Eurocomics – Network of European comic festivals founded
26.10.2014
On September 13, 2014 an international network of European comic festivals was founded during the BD-FIL – Festival de bande dessinée de. Founding members are five major European comic festivals: The Festival Internacional de Banda Desenhada Amadora (Portugal), the Stripgids Festival Turnhout (Belgium), the Erlangen International Comic Salon (Germany), Comicon – Salone Internazionale del Fumetto Napoli (Italy) and the International Festival of Comics and Games Łódź (Poland). The association was named “Eurocomics” – European Comic Festivals Association (ECFA) and includes also BD-FIL (Switzerland) as co-founding member.
The five founding festivals, each representing one of the most important events for graphic literature in their respective country, have been working together intensively on different projects for several years. They were brought together by a high programmatic aspiration that expresses itself, among other projects, through prestigious exhibitions, but simultaneously being aware of the responsibility for their respective national markets for graphic literature. The statutorily-regulated goals of “Eurocomics” are, to promote the impact and reputation of graphic literature as a form of artistic representation, to highlight the significance of comic festivals, to encourage international cooperation in order to enable an exchange of information and experience between the festivals and their respective national markets for comics, to further communication between artists, publishers, audience and other institutions across borders, both linguistic and territorial, and to develop and implement specific shared projects such as exhibitions, competitions, etc. As a first joint project, each festival’s current award winners for “best album” are presented in an exhibition during this year’s Festival Internacional de Banda Desenhada in Amadora from October 24 to November 11 2014. Afterwards the exhibition in progress will travel the members' festivals.
The statutes of “Eurocomics” were signed by the respective directors of the founding festivals: Nelson Dona (Amadora), Koen Van Rompaey (Turnhout), Bodo Birk (Erlangen), Claudio Curcio (Naples) and Adam Radon (Łódź), as of now, other festivals can join the network. Prerequisites for a membership are as follows: the emphasis of the festival has to be on graphic literature, the festival must have taken place several times, it has to be of national relevance and of international orientation and it should offer a substantial artistic and cultural programme and simultaneously be of importance for its respective market for comics.
The official press release and in addition excerpts of the Eurocomics statutes are provided as PDF.
Download: PREurocomicsStatutes_150914.pdf
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