Decidedly, we will remember this year-scoumoune. This week, all the actors and partners of the FIBD d’Angoulême met to assess the situation: organizers, publishers, author representatives, and national and regional authorities, notably housed in the ADBDA (Association for the Development of Comic strip in Angoulême).
The observation is clear: as long as we have not emerged from the pandemic crisis, we cannot guarantee the holding of an event that brings together tens of thousands of people.
However, if the public’s presence is not guaranteed, publishers have no reason to rent m² and bring in authors. However, without author or public, no recipe and no recipe, the festival is unable to finance itself. Mass is therefore said.
Afterwards, we cling to the branches as best we can: creation of a “media” event but only media at the end of January, just to mark its presence.
And then, a public event secondly. When? In the spring or later, we will see because a reboot is no small feat. Spread over several weeks? Paired with 48hBD? Spread over several cities? Everything is on the table.
Frank Bondoux de 9eArt + and its partners will have to demonstrate their interpersonal skills so that the legend of Angoulême continues to be written.
- Frank Bondoux, the general delegate of the FIBD will have to show imagination.
- Photos: D. Pasamonik (L’Agence BD)
THE FESTIVAL PRESS RELEASE
Angoulême International Comic Festival 2021: the creation of a diptych
The last edition of the Angoulême Festival was fortunate to be spared the consequences of the pandemic.
The organization of the demonstration has long hoped that the Covid 19 would see its course stopped. It is clear that this is not the case.
It is in fact likely that the health constraints in force until October 31 will extend several months beyond. From then on, it became imperative to take this reality into account, to adapt to it and to anticipate the future, finally quite close on the scale of the event organization, next January, during which the Festival must take place (from 28 to 31).
This is why the organizers, in conjunction with the FIBD Association and in consultation with the public partners and the professional participants of the Festival (on the basis of bilateral exchanges and within the framework of the ADBDA *), made the choice to focus their thinking and action on a project embodying the event in two complementary stages. It will be a diptych intended to promote the 9th art, unite its stakeholders and all comic book lovers:
• A first step on the dates initially planned for the event (January 28 to 31). By “event”, we mean both a demonstration in Angoulême and achievements “outside the walls” – responding to the contingencies in force imposed by the pandemic.
• A second phase which will see the Festival shift its face-to-face form (undoubtedly partly readapted) in the spring-summer period (dates still to be determined). Its vocation will be to bring together the largest possible audience – while expecting a relaxation of current health rules.
The Festival, thus redesigned in two stages, aims more than ever to involve all the usual stakeholders of the event: authors, publishers, public and private partners, media, and all players in the book chain. It will be built with them in the context of a solidarity commitment as required by the situation.
In the coming weeks, following in-depth consultations and discussions, the organization of the Festival will present the content of this project.
In almost half a century, the Angoulême Festival has become a benchmark for comic book lovers. In these times when culture is resisting from all sides to remain the major component that it is and must be in our lives, its vocation is to get involved, in its place and with its potential, in the goal to be again and always a mediator encouraging more than ever to meet the 9th art and the public.
* ADBDA: Association for the Development of Comics in Angoulême
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