The unexpected is part of people's lives – and, apparently, of the lives of the festivals. When, precisely one year ago, we closed the edition of FICSE 2023 and said goodbye (to the public, competitors, other participants and collaborators) until FICSE 2024, we could not have guessed that a year later, instead of treading that one which was, since 2015, our stage, we would be, after all, producing an online edition.
Online edition, for us, is synonymous (or resulting) with “unexpected situation”. That happened in 2021, when the pandemic Covid interrupted and conditioned the life of an entire planet. At that time, we were, in a way, forced to follow the universal tendency of festivals like ours – and look for the online alternative, where the video with the song inside took the place of the song on stage.
In 2024, for logistical reasons impossible to solve in a timely manner, the FICSE was unable to hold the usual in-person edition to which we all waved in the farewell party of the previous year.
Faced with this circumstance, and in the contingency of spending a year doing nothing, we decided to return to the mentioned online alternative. The proof of life of the festivals is fulfilled with its realization. The natural terrain of festivals is on the stage, but if this year we were unable to bring to Portugal the approximately 200 participants that we bring annually, we went to meet them in this version with videos, which, we have to admit, is also to the liking of many competitors.
And let's let the numbers speak: if, in 2021, our special online edition had already reached interesting marks, namely: 71 competitors / 93 videos / 16 countries represented, this time, the previous marks were increased: 89 competitors / 147 videos / 20 countries represented. These are numbers that surpass similar competitions promoted by other international festivals.
One conclusion that can be taken – even if it seems immodest – is that our Festival is strongly implanted in the European fabric where festivals like ours take place. The interactivity and partnerships constantly requested from FICSE, by foreign festivals, reveal the prestige, unanimously considered, that we have achieved.
A final note: when we visit other festivals in their lands, normally as jury members, we can observe (admired or maybe not…) the support and vast teams that help organize the editions of these brother-festivals. And we cannot help but compare it with the reality of FICSE, where it is a mini-team that sets up a machine with an increasingly greater number of components – and also increasingly lubricated. With the particularity that this mini-team has been the same since the beginning, in 2015.
Please, forgive us this pride!
Nuno Figueira
Director of the Festival
