The 27th Suq Festival - Theatre of Dialogue will take place from 12 to 22 June 2025 at the Old Port of Genoa and other venues around the city.
All events are free of charge except for theatre performances
The theme of this year’s festival is “Destinies in Motion” which inaugurates the three-year programme for 2025-27 presented to the Ministry of Culture, which has supported the Suq Festival since 2014. The 2025 edition will be sponsored by the Italian National Commission for UNESCO and the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security. The festival, which attracted 75,000 visitors last year, was one of the first festivals in Italy to become plasticfree and to highlight environmental issues with its ecoSuq initiatives. All events are free of charge except for theatre performances.
suq festival genova
Over 60 different events are planned
The festival opens on the 12 June with a theatre preview at the closed bazaar to raise funds in support of Gaza. Mi chiamo Omar (My name is Omar), a theatre-cooking performance, will be preceded by a message of dialogue and peace with Assopace Palestina and the Jewish Anti-Racist Laboratory of Milan. This will be followed by a programme with over 60 events, ranging from theatre performances to concerts, meetings, book presentations, workshops, show cooking, good practices and eco-suq initiatives. The main attraction will be the scenography that transforms Piazza delle Feste into a suq (market in Arabic) with artisans and restaurateurs, flavours, aromas, colours, objects, spices and cuisines from all over the world.
Genoa’s delle Feste square becomes a large bazaar
The Suq in Genoa is a unique artistic and social experiment. Suq is an Arabic word meaning market, a place of convergence and exchange; in order to meet and recognize others, it is essential to know their culture and traditions, taste different foods and share emotions around a table, together. This is the idea that inspired the founders Carla Peirolero and Valentina Arcuri in 1999. Luca Antonucci's set design recreates a large bazaar of peoples, with a stage for events in the centre and spaces all around for crafts and cuisines from all over the world.
