Photojournalism 1st place winner

FROM THE WRONG SIDE

February 24, 2022, marks the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Eight years after the Maidan Square clashes, both sides are regrouping to maintain control over territories and continue to advance in what has become a highly media-polarized conflict.

2014 - The Maidan Square clashes are a prelude to the events that will lead to the outbreak of what might appear to be a civil war, fought between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian armed forces.

2023 - To date, the conflict has entered a stalemate in which both sides are regrouping to maintain control over territories. Sanctions on the one hand and blackmail over gas and grain on the other have helped bring this war to affect the entire global economy.

For eight years now, this project has been trying to rebalance the debate, bringing attention to facts and content, exposed in a neutral manner. The author was in Donbass a week before the outbreak of the conflict and he is one of the few photoreporters to have followed the conflict from the 'Russian' side.

Gabriele Micalizzi is an Italian reporter specialized in war photojournalism, he has also been involved in long-term social, anthropological and ethnographic projects, without ever giving up his personal gaze.
He collaborates with national and international newspapers including: The New York Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, The Guardian, Vice UK, Le Monde, Rolling Stone Italia, Internazionale, Die Zeit, Corriere Della Sera, La Repubblica, La Stampa, Esquire and Ruptly.

He is one of the founders of the Cesura collective. In 2011 he began to report all the events related to the “Arab Spring”. In 2016 he won "Master of Photography" and began his collaboration with Leica. In the same year he presented his work on the Libyan situation: DOGMA.

In 2019, during the Kurdish offensive in the Baghuz area against the last bastion of Isis, he was wounded by an RPG rocket.

During the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, he documented the area with the highest number of cases, traveling between Bergamo and the rest of Lombardy.

In 2022 he documented the war in Ukraine for WSJ, Die Zeit and Le Monde. For these works, he was awarded the Premiolino journalism prize at the Milan Triennale in September.