News

The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and The Festival Academy join forces

4 June 2018

Press Release / Brussels, Belgium / Beirut, Lebanon / 4 June 2018

The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and The Festival Academy join forces

The Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC) and The Festival Academy (an initiative of the European Festivals Association) are delighted to launch a new partnership to give more festival managers from the MENA region the chance to participate in the Ateliers for Young Festival Managers. The Atelier is a 7-day training programme on the artistic aspects of festival management bringing together festival managers from all over the world.

To reinforce the festival scene and build skills of festival managers, AFAC will support two emerging festival directors working in the MENA region to take part in the Ateliers for Young Festival Managers organised by The Festival Academy. This action will be implemented as of the next Atelier in Gothenburg, Sweden, from 23-29 August 2018, organised in partnership with Kultur i Vast and Sweden Festivals and will be continued for the next Atelier in Valetta, Malta, from 23-29 March 2019 organised in partnership with Festivals Malta. A call for applications for the Valetta Atelier will be launched soon.

AFAC is a regional independent organization that supports artists and cultural institutions across all artistic disciplines and through a grant-making scheme. AFAC envisions a thriving Arab art and cultural scene, one that is confident in its expression, open to dialogue, accessible to all and sustained locally by committed patrons. Two fundamental principles guide AFAC's mode of work: transparency in the grant giving process and independence through a diversity of funding sources.

The Festival Academy offers various training formats on festival management to young, dynamic and passionate festival makers worldwide focussing on the essence of festivals, the arts and the artists, touching upon all artistic disciplines. The Festival Academy shares, exchanges and constructs know-how on festival management. Through empowering a new generation of emerging leaders and generating new professional opportunities for festival makers, it develops and sustains a network of festival leaders of the future wherein capacity building and internationalisation are key. The training programmes within The Festival Academy are one of EFA’s core activities.

Both AFAC and The Festival Academy are delighted to join forces and to reinforce each other’s mission with this collaboration. 

More information about this joint initiative and the launch of the Atelier Valletta call for festival managers working in MENA region can be found soon on the website of The Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC) and on the website of The Festival Academy.