Francesco was born in L Aquila (1982). He joined TV and film documentary after graduating University. Since 2008 he traveled to Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Palestine and Brazil partnering with NGOs as reporter. Francesco received a Masterclass degree in Photojournalism from Contrasto photoagency (2009). Currently he is focusing on reportage and editorial portrait with political content, social and environmental issues. His work has been published on several international and national magazines. He is a regular contributor to WIRED magazine. Published on: TIME, Le Monde (Fr), Wired (UK), LEspresso (IT), Expressen (Sweden), Elle (FR), Wired (IT), Vanity Fair, Sportweek, Grazia, Tico Times (Costa Rica), Popoli, Repubblica.it.
Francesco Pistilli
Collections created
In Limbo in Idomeni Refugee Camp
Idomeni, Greece
19 Apr 2016
This collection of photos documents daily life in the Idomeni camp where refugees live in limbo on the border between Greece and Macedonia. Some refugees who were photographed are identified by an initial because they did not want their names used.
African Migrants Seek Aid in Rome
Rome
15 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
Brazil's Indigenous Tribes Fight Back...
Guaranatuba
21 Mar 2013
The Sateré-Mawé people make up one of Brazil’s largest indigenous populations and one of the few who still live in the immediate vicinity of the Amazon River. Just over ten thousand Mawé live in the Andirá-Marau Indigenous Land Reserve, a nearly 800 thousand hectare area spread out over five municipalities between the Amazonas and Pará states demarcated by the Brazilian government in 1982 and ratified by parliament in 1986.
Prolonged periods of contact with guests from the vast modern society of contemporary Brazil, and the increased modernization of neighboring communities have exposed the Sateré-Mawé to a variety of historical changes, not only cultural, but most importantly economic. Staggering demographic growth in areas surrounding their villages, as well as the illegal logging industry have begun to deplete their sources of wild game and fish, making food shortage a chronic problem.
Kennedy, a 24 year old Mawé, defends his land from illegal timber extraction. He is part of an international project with local partners. This project in the Satere-Mawé area was created to support the local communities and to prevent illegal timber extraction by increasing daily surveillance, mapping forest resources and through a series of initiatives to raise awareness and environmental education. Indigenous and other local forest communities have seen their land seized, their lifestyles destroyed, and their livelihoods stolen.
Holding a machete, Pedro, 33, also patrols the forests. "Illegal logging can be hard to tackle,” he said. “Logging happens deep in the forest, far from the eyes of the world but GPS tracking technology and satellite surveillance means we can find out where loggers are and what kind of timber they want. We are tracking 560 hectares of virgin forest with new technologies, hopefully we will stop illegal logging here.”
The US is the largest market for timber exported from Brazil. While Americans buy massive quantities of wood, often taken illegally from forests, to construct floors, outdoor paths, and piers, local people and activists working to protect the Amazon are being assassinated and kept quiet through intimidation.
Since 1995, however, the Sateré-Mawé have placed a great deal of hope on fair trade initiatives that have allowed them to commercialize their traditional products such as guaraná and other goods from the forest. Although well established as an indigenous enterprise on the international market, revenues from the guaraná trade are yet to counter poverty in their villages on a large scale.
Despite their relative isolation, the Sateré-Mawé’s creation of a global “guaraná culture” has left its mark on the globalized cultures of the world’s urban centers. Their history with the fruit is a long one. The Mawé domesticated the Paulinia cupana, a wild vine from the Sapindaceae family, producing a cultivated shrub. They have mastered its planting and processing, allowing them to elaborate a variety of food and drink products from their crops.
A central ingredient in the Sateré-Mawé’s social economy, their guaraná has become a globally popular product for its properties as a stimulant, intestinal regulator, cardiovascular tonic and aphrodisiac. It is also believed by some, though this hasn’t been confirmed, to fight venereal disease.
The first description of guaraná and its importance for the Sateré-Mawé dates to the year the group first had contact with Europeans. Father João Felipe Betendorf describes, in 1669, that "the Andirazes have in their woods a small fruit they call guaraná, which they dry and then press with the feet and make balls with, and which they praise like Europeans praise their gold, and which, grated with a small rock and drunk mixed with water from a gourd, provides them with so great a strength that when the Indians go hunting they do not feel hungry and in addition it makes one urinate and cures fever, headaches and cramps."
Today, though globalization has brought about opportunities to the indigenous people of the world, it has also impeded their ability to retain traditional cultural practices and indigenous knowledge. One solution to this problem has come in the form of fair trade markets and sustainable tourism.
With the help of international NGOs, the Mawé are developing a guaraná based economy that protects their heritage while fighting the poverty that increases in population and the depletion of natural resources has visited upon them. In this model, through funding by international partners indigenous groups are given opportunities to express the potential of their products worldwide, while welcoming visitors in a sustainable manner at home in their villages.
Seven-thousand indigenous people in 85 villages along the Marau, Miriti, Urupadi, Andira and numerous other tributaries of the Amazon are expected to benefit from the work the Sateré-Mawé community has begun.
The final goal of a series of projects organized by the tribe with the help of international actors is to ensure the sustainable management of natural resources that could lay the groundwork for the sustainable production in their forests and rivers. The Sateré-Mawé hope that this will both put an end to chronic food shortage and fight the illegal logging trade that continues to harm their heritage lands.
Otro Cielo (Another Sky) - An Uruguay...
Montevideo
21 Sep 2014
Another Sky is a journey into Uruguayan dailylife at the time of Pepe Mujica, a documentary work focused on social changes taking place in the country. Looking for answers, I drove over 1300km from the capital Montevideo, to the north (the poorest regions) and to the east, to learn the truth about a people who craves change and hope for a new brighter future.
Another Sky is a road-trip along the utopia, through civil rights, rural culture, african religion and alternative lifestyles.
The country's economy currently is growing stronger, but in the remote countryside an old culture seems untouched by globalization. Almost 100 thousand people, Gauchos, Peones or farmers still share the environment with animals. With three cows per person Uruguay, is one of the biggest "meat-economies" in the world; and 75% of the country's exports are agriculture related.
In Montevideo, where about one-third of the country population lives, you find a place where politics and football dominate discussions and social life.
Uruguay is a place where sailors, European immigrants and African slaves left their stories, their incomprehensible melancholy and their different traditions. Uruguay is a "latin hope" spiced with meat, cerveza, Umbanda (an Afro-Brazilian faith) and Socialism.
CHAPULLING GENERATION - Occupy Gezi P...
istanbul
11 Jun 2013
Musicians, artists, doctors, nurses, students, activists, environmentalists have joined the rallies against a government that they believe threatens their freedom and way of life. The Park (Gezi) became a symbol of civil resistence, a laboratory for a new culture of resistance.
"Chapulling (Turkish: çapuling) is a neologism originating in the 2013 protests in Turkey, coined from Prime Minister Erdogan's use of the term çapulcu (roughly translated to "looters") to describe the protestors. çapulcu was rapidly reappropriated by the protestors, both in its original form and as the anglicized chapuller and additionally verbified chapulling, given the meaning of "fighting for your rights". Chapulling has been used in Turkish both in its English form and in the hybrid word form çapuling. The word quickly caught on, adopted by the demonstrators and online activists." (source: Wikipedia)
Media created
Idomeni Refugee Camp 21
Idomeni
31 Mar 2016
"Hotel Hara" is a makeshift refugee camp on the forecourt of a petrol station near the Idomeni refugee camp, on the Greek-Macedonian border.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 22
Idomeni
01 Apr 2016
A veiled woman walks during the misty dawn at Idomeni refugee camp, on the Greek border with Macedonia.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 20
Idomeni
19 Apr 2016
A night shot of the border fence between Greece and Macedonia at the Idomeni camp.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 19
Idomeni
18 Apr 2016
A Kurdish girl spends an evening playing with a recycled table football game at Idomeni refugee camp, a makeshift camp on the Greek-Macedonian border where thousands of refugees are stranded.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 18
Idomeni
18 Apr 2016
Raha, 41, from Syria, is in Idomeni with two sisters. She waits to reach her two sons, aged 15 and 20, who arrived in Germany months ago. Raha is still stuck here after two months.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 17
Idomeni
15 Apr 2016
In a improvised cinema, refugee children watch a cartoon movie at the makeshift camp of Idomeni, in Greece. Movies keep refugee children entertained, despite all the sorrow and trials they face.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 16
Idomeni
14 Apr 2016
Syrian refugees have dinner along the railway at Idomeni camp. The railway connection has been blocked for a month by refugees who are protesting Macedonia's decision not to let them through. Police have tried to clear the tracks but refugees still resist and occupy the railway while waiting for an European solution.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 15
Idomeni
05 Apr 2016
Around 12.000 refugees live in small tents and the ruins of an old railway station in Idomeni at the Greek border with Macedonia.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 13
Idomeni
20 Apr 2016
Bilal,13, from Syria, is a self-described geek. He wants to study and learn English and German, but he needs new books and wants to reach Germany as soon as possible to go to school and learn more about the world. He sits on an abandoned car while translating verbs from Arabic to English.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 14
Idomeni
04 Apr 2016
A Kurdish boy sits by a fire in a railway repairs hangar where thousand of refugees have set up their tents at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 12
Idomeni
19 Apr 2016
R., 32, from Syria kisses her nephew. They live in an abandoned train at Idomeni railway station in Greece, at the border with Macedonia. Some 12,000 refugees live in small tents and the ruins of an old railway station in Idomeni.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 10
Idomeni
14 Apr 2016
A Pakistani group of between 50 and 70 refugees live in an abandoned hotel building close to the Greek-Macedonian border in Idomeni, Greece.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 11
Idomeni
15 Apr 2016
Panagiota Vasileiadou, also called "the Idomeni refugees' grandmother" is a 82 year-old Greek woman who houses five Syrian refugees in her home.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 09
Idomeni
13 Apr 2016
S. is from Pakistan and he lives in an abandoned building along the highway that runs close to the Greek border with Macedonia. He shares a little room with four to six other "travel mates". They have been waiting and surviving here for two months without electricity, windows, doors and bathrooms.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 07
Idomeni
06 Apr 2016
M., 24, from Aleppo, shows shocking evidence of torture in Assad's prisons. He says he was arbitrarily jailed and tortured for 4 months. M. is living in the ruins of an old railway station in Idomeni, Greece.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 08
Idomeni
13 Apr 2016
Asif, 23, from Pakistan, is living in an abandoned building with about 50 people along the highway that runs close to the border with Macedonia.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 06
Idomeni
02 Apr 2016
People protest after mouldy food was given to a group of refugees in Idomeni camp, Greece. Part of a meal distributed by a Greek NGO was delivered rotten and was soon thrown out, leaving people very angry and exhausted.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 05
Idomeni
02 Apr 2016
Refugees queue daily for food in Idomeni, a railway station in Greece at the border with Macedonia.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 04
Idomeni
01 Apr 2016
Idomeni railway station at night. More than 10,000 refugees are living in small tents and the ruins of an old railway station in Idomeni, Greece. The camp stretches out for hundreds of meters along the railway tracks that cross the border between Greece and Macedonia.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 03
Idomeni
01 Apr 2016
Kurdish families have dinner along the tracks in an abandoned hangar of Idomeni railway station near the Greek border with Macedonia.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 02
Idomeni
31 Mar 2016
Migrants sit in the cold light of the early morning at Idomeni refugee camp at the Greek border with Macedonia.
Idomeni Refugee Camp 01
Idomeni
31 Mar 2016
A Muslim woman prays in the early morning at Idomeni refugee camp at the Greek border with Macedonia.
About 12.000 refugees are living in small tents and the ruins of an old railway station in Idomeni. The Idomeni camp stretches out for hundreds of yards along the railway track that crosses the border, and for hundreds of yards on either side. The vast majority sleeps in camping tents set directly on the muddy fields, or the coarse gravel of the railway tracks.
African Migrants in Rome 24
Rome, Italy
17 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 25
Rome, Italy
15 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 22
Rome, Italy
17 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 23
Rome, Italy
17 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 20
Rome, Italy
17 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 21
Rome, Italy
17 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 18
Rome, Italy
17 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 19
Rome, Italy
17 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 16
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 17
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 13
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 14
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 15
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 11
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 12
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 08
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 10
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.
African Migrants in Rome 09
Rome, Italy
16 Jun 2015
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa gather and seek help to cope with their humanitarian situation at the Baobab Center, a small aid association in Rome.
They are rescued from boats in Lampedusa and now wait for the chance to depart to Northern Europe. Baobab is a citizen association with volunteers that gives aid to refugees by providing food and shelter.