The Summer Festival for Friendship Among Peoples is once again back to Rimini with meetings, exhibitions, music, and entertainment. An international event, a crossroads of commentaries and experiences from different cultural backgrounds. Lively and unique, it addresses crucial issues in a free flowing dialog format with the most interesting personalities of culture, politics and faith.
Title of the 35th edition is: “To the Ends of the Earth and of Existence. Destiny Has Not Left Man Alone”, focusing on a journey to the ends of the earth and of existence, in which one can compare himself with the challenges posed by reality, a crucial theme borrowed from the Magisterium of Pope Francis.

100 conferences, 14 exhibitions, over 17 shows and 10 sport events, this is the full program of this edition. Many will be the guests among politicians, intellectuals, journalists, academics, bishops. And many the visitors coming from around the world, while nearly 4000 are the volunteers who will build and work at the Meeting during the seven days of the event.

The Meeting opens on Sunday, August 24th with a Mass celebrated by Francesco Lambiasi Bishop of Rimini, and a round table about dialogue and peace with the custodian of the Holy Land, Pierbattista Pizzaballa and the director of Rainews24 Monica Maggioni. Many the Italian ministers present at the event such as Maurizio Martina, Stefania Giannini, Beatrice Lorenzin, Federica Guidi, and special guests like: the founder of Eataly Oscar Farinetti; the Commissioner of Expo 2015 Giuseppe Sala; CEO of Fiat, Sergio Marchionne; Valentina Alekseeva, of the Tolstoj Museum of Mosca; Joseph H.H. Weiler, President of the European University Institute; etc..

The main theme of Meeting will be the documentation of the situation of violence, warm and enmity that the world is suffering together with the testimony of the presence of men who, in this context, offer a possibility of friendship and dialogue in the name of hope and wiling to build peace.
The program includes eight exhibitions, that can be described with this title "Men at Work".  Starting from different realities places and experiences, they tell different stories that have in common a great passion for man and his destiny. This year there will be also four spaces about "Experiences and pathways", dedicated to the faces, stories and tales of men who live and have lived intensely of their needs and desires. 

On Sunday, August 24th, the Auditorium D5 Intesa Sanpaolo will host the inaugural performance of the Meeting, a tribute to Federico Fellini, after sixty years from the first screening of the film "La Strada". "I, a small stone among the stars" is the title of the music show performed by the International Piano Festival Orchestra of Brescia and Bergamo (in collaboration with Emilia Romagna Festival), which will play the music by Nino Rota, from the film that won the Oscar in 1957. Francesca Fabbri Fellini will introduce the evening, revealing some anecdotes about his uncle and the film. A masterpiece more than ever relevant to this year's Meeting, for the issues addressed: the loneliness, the need of the other and the infinite value of every person.

The music will be leading again in the Auditorium D5, on Tuesday 26th August, with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Eduard Topchjan. The Orchestra will offer a repertoire of traditional Armenian songs and some international ones.

The novelty of the meeting is the International Arena FS, where artists from Africa, the Far East, Eastern Europe and from the outskirts of Italy will be performing on 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th August . Dance, theater, music and acrobatics from all over the world will express and show the Meeting's issues such as: the search of meaning, the need for freedom, the cry of happiness that feeds the life of every man. 

Two performances will be held in the Teatro Novelli: on Wednesday, August 27th at 21.30 "Attached to life. Fragments from the Great War" with the italian actor Ugo Pagliai playing Ungaretti and Lussier and with Julius Juror at the piano; on Thursday 28th  August at 21.30 “Matthew, an accountant of God. The man who had not reckoned to write the first Gospel" with Andrea Carabelli and lyrics by Giampiero Pizzol.

13,000 sq.m. of the expo will be dedicated to sport, with the CIS (Centro Sportivo Italiano) and CdO Sport for the practicing of many sports: beach volleyball, beach tennis, judo, soccer, basketball, volleyball, table tennis, lacrosse, judo, gymnastics, rugby, road games, checkers and chess, dodgeball, tabletop football, athletics and tennis and wall climbing organized by the Navy.

The Meeting then hosts the Children Village, a space dedicated to the little ones. Every day, from 11 to 23, with shows, songs, dances, games, performances and workshops.

The official hashtag is #meeting14 to share photos, videos and messages. In addition, it will be possible to follow directly on the website of the event some of the major live events. This year the App of the Meeting will be more interactive with multimedia, photos, videos about news and gossip.

Info: www.meetingrimini.org/eng