Kluže Ambient Festival

The Kluže Ambient Festival originated in 1998 with a series of international exhibitions called ARTileria Kluže, launched by Damijan Kracina and a group of local artists at the grim but picturesque war fortress Kluže near Bovec. In 2002 the B-51 Cultural Society took over the role of organiser of cultural events at the site and conceived the Ambient Festival as a launch pad for entertainment and the arts in the Upper Soča region. It has been organised annually and in collaboration with Bovec Tourism Organisation and supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Bovec. However, due to financial cuts at the national level, the 2013 festival edition was cancelled.

Programme and performances

The first production of Kluže 2002 was Letters from the Frontline directed by Marjan Bevk, a site-specific international co-production involving Hungary, Italy, and Croatia based on the theme of the First World War (a front line of which was located in this region).

The organisational concept underlying Kluže Festival is to present events in a series of "weekend packages", in order to enliven the various venues. The festival has cooperated with the Central-European Mittelfest, staged just over the border in Cividale del Friuli (Italy), which has also contributed some performances at Kluže, and other regional partners from the neighbouring Friuli (Italy) and Carinthia (Austria). At first the programme thematised the war tragedies and exile-related subjects, thus maintaining a creative historical connection with the Soča-Isonzo region.

The next editions presented theatre performances from Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Israel, usually in two parts, a week in July and another week in August. The opening event of the 2007 edition also involved the creators of the film Chronicles of Narnia, who shot one of the film's scenes in this part of Slovenia. The Slovene performances are selected from the past season and have involved many institutional (Slovene National Theatre Drama Ljubljana, Slovene National Theatre Nova Gorica, Mladinsko Theatre etc.) and independent theatre groups (Muzeum Institute, Senzorium, Imaginarni Institute, Bufeto Institute for Circus and Performing Arts, etc.).

All events in the festival were free of charge. The future plans involve the upgrading of the festival's concept with educational activities, art workshops, and the production of site-specific theatre performances at the fortress.

External links

Kluže Ambient Festival web pages
Kluže Fortress website (in Slovenian)

Kluže Ambient Festival

Programme and performances

See also

External links

Operated by

Financed by