Portami Via Festival
A travelling festival of readings, talks, screenings, theatre and music that threads through Canelli and neighbouring valley towns, built around Resistance memory and the Constitution.
Why it's special
It takes the partisan history of these hills — the Belbo and Bormida valleys were real Resistance country — and turns it into three days of conversation and music across several villages, most of it free. It's Canelli thinking out loud, not selling wine.
Programme · 2026
Distributed across five towns in the Belbo and Bormida valleys — Cassinasco, Santo Stefano Belbo, Vesime, Canelli and Bubbio — with debates, readings, screenings, theatre and music on antifascism, Resistance history and Constitutional values. 2026 theme: 'La Forza e l'Inerme', artistic direction by Massimo Zamboni. Organised by Associazione Memoria Viva Canelli ODV largely free admission.
- The festival is spread across Canelli and nearby towns (past editions have taken in Cassinasco, Santo Stefano Belbo, Vesime and Bubbio), so check where each event is before you set out.
- Most admission is free; the full programme lands at portamiviafestival.com.
These valleys were Resistance country — the Belbo and the Bormida hid partisans, and plenty of families here still remember exactly whose grandfather did what. Portami Via, run by the Memoria Viva association out of Canelli, takes that inheritance seriously and makes three days of it: readings, debates, screenings, theatre and music, each edition built around a theme and a director.
It doesn't sit still. Events scatter across Canelli and a handful of neighbouring towns down the two valleys, so an evening might mean driving to Bubbio or Vesime for a concert and a conversation under the church wall. Most of it costs nothing.
Check the programme and where each piece happens at portamiviafestival.com. Dates above.