The Italian Ambassador to Serbia, Luca Gori, spoke at “Play with Food,” the fifth and final event of the Festival of Italian Creativity in the World—“Play with IT”—held at the Ambassador’s Residence. The initiative concluded the festival with an evening dedicated to promoting Italian culinary culture and its cultural heritage, which was recently recognized globally as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
“Play with Food” featured the participation of numerous partners, including the Association of Neapolitan Pizza Makers, who presented in Belgrade a project to support women’s entrepreneurship in the restaurant industry titled “La pizza è femmina” (Pizza Is Female). During the event, over 50 children from the Belgrade Down Syndrome Association, the Belgrade Children’s Shelter, the Svratište Day Center, and the “Veljko Ramadanović” School for Children with Disabilities, accompanied by their respective educators and teachers, participated in workshops dedicated to discovering the art of Neapolitan pizza. Guests had the opportunity to taste traditional Italian specialties, accompanied by a musical program featuring Italian repertoire. The event concluded with an outdoor screening of the film *Follemente*, presented with Serbian subtitles.
The initiative marked the conclusion of the 2026 Italian Creativity Festival program— “Play with IT,” a series of events promoted by the Embassy in anticipation of Expo Belgrade 2027 and designed to showcase Italian excellence through a series of events dedicated to some of the sectors most representative of our country’s creativity. The Festival kicked off with “Play with Design,” an event dedicated to sustainable fashion and creative dialogue between young Italian and Serbian talents, organized through an exhibition and a workshop in collaboration with NABA, Belgrade Fashion Week, and the Drugačije Mode Festival. It then continued with “Play with Sound,” a celebration of Italian musical creativity featuring concerts and seminars on electronic music and music for children organized by the Turin Conservatory, the “Zecchino d’oro,” and the “Quanto Basta” association. “Play with Sport,” which culminated in the Ducati Days at the Navak Motor Center, promoted the values of sports, motorsports, and road safety. The Festival continued with “Play with Tech” through two hackathons and an Innovation Forum, which brought together Italian and Serbian researchers, entrepreneurs, startups, and technology centers to discuss artificial intelligence and new technologies serving agriculture and supporting the elderly. The entire event received an extraordinary response from the Serbian public and press, helping to further strengthen bilateral dialogue between Rome and Belgrade.
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Dining and Cooking