(ANSA) - AJA, APRIL 15 - A nurse hugging an elderly woman protected by a transparent plastic sheet.
It is a symbolic photo of the year of the pandemic that wins the WorldPress Photo of the Year 2021, the most prestigious photojournalism award in the world.
The shot is by the Danish Mads Nissen who seized the moment that summarizes all the symbols of that 2020 that changed the life of the whole planet.
Rosa Luzia Lunardi is 85 years old and isolated for five months in the Viva Bem nursing home in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as a protection from Covid.
Then, on 5 August 2020, the first contact: the embrace of the nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza through the protective sheet.
And in the image there is everything: loneliness, fear, solidarity, hope.
"This iconic image of Covid-19 commemorates the most extraordinary moment of our lives, anywhere," commented KevinWY Lee, member of the jury.
"For me it is a story of hope and love in the most difficult times", underlined Mads Nissen, photographer of the Danish newspaper Politiken who had already won the World Press Photo in 2015 with a photo of a gay couple in Russia.
The winning series of Photo Report of the Year ("World Press Photo Story of the Year"), a major new award introduced in 2019, tells love stories influenced by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Italian photographer Antonio Faccilong for Getty Reportage.
According to the organizers of the competition, which is based in Amsterdam, more than 74,000 images have been submitted by around 4,300 photographers worldwide.
The awards ceremony was held online due to coronavirus restrictions.
(HANDLE).
