Festival Orlando, more than 3500 attendees at the 33 events offered

Bergamo. More than 3,500 attendees in ten days, counting 33 proposals aimed at different audiences including performances, concerts, screenings, meetings and workshops. A great success with the public, which characterized the eleventh edition of Festival Orlando, a performing arts and cinema festival promoted by the Cultural Association Imagine Orlando and Laboratorio 80, for the first time with the new artistic direction of the choreographer Elisabetta Consonni.

An edition, which ended on Sunday 12 May, with which Orlando reconfirms, in this important year of internal transition, its positioning in the social and cultural context of Bergamo, rediscovering its passionate audience, but also intercepting new curious and attentive glances. Piazza della Libertà was ideally an important and visible sounding board to give space – explain the organizers – “to profound reflections on the need for transformation, to give voice to those rights that have not yet been recognized and to observe the plurality that surrounds us ”.

An edition that took shape on the basis of important reflections also regarding strictly current events. “We built this Festival and opened it ten days ago – declares Elisabetta Consonni, artistic director of Festival ORLANDO – asking ourselves what sense it makes to have a performing arts and cinema festival in this precise geopolitical context. In these ten days we have witnessed artistic proposals that courageously, and in an extremely effective manner, have illuminated interstices of reality in which a solid awareness of more just ways of inhabiting the world is already blossoming. We learned from the suggestions offered by these artistic works.”

Eleventh edition which was the completion of a transformation journey. “For us, this Festival was the outcome of a delicate path of transformation that made all the staff even more determined in wanting to continue to exist to imagine what we have not yet imagined and to be an active and responsible part in the transformation of the world into a more just place.”

A path in which the public was also decisive: “we thank all the public for the overwhelming energy they brought, renewing the value of this Festival and all the partners who collaborated on the projects, supporting and believing with us in the transformation and plurality of visions, in addition to the staff who worked all year and the volunteers who made this edition possible.”

Festival which, as per tradition, does not end in May, but returns in June with an extra Festival event, in collaboration and in the program of Festival Danza Estate, with Trespass_Tales of the Unexpected by and with Marta Olivieri a dance show, in which some solutions designed for accessibility amplify public perception. The show will be on stage at the Renzo Vescovi Theater inside the Carmine Monastery on 12 June, tickets are available on the Festival Danza Estate website.

The activities of the Imagine Orlando Association also continue: in addition to the ORLANDO Festival, the association is committed throughout the year to creating cultural and educational proposals of social utility in the Bergamo area, with national and international interactions, and contributes to cultural policies with educational projects – for students, teachers and adults – aimed at educating about differences and preventing acts of bullying, homolesbobitransphobia, gender violence.

The 2024 edition of the ORLANDO Festival, promoted by the Associazione Culturale Imagine Orlando and Laboratorio 80, also received the support of the Municipality of Bergamo, the patronage of the Province of Bergamo, of the Permanent Table against Homolesbobitransphobia and the contribution of the Cariplo Foundation, the Fondazione ASM, Bergamo Community Foundation, AJ Zaninoni Foundation, ARCI Bergamo, CGIL Bergamo, COOP Lombardia and Confcooperative Bergamo. This eleventh edition saw precious collaborations with FDE Festival Danza Estate, IFF – Integrazione Film Festival, Donizetti Theater Foundation, Bergamo Botanical Garden “L. Rota”, Museum of Stories, Accademia Carrara, Brescia Museums Foundation, Cinema Nuovo Eden, Circolo del Cinema di Verona, Al.Di.Qua. Artists, ENS Bergamo, Bergamo Film Meeting, Qui e Ora theatrical residency, 23c/art, Dance Well, Bergamo per i Giovani, Consorzio Sol.Co. Città Aperta, HG80 Impresa Sociale, Lab 80 film, INK Club, T¥RSO, Amigdala, InVisible Cities, Laundry a Vapore, Zona K, Oltre i Limiti, Volti dei Diritti, Rete Lenford, Associazione Caracol, Refugees Welcome, Collettivo Poliamore Bergamo, Collettiva Riot, Luna Novelli, Sandra Cane and Chiara Rizzi.