Festival 2021
The 10th International Book Arsenal Festival has been postponed due to the pandemic and will take place on Jine 23-27, 2021.
However, this year the curatorial team organized a number of innovative projects in new formats aimed to support the professional community and the establishing of new connections and initiatives.
Ukrainian Literature: Rights Now! professional programme aimed to introduce the Ukrainian literature, book market, writers, and grant opportunities to the international audience. The program facilitated 147 B2B meetings with 38 foreigners from 24 countries and Ukrainian publishers and literary agents. Other program components included: (1) an educational program for Ukrainian publishers and literary agents, (2) a series of videos in English — to introduce foreign publishers to Ukrainian books worth translating, as well as available grant programs; (3) a special project Ukrainian Literature: Rights Now!
The Ukrainian Best Book Design competition was organized in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut in Ukraine and with the support of the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Buchkunst Foundation. This year, the jury selected the best beautifully-designed books for the fifth time, and the award ceremony was held online in the simultaneous broadcast format for the first time.
The Antytvir 2020 [Anti-Essay] literary competition for teenagers received a record number of submissions this year. A total of 110 participants from all over Ukraine pondered the topic, “Everything will be fine. Or not?”. The winners were announced during the online ceremony. The essays of the five winners and two with special honours will be published in print.
On/Off: Creating The New Normal — an online BarCamp that focused on three challenges in creating the new normal: Fairs and Festivals / Book Promotion / Visual Storytelling. It was implemented in partnership with the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Goethe-Institut in Ukraine, supported by the German Federal Foreign. The event ended with an exclusive performance by Serhiy Zhadan (UA), Wladimir Kaminer (DE), and Yuriy Gurzhy (DE).
The Book Pitch project was launched in 2020 by the Odessa International Film Festival and the International Book Arsenal Festival. It aims to find modern Ukrainian books that have the potential for adaptation as feature films. Experts have selected eight finalists, who will pitch their books to the Ukrainian and international film investors during the Odesa International Film Festival in October 2020.
The International Book Arsenal Festival was founded by Mystetskyi Arsenal in 2011. It is an annual intellectual event in Ukraine, where the book, literary, visual, musical, and theatrical scenes develop and interact, where important issues of human existence, society, and culture are raised and comprehended, encouraging a proactive position of participants and visitors. Over the nine years of its existence, more than half a thousand writers, poets, philosophers, designers, illustrators, and publishing experts have visited Book Arsenal from more than half a hundred countries. In 2019, the Book Arsenal was recognized as the best literary festival of the year at the International Publishing Industry Excellence Awards organized by the London Book Fair.
The participation terms for the festival and fair will be announced in December 2020.
Contact information for inquiries:
- International Program and Festival content — [email protected]
- Exhibitors Fair — [email protected]
- Partnerships — [email protected]
- Media partnerships — [email protected]