Slovenia's Magdalena festival - focusing on the young and creative

The city of Maribor in Slovenia is again hosting a festival with a focus on young people. It's called "Magdalena" and it's for people under 30, mainly those working in creative areas such as advertising and public communication. The festival takes a critical stance towards unethical practices in the media and irresponsible advertising. Srdjan Trifunovic is the festival's coordinator and she told Heather Pirjevec from Radio Slovenia International why the festival is focussed on young people.

"Well the idea is, basically because there are only few festivals or events that are mainly for the young, we think there should be more of them, so Magdalena is one of them trying to give opportunity to the young artists, young creatives, designers, just give them the chance to show their work."

You've got special guests attending the festival?

"Every year we invite members of the jury that are mainly people that are recognized in the world as good professionals and also the important thing for us is that they are good people as well."

The festival Magdalena does give awards for people who take part in the festival?

"One of the important things of this festival is also competition, so we give the golden Bras awards for best works in the different categories and then the golden heel award for best work in competition groups. There is ths very sexy sculptore of Magdalena, which is the main award. Last year it became really popular also with the agencies as well, so the advertising agencies are pushing their young creatives to come to Magdalena and try to win this award."

Tell us a little bit about the programme?

One in particular I am a bit afraid of and on the other side I can hardly wait, is a virtual lecture from Dawid Marcinkowsk from Poland. He will be joining us on Saturday, we're doing this for the first time this experiment with virtual lecture. He is an internet artist and director of many music videos, so we can hardly wait for that."

You said this is mainly streamlined at the young people who are involved in public communication and public advertising but are other visitors welcome?

"Well, the competition is for the young people but normally the festival is aimed at everybody so we like to have professionals here, who work at agencies, marketing directors as well as designers, everybody."