About The Festival
Since 2020, the Lausitz Festival – Wuměłstwowy festiwal Europy – has been inviting Lusatians and visitors from all over the world to a diverse programme featuring world-class artists from the end of August to mid-September in the diverse landscape of Lusatia, which stretches from Brandenburg to Saxony to the Polish border region.
With its extraordinary, international art events, the festival has developed great appeal in recent years, attracting national attention to Lusatia. At the same time, the festival is firmly anchored in the region: programme items are implemented jointly with cooperation partners such as museums, theatres, cultural foundations, universities and municipalities.
Music, theatre, dance, film and literature, talks and exhibitions of contemporary art come together in unique venues that reflect the eventful history of Lusatia – alongside architecturally impressive theatres, palaces and parks, film theatres, industrial monuments and churches become the stage for artistic experiences.
Central to the programme each year is an inspirational word that takes up cultural and socio-political themes and forms them into a concept that links the festival events as a common thread.
Development and Structure
How it all began
The Lusatia Festival was initiated by Daniel Kühnel and a joint initiative of the German Bundestag, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Minister Presidents of the Free State of Saxony and the State of Brandenburg.
In 2018, the basic decision was made when the federal budget was drawn up with the new title »Lausitz Festival« – introduced by a broad majority of the SPD and CDU and passed without dissenting votes. With the »Lausitz Festival«, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media is funding a cross-state and cross-disciplinary festival that has the task of accompanying the structural change in today's mining region with international art contributions. This was followed by the cabinet decision of the federal states on 11 June 2019. For the first time in the recent history of Saxony and Brandenburg, both state cabinets have decided to consider, discuss and, after an intensive preparatory phase, realise an artistic project that is forward-looking for both sides at the beginning of the impending structural change, some of which has already begun. Dr Dietmar Woidke and Michael Kretschmer, Minister Presidents of the State of Brandenburg and the Free State of Saxony, acted as patrons.
This was followed by coordination by the Görlitzer Kulturservicegesellschaft mbH between the two federal states and the federal government with the aim of creating a sustainable, transnational, resilient festival structure with the result of a framework agreement between the federal government and the two federal states on 17 November 2022 and finally the foundation of the Lausitz Festival gGmbH on 1 April 2023 as a municipal non-profit company of the cities of Cottbus/Chóśebuz and Görlitz, financed and supported by the federal government and both federal states.