Art and Culture Festival
Famagusta, North Cyprus
During the last week in June and the first week in July every year, Famagusta Municipality organises the International Art & Culture Festival. The Festival is intended to make Northern Cyprus the centre of culture and art in the Mediterranean region. A region which contains historical remains and cultural signs of various civilizations. In general, the festival gives place to new works and also tries to reflect the accumulation of world culture. Since the it started in 1987, the festival has grown. It now consists of a wide variety of activities including panel-conference-symposium that are particularly related to music, theatre-performance and the plastic arts. Besides this, Classical, Jazz, Ethno-jazz, Hip Hop, Groove, Reggae, World Music, Ethnic Music can be heard at the festival
Performers from different parts of the world have appeared on this festival so far. Performers such as Goran Bregovich, Boney M, Paco Pena, Cesera Evora, Sertab Erener, Los Paraguayos, Berlin Art Ensemble, David Russel, Kemal Belevi, Ferhan Sensoy, Monica Molina, Genco Erkal, Zalihe Berksoy, Aswad, Wax Poetic, Burhan Ocal, Asia Minor, Senol Filiz-Birol Yayla Duo, Belarussian Ballet Company, Aqua Levi&Roots Imension,Valentin Rozantsev, Yildiz Ibrahimova, Ersen Sururi, Bülent Ortaçgil, Can Tufan, Timur Selçuk, Nilüfer, Ali Akay, Emre Zeytinoglu, Andreas Haralambous, Muammer Ketencoglu, Nino Rota, Twinkle Brothers, Christian Willisohn Band, Ensemble Baroque, Amelita Baltar, Teoman, Artis Quartet Vienna, Kent Oyunculari-Yildiz Kenter, Sandimay Street Theatre Company, Aydin Esen-Randy Esen Duo, The Master Meeting which consists of Yildiz İbrahimova-İvo Papazow-Suat Berkay and Ahmet Özden, Telvin Trio which consists of Erkan Ogur-Turgut Alp Bekoglu and Ismail Soyberk, Joshua Redman Quartet and Tango Turco have participated individually or as groups in the festival.
Beside its international characteristic, the festival is accepted by the Media and Arts authorities as one of the best in the world because of the quality and also the quantity of the festival. For instance, the festival, has directly reached more than 30 thousand people through its activities. The festival's role in Famagusta's bid to become the "cultural capital" of the island is great. Research has shown that the festival is of interest to people from all regions of Northern Cyprus. As well as this, there is much interests from tourists on holiday in Cyprus during the festival period.