Judges
COTM | BTG SHORTLIST 2025
$30,000 MAIN AWARD
Nicolò Filippo Rosso
Unraveling the Cycle of Violence in Sudan
Nicolò Filippo Rosso, born in Italy in 1985, is an independent photographer working across the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East.
Since 2018, he has documented the migration movements across the Americas. Other works include Forgotten in Dust, documenting desertification, coal exploitation, child mortality, and malnutrition among the indigenous Wayuu of La Guajira in Colombia.
In 2024, the UNHCR invited him to document their emergency response to Sudanese refugees in Eastern Chad. Along the border with Darfur, 700 thousand people took shelter from one of the world’s most brutal ongoing wars. Since that first assignment, new commissions have made it possible to return to the region several times. In 2021, he received the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund for Humanistic Photography. In 2024, he was the recipient of The Alexia. His work has also been recognized with two Getty Editorial Grants, seven Pictures of the Year International, including the World Understanding Award in 2024, four Best of Photojournalism (NPPA), a National Magazine Award (with Stranger’s Guide), an International Photography Award (Photographer of the Year, Deeper Perspective, 2020), two World Report Awards, Premio Ponchielli, Prix ANI-PixTrack, Luis Valtueña (finalist), the Romano Cagnoni Award, the BarTur Photo Award, the Leica Oscar Barnack Award (finalist), and a World Press Photo.
Unraveling the Cycle of Violence in Sudan
In Sudan, the consequences of conflict are not limited to battles fought or lives lost. They are embedded in the wounds that fester long after the fighting ends. True scars appear in the amputees and the survivors of sexual violence, whose trauma will last a lifetime. Twelve million people have been displaced, and cultural roots have been severed. Sudan’s history has been shaped by power and abuse long before the civil war’s resurgence in April 2023. It is a history marked by violence.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and their once-allied militia, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fight for territories, claiming authority over the country, which could suffer another partition after that with South Sudan in 2011. The media have committed too few resources to cover the conflict. Still, they call it the forgotten one. The casualties could be as high as 150 thousand. Against the indifference, this work is my attempt to contribute that the stories of those who survived won't be ignored.
