On May 16, the Occitanie Region will launch the new edition of the Total Festum festival dedicated to Catalan and Occitan languages and cultures with, like every year, a rich program in perspective!
Since 2006, the Total Festum festival has aimed to promote Catalan and Occitan languages and cultures throughout Occitania. As part of the regional action plan Parlem una Cultura Viva, the festival is committed more than ever to strengthening the presence, practice and sharing of regional languages. The 19th edition will be officially launched on Thursday May 16!
More than 120 meetings scheduled!
“This year, Total Festum has 84 organizers spread across 12 departments, which represents, from May 9 to July 16, more than 120 meetings and some 220 artists and speakers mobilized,” explains Muriel Pons, project manager for the cultural networks in the Occitanie region. “The festival is of course mainly focused on promoting culture through the festival, but certain events will also be dedicated to the heritage, fauna and flora of a territory with the intervention of historians, speakers, topographers… We have a wide variety of speakers,” she insists enthusiastically.
With a budget of 320,000 euros, “the Total Festum festival generates three times more artistic activity. It is therefore an event of prime importance in the cultural and economic life of Occitania,” assures Muriel Pons with conviction. And the project manager added: “A fifth of this budget envelope is intended for the Gard department alone”.
The return of the Chickpea Festival!
Because in the Gard in fact, “the program is rich and varied with Onze Total Festum (understand by that, eleven organizers, Editor’s note). This year there are new features such as an event organized in the ethnobotanical gardens of Rousson, combining culture, promotion and transmission of agricultural know-how,” explains Muriel Pons. Among the major events, let us of course think of the Rencontres de Salinelles, on May 24, 25 and 26, without forgetting the unmissable Chickpea Festival, scheduled for the same weekend, in Montaren and Saint-Médiers.
A rich and varied program!
Burlesque, crazy, daring, offbeat… these are the adjectives regularly attached to the chickpea festival which, let’s say it, is today and for 15 years, an essential cultural event for lovers of music and live performance in general ! “This year, the theme of the party is “Ses Fier, lo Fuòc de la Convivença”! And indeed, we are proud. Proud of our Total Festum, proud of the values we transmit, proud of our totem and proud of our festival,” exclaims with pride Emma Ansaldi, coordinator of the Chickpea Festival. In total, she continues, around thirty artistic proposals are scheduled for the weekend.
From concerts and musical entertainment to screenings at nightfall without forgetting the traditional poichhade, or the grand Chickpea ball, the program is indeed both rich and varied. The release of the totem marking the official opening of the festival will take place on Friday at 7:30 p.m. The chickpea festival is free of charge. Several free shuttles are available from Uzès and Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie.
All the information, the complete program can be found on the Chickpea Festival website !
All the information and the complete program of the Total Festum festival can be found HERE.
