Malta Festival Comes back in a Big Way. First Announced Star is Oscar Winner, Tim Robbins.
The 34th edition of the Malta Festival will take place from 7 to 15 September in Poznan. The organizers have unveiled the first program pages. There will be lots of stars, renowned international artists, performances, shows in the urban space, unconventional debates and unique meetings that will bring hope for a better world, giving nature and women their rightful place. The slogan of this year’s edition, the first one led by Dominika Kulczyk, is: For Love!
– I remember Malta very well from the time when I was a young girl. For us, Poznań residents, Malta has always been a city festival. It spilled out onto the streets, inviting residents to have fun and actively participate. Unfortunately, in recent years the festival has moved away from Poznań, and Poznań from the festival. This year’s edition will be a great comeback. Reunification. A new, old Malta awaits us – says Dominika Kulczyk, who saved Malta at the end of 2023 by paying off the festival’s debts and taking over the rights to its brand.
According to the announcement by Dominika Kulczyk, whose Kulczyk Foundation has been working for women, their rights and needs for years, Malta is to become the most recognizable festival of women’s culture in Europe. Announcing the decision to purchase the festival, she said: “If we believe that culture and art change reality – and changing the reality of women is my goal and the goal of the Kulczyk Foundation, which I manage – then involvement in the Malta Festival fits perfectly into our strategy of action. By organizing a festival that would strengthen women, point out their problems, promote balance in the approach to women and men and build harmony between these two worlds, we will be able to gradually improve the situation of women and change the approach of men.”
Women are the first thematic pillar of the festival. The second is nature and care for the planet, because next to women, this is another area of activity of Dominika Kulczyk, whose Polenergia has just started building wind farms in the Baltic Sea. The first chapter of the program of this year’s edition of Malta presented by the organizers fits perfectly into these assumptions.
Malta is a Great Opportunity to Meet the Stars We Love and Respect.
First of all Malta will become a haven for artists who, like the festival organizers, believe that art and culture change reality. Tim Robbins, an Oscar-winning actor known for his work in the film “The Shawshank Redemption”, will visit Poland for the first time. He will come to Poznan with the Greek vaudeville “Topsy Turvy,” which he directed. His group, the Actor’s Gang, has already won the recognition of the Los Angeles audience, but it is not satisfied with glitz and its activities also reach out to prisoners, whom the artists regularly visit in US prisons. The audience will be able to learn more about their social activism during dedicated meetings and after-talks with Tim Robbins, planned after the screenings.
Malta’s Strength has Always been Theatre and Opera, and This continues to be the Case.
The Malta 2024 program includes unique, world-renowned performances that, in addition to the beauty of artistic form, force us to reflect on nature. The first weekend of the festival will feature Anne Theresa de Keersmaeker and Raduana Mrizinga, who return to the Malta Festival with their latest premiere (Kunstenfestivaldesarts, May 2025) based on Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”. The creators were united by their fascination with nature, geometry, and concerns about the increasingly disturbing impact of humans on the environment. In their choreographic interpretation, admiration for the changeability of the seasons in nature, expressed through the contemplation of Vivaldi’s compositions, not only inspires us to draw from nature in art, but also forces us to reflect on the ongoing climate crisis. In “Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione”, which we will see on September 8 and 9 in Poznań, the artists ask: do we still have four seasons?
“Sun&Sea” – an atmospheric opera created by Lina Lapelyte, Vaiva Grainyte and Rugile Barzdziukaite, after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, toured the most important festivals in New York, Paris, Lisbon, London and Singapore, and as part of Malta it will finally unveil its beach in Poland.
“Sun&Sea” is a one-of-a-kind performance that the audience watches from a mezzanine, looking at an artificial beach made of several tons of sand. People sunbathing on the stage present a series of engaging stories, balancing between the mundane and the surreal. A penetrating image of the modern world and the complex relationships between humans and our planet emerges from the extensive narrative about their lives. The festival audience will be able to take part in this unique performance on September 14-15 at the Poznań International Fair.
Krzysztof Warlikowski and Nowy Teatr could not miss the Malta Festival , who will come to Poznan with their latest premiere, “Elizabeth Costello. Seven Lectures and Five Fairy Tales with a Moral”. The play is a tribute to the heroine created by the Nobel Prize winner John Maxwell Coetzee, who in his novels takes an important voice in philosophical, ecological, social and existential issues, speaks and appeals to consciences in the matter of the fate of animals, social inequalities and the exclusion of the elderly or disabled. The premiere, co-produced by the Malta Festival, will come to Poznań shortly after a tour in Athens, Barcelona and the Festival d’Avignon, where the play will be shown in the legendary courtyard of the Palace of the Popes.
Malta will Spill over into Poznań.
This year’s Malta Festival not only surprises with novelties, but also returns to the roots, creating a space of joy, joint discovery and experiencing shared memories. From the first day of the festival, the streets, squares and plazas of Poznan will be filled with artists and art at its best. By the way, “Domino” will appear, a several-kilometer-long moving installation made up of thousands of huge domino cubes that will cross streets, parks, schools, shopping centers, courtyards, and a local kebab, building a community of curiosity and responsibility for an ephemeral work. The spectacle will enchant the center of Poznań on September 7.
Plac Wolności also will be transformed into a large painting studio, where Compagnie Lucamuros will set up a giant easel: the stage for the outdoor, artistic and musical performance “Gaugin’s Turtle”, which is best seen with the whole family. Naturally, the heart of the festival will beat over Malta, where in the open air L.U.C. & Rebel Babel Film Orchestra together with invited artists will present music from the film “Chłopi” and raise a toast “For love”. That same evening, the Australian duo Hollow Coves will perform on the same stage. There will be more outdoor concerts, and the music will once again draw the Poznań residents into the rhythm of the festival.
Women’s Voices that Change the World.
This year’s Malta Festival will not only be a celebration of art, but also an open platform for the exchange of experiences and ideas. Therefore, as part of the mission to support freedom and raise awareness of women, carried out by the Kulczyk Foundation, the family organization run by Dominika Kulczyk will organize a series of events and workshops dedicated to women and all those looking for inspiration, empowerment and balance. In the festival program, the foundation, celebrating eleven years of charity work, will also present its daily activities related to menstrual health and sisterhood for Ukraine, implemented, among others, by the Sestry project.
– Anyone who has ever visited the Malta Festival knows how incredible the event is, and not only on a national scale. That is why I am happy and proud that I can continue such an extraordinary undertaking, which has been the pride of my hometown for over 30 years. Let’s meet in Malta! – encourages Dominika Kulczyk, whose production company Dflights and Kulczyk Foundation are the main organizers of the festival.
This is just the beginning. We have just learned the first points of the program, but the festival will last 9 days and there are many more events waiting for the audience, about which the organizers will inform successively. The richness of the program proposals is consistent with the symbolism of September as the month of crops, harvests and abundance, which is why the 34th edition of the Festival, the fruit of preparations by the new Festival team, will take place at the end of summer. The festival will start on September 7. The festival will be visible in the city spaces, occupying, among others, Plac Wolności, Chwaliszewo, Poznań theaters and favorite outdoor locations, such as Lake Malta.
Source: organizer’s materials.
Translated Kateryna Shmorgun
