Festivals

Festivals in Slovenia

The printed version of the calendar of Festivals in Slovenia in 2012 contains 141 festivals. Later on, in 2019, the festival number rose to 199. Check out the current annual festivalscape! Since 2012, the annual festivalscapes are provided as an infographic, conceived by the Culture.si team at the Ljudmila Art and Science Laboratory. The interactive calendars include the festivals from the Culture.si database arranged by weeks and by field. You can see specific types of festivals, e.g., music festivals only, by clicking on the corresponding artistic field. Take a look at the Festivals in Slovenia infographic.

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This Month's Festivals

Lighting Guerrilla Festival

First held in 2008, the Lighting Guerrilla (Svetlobna gverila) is a quite special festival that explores, elaborates, and sheds light on the myriad relations between light, the public space, and the "confines" of the gallery walls. Initiated a year earlier as a workshop at the festival Lighting Detectives (Detektivi svetlobe), it is founded and run by Strip Core, otherwise predominantly active as the comic art section of Forum Ljubljana.

The festival is well-known for its luminous, site-specific "exhibition objects" presented at several public locations, mainly in Ljubljana; its streets and gardens, the Ljubljanica bridges and quays, the French Revolution Square, the Tivoli Park, etc. By way of exhibitions, installations, workshops, and performances, each year's programme is dedicated to a certain topic - among them the concept of shimmering, the functioning of darkness, and the role of light in shaping the urban experience.

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The light-sound installation Portal by the authorial group Beam Team (Stella Ivšek, Anja Romih, Aleš Zupanc, Črt Trkman) at the 23rd Lighting Guerrilla Festival at Match Gallery, Ljubljana 2023. Author: DK

International Triennial Ecology and Art

The International Triennial Ecology and Art (ECO Triennial) was established in 1980 by Maribor Art Gallery. Addressing environmental issues first as a topic and later on contextualising them in terms of ecology and social change, this triennial has been organised regularly till 2006. The gallery reconceptualised the event and the next triennial took place in spring 2021 in the complex of the former MTT textile factory in Maribor. Under the title A Letter to the Future its main exhibition was curated by Alessandro Vincentelli (UK, Greece). EKO 8 was accompanied by a vast discursive programme, focused on the city and the urban community and realised in co-operation with the Centre for Creativity and Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory as partners, and building on the institutional network in the city itself.

The 9th International Triennial Ecology and Art Eyes in the Stone will take place between 17th May and 27th July 2024 in The Old Sanatorium in Maribor.

Opening of the exhibition A Letter to the Future at the former MTT textile factory in Maribor, 8th EKO 2021.

Closing days of the 8th International Triennial Ecology and Art EKO at the former MTT textile factory in Maribor, 2021.

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Closing days of the 8th International Triennial Ecology and Art EKO at the former MTT textile factory in Maribor, 2021.

Upcoming Festivals

Summer in Velenje Festival

The Summer in Velenje Festival was launched in 1984 under the name Summer Cultural Events in Velenje, marking one of the first multidisciplinary summer city festivals in Slovenia. Organized and coordinated by the Festival Velenje Public Institute, a public cultural organization since 2008, it offers a diverse program featuring music concerts, film screenings, theatre plays, children-oriented programs, and more. The festival spans throughout the summer months, from the end of June to August.

While a part of the program is organized by the institute itself, a significant portion is done in cooperation with other producers. Furthermore, a few other Velenje-based festivals, like the Kunigunda Festival of Young Cultures and a Zither festival called Prešmentane citre, are also incorporated into the wider context of the Summer Cultural Events.

Some of the festival venues include the Velenje Castle, the House of Culture Velenje and its yard, the banks of the Velenje and Škale lakes, the Old square of Velenje (Stari trg), and the many streets and parks of the city.

Klemen Slakonja & Small Band at a concert in the park of Vila Hernberstein, Festival Velenje 2023. Author: Ksenija Mikor

Popular Croatian film actor and singer Rade Šerbedžija performing at the Festival Velenje in 2023. Author: Ksenija Mikor

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Sailor's Day with children's workshops and events at Pippi's House by the Lake Velenje, Festival Velenje 2023. Author: Peter Žagar

Maribor Theatre Festival

Every autumn since 1966, various Slovene theatres have gathered in Maribor for the Maribor Theatre Festival (known in Slovene as Borštnikovo srečanje). This prestigious event, organized by and held at the Slovene National Theatre Maribor, is the largest annual review of Slovene theatre production. The festival awards the Borštnik Ring Award, the highest accolade for theatre actors in Slovenia. Additionally, Borštnik Awards are bestowed for outstanding achievements in directing, acting, and other categories.

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Prometheus: A Beautiful Apocalypse (Slovene National Theatre Maribor), selected for the competition program at the 59th Maribor Theatre Festival, 2024. Author: Peter Giodani

Kino Otok - Isola Cinema Festival

The Kino Otok – Isola Cinema International Film Festival has been exploring the art of film since 2004, discovering various film expressions in the company of filmmakers and an audience of all generations. It focuses on world, European, and Slovenian auteur cinema. Each edition features a carefully curated non-competitive program, including around eighty films of all lengths, most of which are shown in Slovenia for the first time. The festival’s Mediterranean character is manifested in the balance between ease and temperament, which functions as its magic formula – whoever visits it wants to return again and again.

The main part of the Kino Otok - Isola Cinema Festival takes place at the beginning of June in Izola, while some of the screenings and meetings with filmmakers also occur in May and June at the Slovenian Cinematheque and Kinodvor City Cinema in Ljubljana, as well as at the art cinemas in Cerknica, Idrija, Sežana, and Tolmin.

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