Preparations for this year’s festival are marred by the unsettling information published in the media by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Professor Piotr Gliński. He has repeatedly stated the Malta will not receive the funding, which the ministry is obliged to transfer under the agreement concluded last year. The reason for this decision is the person of the curator of the Malta Idiom – Oliver Frljic. We are still hoping that the minister will fulfil his obligations before the festival is open. This act of economic censorship which the authorities intend to commit met with opposition.
On 25 April 2017 Mariusz Wilczyński – an eminent Polish animator and drawer – wrote a letter in which he invites everyone with Malta close to their hearts to support the festival in this difficult moment by taking part in an auction. As the author of the idea puts it himself:
Therefore, I encourage my artist friends, everyone who considers himself or herself a friend of Malta Festival, despite all divisions, from the left and from the right, those who I know and those who I haven’t met yet, painters, sculptors, graphic artists, actors, directors, musicians, composers, dancers, all those who care about the freedom of artistic speech, to organize an auction of our works or personal items connected with our work with the purpose to support Malta Festival.
So far participation in the auction was confirmed by: Sven Åge Birkeland (BIT Teatergarasjen) Grace Ellen Barkey and Jan Lauwers (Needcompany), J. M. Coetzee, Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll), Krystyna Janda, Agnieszka Holland, Małgorzata Szumowska, Mateusz Kościukiewicz, Rabih Mroue, Lotte van den Berg, Krystyna Piotrowska, Luk Perceval.
You can register to take part in the auction until 15 May at: aukcja@malta-festival.pl