VIII International Festival KotorArt

VIII International Festival KotorArt marked the fifteenth anniversary of the original KotorArt as the festival of art and music and a decade since the death of Don Branko Sbutega and the restoration of Montenegrin independence. The 254 programs attracted over 45,000 visitors (main program 15000, supporting over 30,000) making it one of the most visited festivals in the region.

The festival was held from July 1st to August 17th and over a thousand artists, performers and lecturers from 23 countries at 30 locations in Kotor, Perast, Herceg Novi and Tivat performed. The most comprehensive arts festival in the country, which bears a sign of national importance, has an international reputation which attracts a wide audience and it’s quality and diversity is shown through six program segments (KotorArt Festival klapa Perast, KotorArt Kotor Festival of Children’s Theatre, KotorArt Premieres , KotorArt KotorAPSS, KotorArt Don Branko’s days of music and KotorArt Square of philosophers). The scope of the program, thanks to the sponsorship funds, has more than doubled compared to last year, which, among other things, resulted in a larger number of visitors following the Festival events.

In addition to the excellent program activities, KotorArt highlights other aspects such as an extremely efficient organizational model, in which over 80% of the annual budget, which this year amounted to 629,000 Euro, is spent on program content. Also, the festival provided a third of these funds independently, or 31% of the revenue, through commercial sponsorship, which makes it a positive exception in the diversification of financial resources among the art festivals in Montenegro.

The kotorart.me website was viewed over 100,000 times during the festival, while the Facebook page KotorArt has almost 6500 thousand followers, making it one of the most visited pages for cultural events in the country. During the Festival, their Facebook publications and posts were seen by over half a million people. The Festival was featured in over 1,000 posts within all the major media in the country, including newspapers, magazines, radio stations and internet portals.

A significant part of the total budget of the festival remains in Kotor and Montenegro because it is focused on the costs of food and representations, local transport, hiring services, local labor, taxes and surcharges. Our assessment is that the festival audience left in Kotor over half a million of expenses for accommodation, restaurants and other services. Participants in the festival program achieved over 2000 overnight stays in Kotor and its surroundings, while consumption with local caterers only for accommodation and food amounted to over 80,000 euros.

In addition to the immeasurable benefits that the festival created for the development of cultural tourism in Kotor, promotion of the city abroad and significant contribution to the international image of Kotor as a destination with a rich cultural offer, all the public expense allocated to KotorArt (€ 434,500) can be viewed as an investment into the development of the local community, local companies and caterers.

In addition, some of the KotorArt features are expanding the activities of the festival and other segments (winter concert season, education, tourism, environmental activities, publishing, etc.). Cooperation with public, private and non-governmental sectors at the local and national levels, and links with the local community – through the creation of a sense of community and belonging, and desire for the festival to be more than just an attraction – to become a destination in itself. In accordance with the guiding principle of this year’s festival, which consists of the affirmation of Kotor, a city that belongs to the world cultural heritage under UNESCO protection, as the cultural capital of Montenegro, this year’s KotorArt passed an impeccable atmosphere of cooperation not only with city services, but also with caterers .

The Festival will continue its efforts in the future, signing a five-year Financing Agreement with the Municipality of Kotor and the Ministry of Culture of Montenegro in order to enable the necessary long-term planning and thus the certain future and development of the festival. Also, the festival will strive to find financial support for the realization of a segment of theater for adults within KotorArt, or to restore KotorArt Theatre. The existence of KotorArt Theatre is vital not only for adequate programming of the festival, but also for the cultural and social life of Kotor in general, with an inevitable wider artistic and cultural achievement in the national, regional and European context. Re-inclusion of this segment in all its integrity in next year’s KotorArt program should retain all of its current advantages, but also find a way to overcome the disadvantages, which primarily relate to the need for thoughtful and sustainable organization and program foundation, unlike previous years.

The new concept of the KotorArt Theatre program will be steady, analytically set, good quality, interesting and financially rational, modest and sustainable. While maintaining the ambience, characterized by KotorArt in general, as a trademark of this segment, the Theatre will strive to address the real interests of it’s audience, which does not mean acceptance of commercialization, but the contrary – find a way to get these interests to be treated as a serious and aesthetically valuable art project. In addition to the specific and reasoned aesthetic intentions and objectives, which should stand behind each project and the choice of the director, entrusted with individual author projects, new-old theater as an important goal has to work on education and animation of the audience, which KotorArt is continuously trying to make into a two-way communication.

Source: Kotor Art Adminisatration