Associazione Mittelfest is a recognised association that produces an international and multidisciplinary festival (theatre, music, dance and circus) and operates, on the one hand, as a showcase for live entertainment in Italy, on the other as a cultural organisation rooted in the territory of Cividale del Friuli, in Friuli Venezia Giulia region. The Association acts as a bridge between Italy and Central Europe.

Mittelfest was born in 1991, in a time of renewed dialogue between East and West in the framework of the Pentagonale initiative, which then included the governments of Italy, Austria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and over the years has extended to 19 Central and Eastern Europe countries, thus giving life to the Central European Initiative (CEI).

In the first edition of the Festival the artistic direction was shared by five different personalities from as many countries: Giorgio Pressburger (Hungary/Italy), Tomás Ascher (Hungary), Jovan Ćirilov (Yugoslavia), Jiři Menzel (Czechoslovakia) and George Tabori (Austria). For thirty years Mittelfest and its festival have offered a meeting place for different languages and cultures of Central Europe and the Balkans.

Today, with theatre, music and dance, Mittelfest promotes dialogue between 27 European countries: Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine and Hungary.