Subversive Festival

Subversive Festival

Subversive Festival logo
Location	Zagreb, Croatia
Founded	2008
Awards	The Wild Dreamer
Language	English, Croatian
Website	http://www.subversivefestival.com/

The Subversive Festival is an annual international fortnight of political, activist, cultural, educational, literary and artistic events that takes place in Zagreb, Croatia every May. Its activities are divided into the Subversive Film Festival (which was the official name of the festival until 2011), the Subversive Forum, the Balkan Forum and the Subversive Book Fair. The cross-cutting activity is the Subversive Festival’s Conference that includes major keynote lectures and round tables held in Cinema Europe.

The Festival was initially founded as the Subversive Film Festival in 2008 which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the protests of 1968. The initial edition of the festival included screening of the films by Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard as well as public lectures by Slavoj Žižek, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe and others. Each edition of the festival has an overarching theme that invites critical examination and public debates. In 2009 the Festival was dedicated to China, in the context of the 60th anniversary of the Communist Revolution, whereas in 2010 its theme was the history, present and future of the idea of socialism.

Following the "Arab Spring", the 2011 edition was dedicated to decolonisation as well as to new social movements. The situation in the European Union prompted the organisers in 2012 to tackle "The Future of Europe", whereas the major theme of 2013’s "The Utopia of Democracy" responded to the rise of global movements demanding real democracy, participation and social justice. Che Guevara’s daughter Aleida was one of the guests in 2013, as well as Alexis Tsipras, the head of Greece’s leftist SYRIZA parliamentary group, both taking part in debates at the festival.