Exploring Belongings: EFFEA residencies
EFFEA Stories: a journey through the relationships we weave with people, places, and senses of belonging - exploring how we relate through disruption, displacement, reconnection, and reimagination.
Here, we highlight five Stories from the European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists (EFFEA) residency programme, each addressing this theme through their own personal and artistic process.
EFFEA is an initiative of the European Festivals Association that offers emerging artists a platform to develop their international careers through festivals in multiple countries. EFFEA extends an open invitation for festivals to work across borders and create a network of colleagues with shared goals. It recognises that the future lies in the synergy of diverse perspectives and collective efforts. Through their artistic languages, emerging artists across Europe are using their voices to inspire change, bridge divides and highlight the importance of unity in today’s world.
Below is a selection of the stories told by artists of EFFEA Generation #3.
EFFEA Story: Polina Piddubna
Hosted by Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin in partnership with Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival
Polina's residency explored themes of identity, intergenerational ties and geographic connections. The animated short film My Grandmother is a Skydiver reflects on Ukraine’s present through the lens of family history: a granddaughter living through the invasion of Ukraine contrasts her life with her young grandmother’s peaceful years in Soviet Central Asia, parachuting and studying midwifery.
Read the story and learn more about the residency
Watch the official trailer
EFFEA Story: Karla da Silva
Hosted by La Panza in partnership with Percusounds and Ten Samba Festival
This is a story of roots and decolonial perspectives, narrated through the notes and phases of samba. SotaK is Karla’s first major original music project, celebrating samba as a powerful language that unites, strengthens, and connects. From its origins as a product of Portuguese colonisation to black people's resistance movement, later emerged out of a postcolonial Afro-Brazilian culture. Now, on European soil, samba is an opportunity for reterritorialising a migrated community.
Read the story and learn more about the residency
EFFEA Story: Marija Dejanović
Hosted by Den Poezie in partnership with Thessalian Poetry Festival and Gŵyl Arall
Narrating Migration from the Periphery as Centre is a transnational poetry project by Bosnian-Croatian poet Marija Dejanović. Through poetry and cross-border artistic collaboration, she reflects on displacement, migration, and cultural and linguistic identity.
Read the story and learn more about the residency
EFFEA Story: Accompany ME
Hosted by Festival Spoffin in partnership with International Contemporary Circus Festival "Cirkuliacija"
This is a story of human relationships and the many forms of love. The show À mesure - Handle with care’, shows the relationship between two women, a story told by bodies, the fragility and nourishment derived from their connection, strength and speed and (un)balance elements given by the Cyr Wheel.
Read the story and learn more about the residency
EFFEA Story: Camille Goujon
Hosted by Rencontres Internationales Sciences & Cinémas (RISC) in partnership with Foça International Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Documentary Film Festival
Camille Goujon’s animated film tells the story of human and animal migrations through diverse voices: archaeologists, fishermen, ecologists, and a migrant association, as well as those of seals, mermaids, invasive species, jellyfish, petrochemistry, and microplastics.
Read the story and learn more about the residency
Related festivals
- Ukrainian film festival Berlin - 5th edition
- Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival
- La Panza Festival
- Percusounds - 2023
- Den poezie (Poetry Day)
- Thessalian Poetry Festival
- Gŵyl Arall 2024
- Festival Spoffin
- International contemporary circus festival "Cirkuliacija"
- Rencontres Internationales Sciences & Cinémas (RISC)
- Foça International Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Documentary Film Festival
