Editor

The WE Festival is to return from the 24^th April to the 1^st May for its 7^th annual edition. Calling all, music, food, and films lovers to experience a whole week of unique cultural activities, exhibitions, concerts, parties, city walks, and film viewings, around the beautiful city of Maastricht. The festival has about 60 contributors and sponsors enabling the non-profit organisation to bring the best entertainment, workshops and activities for everyone to enjoy, whilst maintaining being environmentally conscious and sustainable. The festival has for many years been in collaboration with multiple local organisations as well as international contributors who help to enhance the festival to be the cultural honeypot it is today. The festival for the first time ever, will start with a big opening day and night event, at the Stadspark one of the outdoor open spaces available in Maastricht. This event will showcase both local and international talent. The festival will also be running for longer from Sunday to Sunday, with Wednesday ‘off’ due to the King's day and night. Activities and workshops take place throughout the day with parties and events happening in the evening including the famous closing party at the Muziekgieterij on the Saturday. The German band Mogelbaum in particular has been a regular, performing at the past three festivals. Art exhibitions will also be taking place at several locations throughout the city (locations tbc). However, this year, the WE is bringing something new to its itinerary, The WE Film Festival.

FILM FESTIVAL

This will be running from the 28^th April to 30^th May, at various locations throughout the city including the Lumiere Theatre, The Brandweer and Pathe cinema. The film festival has received over 7000 submissions so far, on submission platforms such as FilmFreeway and Withoutabox with more coming in every day, from all around the world. The theme of this year’s film festival is ‘Different Perspectives’ giving filmmakers a lot of scope and allowing for a diverse range of film from documentaries, to shorts, to feature length live action, to animation. There will be several awards given at the film festival under the categories of Feature, Short and Documentary, with awards for best piece, best director, best performance, and an audience choice award. Discussions and analyses of the films will also take place with Professors from Maastricht University itself, creating an interactive dimension to the dialogue existing in film, which will intrigue the novice and the film buff alike.