MITTELFEST 2023: “Inevitable”

Udine, 16 November 2022

“Our time, when viewed backwards, stretches out linear and secure, like the thread woven by the Latin Parcae, or the Germanic Norns, the arcane spinners of intricate human events. Any event reveals itself as an inevitable moment in a single and long history.

So, does this mean that the choices we make are not such, because they are determined by a given destiny?”

Giacomo Pedini, Artistic Director

Mittelfest unveils the theme of the 2023 edition
The birth of Mittelbabel, an archive and historical memory of 30 years of Mittelfest
Towards GO!2025: Nova Gorica to host the first day of Mittelyoung

Inevitable: this is the theme of the 2023 edition of Mittelfest, chosen by Artistic Director Giacomo Pedini, a word that evokes the unquenchable opposition between destiny and choice, between immutability and free will.

Foto © Alex Brenne

Today Pedini presents the 2023 theme together with Mittelfest President, Roberto Corciulo, and the Regional Councillor for Culture, Tiziana Gibelli: with them, at the speakers’ table, the mayor of Cividale del Friuli, Daniela Bernardi, and contemporary theatre expert Roberto Canziani, who will illustrate the Mittelbabel project.

“The theme of Mittelfest must be something capable of opening up imaginations, of evoking countless possibilities of storytelling and representation”, Pedini explains. “After last year’s theme ‘The Unexpected’, the 2023 edition of the festival will ask the age-old question of what margin is given to the individual’s choice, the one capable of changing the course of a mechanism that seems immutable. An increasingly topical doubt in the times we live in, in which it is impossible to known whether, for better or for worse, the point of arrival that awaits us is or is not inevitable”.

The Mittelbabel project, presented today by its creator and curator, Roberto Canziani, is a journey into Mittelfest past.

Mittelbabel is the archive and historical memory of Mittelfest, a digital platform created by Zeranta studio that allows free online access to documents from 30 years of the festival. A name that recalls the Tower of Babel and the many languages that have animated Mittelfest over three decades of history. Texts, posters, programmes, photos and videos will be freely available to all: a project destined to expand and update over time, edition after edition, and made available to the community and the territory. During the press conference, a sample of Mittelbabel archive, which is already under construction, will be presented by Zeranta.

Foto © 2022 Luca A. d’Agostino / Phocus Agency

Indeed, the link with the territory remains one of the pillars of the festival that, after building new relationships with the main institutional, cultural and economic actors of the region, confirms also for the 2023 edition a close synergy with the city of Cividale del Friuli, starting with the Municipality and the municipal museum system, and then with the National Archaeological Museum, with the Parish of Santa Maria Assunta and the Christian Museum, with Convitto Nazionale Paolo Diacono, with SOMSI and with Curtil di Firmine.

“Our bond with the territory is increasingly strong and deep-rooted, but, at the same time, Mittelfest is capable of crossing regional borders, creating important international connections that strengthen the central position of Cividale and Friuli Venezia Giulia in culture and in live entertainment at world level – President Roberto Corciulo underlines. – Suffice it to say that Cividale, thanks to the support and front-line work of Mittelfest, is the first Italian city to have joined the Effe Seals of EFA (European Festivals Association), the network of European cities that closely integrate their development and image with festival culture.

In addition, the appointment with GO!2025 is approaching,and its joint planning is already a reality since Mittelfest 2022 programme: after bringing Mittelyoung to Gorizia last spring, this year we will be in Nova Gorica, to continue on the virtuous path of cross-border cooperation between border countries that Italy and Slovenia are tracing”.

The third edition of Mittelyoung, the pre-festival that from 18 to 21 May 2023 will bring on stage the best of the new European artistic youth under 30, will move for the first day of shows from Cividale to SNG Nova Gorica.

Foto Luca A. d’Agostino/Phocus Agency © 2022

MACROREGIONAL MITTELFEST PRESS OFFICE

REPORTAGE – Tregi srl

Francesca Gatti +39 3479854644 | f.gatti@reportagepr.com

Giulia Daluiso +39 348 8547230 | ufficiostampa@reportagepr.com