Ook dit jaar was er weer een Nederlandse winnaar van de EFFE Awards: ‘Welcome to the Village’ uit Leeuwarden. Als mede-drager van het EFFE-label konden wij festivalorganisator Sjoerd Bootsma direct ter plekke van harte feliciteren.

Het festival uit Leeuwarden was één van de vijf winnaars van de Europese festivalprijs, die elke twee jaar wordt uitgereikt door EFFE (Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe). EFFE is een initiatief van de European Festivals Association (EFA) en wordt ondersteund door de Europese Commissie en het Europees Parlement. Welcome to The Village was het enige Nederlandse festival dat genomineerd werd voor de prijs, uit meer dan 700 Europese festivals.

EFFE stelde onderstaand persbericht op:

5 remarkable festivals receive the EFFE Award 2019-2020

On 26 September, 24 EFFE Laureate festivals were celebrated at the EFFE Awards 2019-2020 Salon in BOZAR. 5 of them were honoured with the EFFE Award 2019-2020 and one wins EFFE’s Audience Choice. In addition, two personalities received the EFFE Lifetime Achievement Award: Frie Leysen (Founder Kunstenfestivaldesarts) and Dieter Kosslick (former Director Berlinale). The International Jury chaired by Sir Jonathan Mills, former director of the Edinburgh International Festival, selected 5 of the most trend-setting European festivals from a pool of 705 which were recognised with the EFFE Label 2019-2020. The audience cast the majority of its votes to EFFE Laureate Varna Summer International Music Festival, Bulgaria. The EFFE Award winners (in alphabetical order) are: Conrad Festival, Krakow – Poland Festival Deltebre Dansa, Deltebre – Spain Førde Traditional and World Music Festival, Førde – Norway GogolFEST – Multidisciplinary International Festival of Contemporary Art, various cities – Ukraine Welcome to The Village, Leeuwarden – The Netherlands 200 festival makers, artists, city representatives and European policy makers came together in BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts Brussels to honour arts and artists and the role that festivals play to give them a stage. European Commissioner for Culture Tibor Navracsics has been supportive of festivals throughout his term, ‘In supporting intercultural dialogue, the Commission relies on the ideas, networks and capacities of many partners. Bringing this diverse range of policies and projects to life would not be possible without the European Parliament, authorities and cultural institutes in the Member States as well as organisations like the European Festivals Association. We will need to continue to work together.’ Romeo Castellucci thanked Frie Leysen, ‘with the Kunstenfestivaldesarts – one of your remarkable inventions – you have given audiences the opportunity to think, to reflect about the act of seeing, to see the act of seeing itself, to become deeply aware of what it means to be a spectator of the complexity of the images of our time.’ Saodat Ismailova praises Dieter Kosslick for the innovation he brought to the Berlinale. He added new sections to the festival programme and found a successful balance between star attendance and the core artistic integrity of the festival. He has contributed to liberty and democracy in countries on all continents and been relentless in demanding liberation for imprisoned artists. Jan Briers, EFA President, concludes ‘2000 festivals are on our online search tool FestivalFinder.eu with 1500 festivals having the EFFE Label. We are looking forward to further develop this ever growing alliance in the future.’ The BOZAR with its CEO Paul Dujardin opened again the doors to the truly European House for Culture for the 180 guests attending the ceremony: cities, EU representatives, festivals, artists. Find here more info on the EFFE Laureates and Award winners.