Stranger Festival
Stranger
International festival for thousands of young people, video workshops, interactive website, DVD, travelling exhibition, Europe-wide debates, video competition... Stranger is video, is young people, is Europe today
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Online Video competition for the StrangerAward has started. Go to www.strangerfestival.com for more info; Read latest Newsletter. Press releases can be found in our press corner. Go
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.
Amsterdam will be alive with the sights and sounds of our huge 'Stranger' festival of young people's video art from July 3-5, 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' 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 website. Outcomes will include a European fund for audiovisual youth expression. 
Graphics by Jules David
The young have an unbelievable amount of potential for positive social change - their fresh and honest take on things could help us all in learning to live with diversity.
Stranger 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 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 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.