People & Projects

Stranger Festival

International video festival for thousands of young people, video workshops, interactive website, DVD, travelling exhibition, Europe-wide debates, video competition... Stranger Festival is video, is young people, is Europe today.

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Stranger Festival is one of the selected flagship projects for the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008 (EYID). For more info go to our press section or go to the official EYID website.

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View trailer in Dutch and English

Amsterdam will be alive with the sights and sounds of our huge Stranger Festival of young people's video art from 3-5 July 2008. International and intercultural, this 3-day festival will attract thousands of young people to the city. The festival is the centre-piece of the ECF's Stranger Festival project, and will include video screenings, debates, masterclasses and workshops. In the run-up to the festival there will be national video competitions, as well as a Stranger Festival website. Outcomes will include a European fund for audiovisual youth expression.

Stranger Festival is dedicated to the self-expression and self-empowerment of young people in today's Europe, helping them to show and share their world. By placing individual visions in a large trans-national context, Stranger Festival hopes to encourage a sense of European belonging among young people of very different cultural backgrounds.

The video work will be shown for its intrinsic merits and as a starting-point for debate. It is a debate that is badly needed in a MySpace-and-youtube world of ready communication but little analysis. Young people are everywhere demonstrating their mastery of new media: now is the time to talk about what is being expressed. At Stranger, the debate will be led by young people themselves.

For the individuals who take part, Stranger Festival will be a platform and a learning ground. Their creative skills and intercultural experience will be valued as part of a large and crucial European debate. For the organisations participating or looking on, Stranger will show new ways of working with young people, share skills and experience, and lead to new partnerships.

MORE INFO

Contact: Tommi Laitio or Raya Ribbius, coordinators for the Stranger Festival at the ECF

Press: contact Puck de Clerq

Check the official Stranger website www.strangerfestival.com

Download background paper, including concept, targeted ourtcomes etc.