A Festival in Samothrace is a four-day, multidisciplinary cultural festival that
takes place each year in Samothrace. It is the only spring festival in Northern
Greece, and it covers the entire spectrum of creative expression: theater,
music, dance, cinema, photography, circus, and educational workshops for adults
and children. Through its residency programs, the festival invites artists to
create works in-situ. In this way, the cultural memory and the identity of the
island are highlighted through art. The artists interact with the permanent
residents, engage in dialogue and become part of the everyday, local life. The
festival’s team aims to give space to emerging artists to express new ideas, and
to create bonds between this secluded area of Greece and the metropolis.
The creation of a cultural festival in Samothrace is the fruit of several years
of development and planning. Rooted in our personal bond with the island, we
wanted to develop an artistic event that would highlight the identity of this
remarkable place.
A Festival in Samothrace was created in March 2022. It was an innovative idea
for Samothrace, and was received with enthusiasm by the local community.
A Festival in Samothrace is
organized by the artistic company Art Field in collaboration with the Collective
Strates, along with a group of volunteers who live permanently on the island.
The choices made by the festival’s team align with the unique
audience, which consists of shepherds, beekeepers, farmers, art professionals,
students from the nearby city of Alexandroupolis, and cultural visitors from
mainland Greece.
Eleni Apostolopoulou
Venia Stamatiadi
Born in Athens, she is a graduate of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art
in France (Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique – class of 2015),
the Drama School of the Art Theatre - Karolos Koun (2010), and the Department of
Communication and Media Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens (2007).
She works as an actress in France, Greece, and Cyprus, having collaborated with,
among others, ERT (Greek Broadcasting Corporation), the Athens and Epidaurus
Festival, the National Theatre, the Greek Art Theatre, the Municipal Theatre of
Piraeus, the Municipal Theater of Kavala, THOC (National Theatre Organization of
Cyprus), the Onassis Cultural Center, the French Institute in Athens, Bookvoice,
the Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation, Théâtre 95 Cergy-Pontoise, Théâtre de la
Commune- Centre Dramatique National, and Espace des Arts-Scène Nationale de
Chalon-sur-Saône.
She is also engaged in theater writing, theatrical adaptation and translation of
classical and contemporary theatrical repertoire from French to Greek. In 2021,
she wrote and directed the multilingual immersive performance “Lunch Break” at
the Espace des Arts - Scène Nationale Chalon-sur-Saône.
She is a founding member of the Greek theater company ‘Pedio Technis,’ which
actively engages in historical and political theater for teenagers and adults.
From 2021 till 2023, the theater group ‘Pedio Technis’ is the Greek partner of
the Creative Europe project Jeune Théâtre Européen Jeune Public, an initiative
focusing on research in multilingual theater. As part of this, Venia Stamatiadi
has written and performed in the play ‘Borderline,’ directed by Eva
Oikonomou-Vamvaka, which was presented as a work in progress in June 2023 at the
Municipal Theatre of Piraeus.
Finally, together with Eleni Apostolopoulou, she is the artistic director of the
festival ‘A Festival in Samothrace,’ funded by the Ministry of Culture and
European Festival Funding for Emerging Artists (EFFEA). The festival will have
its third edition in June 2024.
