in the book are closely connected to the events of today, yesterday, and tomorrow,” commented ANSA President Giulio Anselmi, who opened the evening.
“They are linked to everything you hear about on television and read in the newspapers, because this is a book of intense relevance.
“And it is a book that more than ever opens us up to all the questions that this period linked to Trump and beyond leaves unanswered.
“We are writing the new global disorder; Trump is both an effect and a contributing cause, but we are writing a new world order.
“First COVID, then Ukraine, and then ‘the Trump cyclone’ that strikes resoundingly,” said centrist Italia Viva (IV) leader and former centre-left Democratic Party (PD) premier Matteo Renzi.
“Europe,” he warned, “needs a wake-up call.
Trump, who doesn’t love Europe, says so, but Draghi does, too, who does.” The discussions focused on the peace processes, just sketched out for Ukraine and launched a few months ago in the Middle East.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem, spoke about the tragedy in Gaza.
“It’s clear that whoever is responsible for all this, in one way or another, directly or indirectly, is now compromised; they are compromised figures,” he emphasized.
“If we want something new, we also need new faces in Israel and Palestine.
“We therefore need to creatively rethink the future of this land,” he added.
“The two-people, two-state solution is the only acceptable one.” These are theaters of war where thousands of civilians die, but also where many journalists lose their lives, whose sacrifice is remembered in a chapter of the book.
Hundreds of reporters, for whom their press badge offered little or no protection, have died in Gaza.
“We’ve lost four colleagues in the last two years, and it’s been a truly difficult time,” recalled Reuters Editor-In-Chief Alessandra Galloni.
“Not all media outlets have the resources to send colleagues to the front lines, but their presence on the ground remains very important.” ANSA chief Contu also emphasized the centrality of the work of ANSA correspondents, represented on stage by Ukraine war reporter Lorenzo Attianese.
The book, however, recounts much more, including the major deaths that have marked the year, from Giorgio Armani to Claudia Cardinale.
“She was a special woman,” recalled film director Cristina Comencini, daugher of great director Luigi.
“I met her on my father’s set.
