🗓️ Date: Friday, February 21, 2025 - Saturday, March 1, 2025
🎟️Free registration for online viewing: This film will be available for online viewing the week of Cleveland Kurentovanje. You must register (no cost). Thereafter, you will be emailed a link to the film with a password so that you can view the film.
Register Here:https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/cleveland-kurentovanje/carnival-king-of-europe
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Most attendees of Cleveland Kurentovanje are familiar with the Kurent – the central character to the festival who has sheepskin fur, horns, large bells and ferocious appearance that chases away winter. But did you know that there are many other traditional Carnival (Mardi Gras) characters throughout Europe that strike a similar appearance and are also part of ending winter and welcoming spring?
With footage collected across Europe, “Carnival King of Europe 2.0” features many of these different carnival characters and traditions across European countries, showcasing the similar themes of carnival characters and also the unique nuances of each local tradition.
Viewers will enjoy spectacular footage of several similar Carnival characters which appear across many different countries, such as the masked, fur-clad performer with cowbells, slender white dancers wearing tall conical caps, the representation of a mock wedding procession, the ritual ploughing of the village square, and finally, the trial and sentencing to death of a pivotal figure, often identified with “Carnival” itself (just like the Pokop Pusta at Cleveland Kurentovanje!).
How did these themes spread so widely? And what do they reveal about Europe’s shared cultural roots? Ethnologists and culture historians do not know exactly how or why there has been such a widespread diffusion of such similarly themed Carnival characters all over the continent, but in this film, we are confronted with the breathtaking evidence of a very fundamental European unity, one that still cuts across deeply entrenched national, linguistic and religious boundaries.
Whether you are a folklore enthusiast, interested in historical costuming or simply captivated by the spectacle of these beautiful and ancient costumes, this film will delight as it connects the magic, mischief and meaning of Europe’s most enduring Carnival traditions.
This event is made possible thanks to the filmmakers of the “The Carnival King of Europe 2.0,” the METS Museo entrografico trentino San Michele (also known as the Museo entrografico trentino San Michele), and the Slovene Ethnographic Museum.
Carnival King of Europe 2.0 - Concept and text by Giovanni Kezich, filmed and edited by Michele Trentini, produced by MUCGT, 2011, 32 min.
One Day in Lancova Vas - Filmed, directed and edited by Michele Trentini, produced by MUCGT, 2010, 10 min.
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About “Carnival King of Europe”:
The film Carnival King of Europe 2.0 has received a number of international awards at ethnographic film festivals around the world, and the “Carnival King of Europe” research project won the Europa Nostra Prize for Cultural Heritage Research in 2017.
The Carnival King of Europe project was led by Dr Giovanni Kezich, director of the Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina MUCGT, San Michele all'Adige in Italy and the primary filmmaker is Michele Trentini, an external collaborator of the MUCGT.
Five countries participated in the first project (2007-2009), and eight in the second one (2010-2012). The project enabled field research in numerous European countries and the exchange of archival documentation between participating museums. Knowledge on common elements of traditional European carnivals was generated and presented in films, publications, through a traveling exhibition and on webpage https://www.carnivalkingofeurope.it/ . In 2019, Dr Kezich published the monograph “Carnevale: La festa del mondo.”