Travel 1st place winner

It is a photo voyage through the long strip of stone, rocks and sand, suspended at 5,000 high, between Tajikistan, Pakistan and China. The Whakan Corridor, unknown to the rest of the world for years, inhabited by a few thousand shepherds and nomads, is now on the gaming table of interests between the Taliban and China. The corrodoio consists of two long valleys carved by glaciers, hidden in the deepest recesses of the great mountains of Central Asia, crossed by two large rivers dominating the whole area: the Pianji and the Pamir. The M41, a military road commissioned by the Tsars and extended by the USSR during the occupation of Afghanistan, is one of the very few access routes to this remote and wild corner in the heart of Asia. Here different cultures, rites and languages - belonging to clans and tribes of Whaki shepherds, Kuch nomads, Tajik, Kyrgyz and Pamira tribes, mostly of Aryan stock, Nazarites of Muslim-Shiite Ismaili religion, have coexisted peacefully for thousands of years . The daily tranquility of shepherds, nomads, grazing herds and small villages was shattered in August 2021 by the uncompromising wave of the Taliban Sahara and massive Chinese investments

Gilberto Maltinti, photographer, videomaker, teacher and tutor of photography and visual art. Photojournalist and musician, he is 54 years old from Rome. Graduated from the Conservatory in double bass, graduated in Ethnomusicology, he is a photographer and editor for travel, costume, current affairs and gastronomy journals. His clicks offer a personal reinterpretation of places, stories, objects, people. From northern European architecture to the infinite faces of a city, his photos speak of contemporary atmospheres. For 12 years he has been the owner of the PARIOLI FOTOGRAFIA studio, studio and school of photography in Rome.
He collaborates and has collaborated with the publishing groups Rizzoli Publishing, Espresso: Dove, Dove Case, Style, I Viaggi and Il Vaticano di Repubblica, Velvet, and with the German publishing group Spotlight Verlag / Oggi. He has participated in the latest editions of FOTOGRAFIA International Festival of Rome. In 2016 he won the first prize of the second edition of the photo contest "My City of Solidarity", organized by Roma Capitale, Fondazione Roma Solidale. In 2019 he was among the organizers of the Month of Photography in Rome. He is president of the Casa della Fotografia di Roma Association with which he conceived and organized WEFO2020.