Spectacular Entrants and Winners of The Festival of Ethical Photography 2022

The Festival of Ethical Photography, a celebration of ethically committed documentary practice, takes place annually in Lodi in northern Italy, this year from 24 September to 23 October. Work by more than 80 photographers is displayed.

Winner, master award

Edineilson Oliveira prays at the beach. Fittipaldi’sEustasy series documents the rising waters and the disastrous interventions that have made Atafona, north-east of Rio De Janeiro in Brazil, the most significant case of coastal erosion in the world. Photograph: Felipe Fittipaldi

More: The Festival of Ethical Photography h/t: guardian

Winner, single shot award

To the delight of their children, Nahndy Malbrough (centre, left) gives her partner, April Turner, a kiss after they were wed by justice of the peace judge Valencia Nash at the South Dallas government centre in 2022. Their children (from left), Kymmani Malbrough, SJ Tucker and Talia Phoenix, served as their bridal court. The docket in the courts building was full of couples wanting to be wed on the palindrome date of the 22nd day of the 2nd month of 2022. Photograph: Tom Fox

Special mention, single shot award

Saskia van Drimmelen holds bags of plastic waste she collected during her morning swim in the IJ River, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Each year, the city of Amsterdam removes more than 42,000 kg of plastic from its waterways. Much of what is not found ends up in the IJ River. Photograph: Julia Gunther

Winner, short story award

Michelle, a 15-year-old girl, is one of the youngest mayors in Italy and a recently elected regional councillor. This is because in 1997 a parliamentary law introduced the participation of young people in political bodies through the Municipal Councils of Children, which are organised in the same way as the councils for adults. Michelle was elected as deputy mayor at the age of 10 and as mayor in 2019 in the town of Castel San Pietro Terme. Photograph: Isabella Franceschini

Winner, student award

From Valentin Goppel’s series, Between the Years, the history of German youth during the period of the pandemic. Photograph: Valentin Goppel

Shortlist, short story award

The Three Portes cafe was located in the neighbourhood of Les Marolles on the Place du Jeu de Balle in Brussels. It was an everyday meeting place for local people that unfortunately no longer exists. There are a few typical cafes like this around the square where people gather to socialise, drink, dance and flirt. Photograph: Alain Schroeder

Shortlist, single shot award

Zeynep K, a construction industry worker. They often asked me: ‘Are you sure you could even handle the construction site language? As a woman, you are more sensitive and much weaker and won’t be able to assert yourself at all!’. Photograph: Janine Baumeister

Shortlist, student award

If you ask a scout what is special about being a scout, they say: ‘It’s hard to describe, a feeling that probably only we fully understand.’ The photographer was a scout in his youth and he wanted to photographically depict this ‘indescribable’ feeling. He returned to the scouts and immersed himself in this world. Photograph: Stephan Lucka

Shortlist, single shot award

People are rescued off the coast of Lampedusa in January 2022. Seven people died and some 280 were rescued by the Italian coast guard after they were discovered in a packed wooden boat off the coast of Lampedusa. Photograph: Pau de la Calle/AP

Shortlist, master award

Valerie Zeller and her husband, Henry, face the audience after taking their vows at Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles. The couple are two of the 65,000 people living homeless in Los Angeles. Photograph: Barbara Davidson

Shortlist, master award

A Cossack woman, Oblivskaya district, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, from the series, the Don Steppe. Photograph: Misha Maslennikov

Shortlist, spotlight award

From the series, In The World But Not Of It. Doria Waldner from Green Acres Colony rides the Ultimate Swings ride on the midway at the Manitoba Summer Fair in Brandon during an outing with friends. The Hutterites, pacifist Anabaptists whose roots trace back to the 16th-century reformation, live communally on colonies throughout western Canada and the north-western US. Photograph: Tim Smith

Shortlist, master award

The pages of a hunting diary kept by Carola, a hunter in the Aosta Valley, who consumes almost solely meat from animals she hunts: deers, chamois and roebucks. In this region, when referring to ‘hunt’, selective hunting is meant, monitored and run by the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Hunting Management Committee and the Forest Rangers, to protect biodiversity. The hunter, for Carola, is the natural role of the human being. Photograph: Erika Pezzoli

The Lives of Others category

In France, there are nearly 50,000 of Filipinos, an almost invisible workforce, often undocumented, 80% of whom are women. Photograph: Thomas-Morel-Fort/Thomas Morel-Fort

Shortlist, single shot award

The Dust of the Forest is an examination of the social and cultural situation of Benin and the popular Voodoo belief that twins, and their mother, are earthly deities. Photograph: Davide Bertuccio

Winner, spotlight award

From The Split – A Brexit Love Story, a project looking at the causes of Brexit. Photograph: Line Ørnes Søndergaard