The fifth edition of the European Comics Festival, a project of the EUNIC Romania cluster, with the support of the Representation of the European Commission in Romania, will take place between 9 and 22 May.
The festival theme for this year is "Respect", and the event brings together a great international exhibition, debates, presentations and workshops.
The works of the artists included in the project, from 15 countries, to be exhibited for two weeks at Rezidenţa Scena9 (I.L. Caragiale Street 32), reflect the diversity of European comics and the new architecture of the European political and social tensions.
In the festival, you can see the comics “Categoria”, created by the British artist Warren Pleece, a story about the groups and divisions we find ourselves forced into at school and the struggle of an unlikely alliance of friends trying to break free from categorisation.
Warren Pleece has worked in comics for over 20 years, mostly for DC Comics’ Vertigo line, but started by self-publishing the dark, sarcastic magazine Velocity in the late 80s with his brother Gary. In the last few years he has worked on the well-received graphic novels Life Sucks for First Second Books and Incognegro for DC Vertigo.
Labelling and bullying in schools
On Thursday, 18 May, starting 18.30, at the Rezidenţa Scena9 the event "Labelling and bullying in schools" will take place. Over the course of two hours, the audience will be able to assist to a discussion that radiographs the bullying phenomenon, especially in the school environment. The guests will engage in a dialogue with the public in order to reflect together on solutions to diminish this phenomenon.
The discussion will be moderated by Alex Zamfir, author of the www.celmaibuntata.ro blog, and the speakers will be Lorraine Machaj (responsible for child protection at the British Council), Ana Maria Mitruş, author of the blog meseriadeparinte.ro, Oana Niculae (pediatric psychiatrist specialist at the Save the Children Romania organization) and Ciprian Fartuşnic, general manager of the Institute of Educational Sciences.
The access to the event is free and the discussion will take place in Romanian.
More details about the exhibition and the program of the events can be found here or here.