The World Press Photo 2023 exhibition will be held from 5 May to 4 June at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome . The exhibition presents a national preview of the 120 finalist photos of the prestigious international photojournalism competition which has awarded the best professional photographers every year since 1955. The exhibition is conceived by the World Press Photo Foundation of Amsterdam , promoted by the Department of Culture of Rome Capital and by the Palaexpo Special Company, organized by the Palaexpo Special Company in collaboration with 10b Photography.

The names of the four global winners of the 2023 edition, selected from 24 regional winners, were announced on April 20 through the foundation's online channels; For this 66th edition, global and regional juries made up of international experts reviewed 60,000 photos and projects submitted by 3,752 photographers from 127 countries.

Photo of the Year went to Ukrainian photographer Evgeniy Maloletka for his heartbreaking image taken on March 9, 2022 during the siege of Mariupol in Ukraine: the shot shows a pregnant woman being carried on a stretcher outside the maternity ward of a hospital damaged in the course of a Russian air attack. The seriously injured woman died half an hour after giving birth to her son's lifeless body.

The author managed to capture the human suffering caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in one picture. Global jury chairman, New York Times photo editor and co-founder of Diversify Photo, Brent Lewis said, “With the vote cast on the first anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine, the jury rewarded the power of this image and the story behind it, as well as the atrocities it shows. The death of the pregnant woman and her child sums up much of the war."

The World Press Photo Story of the Year was awarded to Mads Nissen, a Danish photographer, with his story The Price of Peace in Afghanistan, created for Politiken/Panos Pictures. The work, through nine disturbing but beautiful photos, wants to remember the daily difficulties of the Afghan people who now live under the Taliban regime in the absence of international aid.

Winning the World Press Photo Long-Term Project Award was Battered Waters by Armenian photographer Anush Babajanyan, for VII Photo/National Geographic Society. Four Central Asian countries Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are grappling with the climate crisis and the lack of coordination in the use of the water resources they share. The project highlights the impact of drought and water management after the fall of the Soviet Union and shows the powerful spirit of resilience of populations forced to adapt to the new reality.