Politics Festival encourages young people to promote citizenship

The Braga Youth Center hosts, between the 2nd and 4th of May, the sixth edition of the Politics Festival. Having as its central theme ‘The Time to Intervene is Now or Now’, the festival aims to encourage young people to have more civic participation and promote citizenship. “We launched this appeal to activists, young people, artists and academics, who support us in programming, to think about how we can go beyond participation in public space, but institutions, and in the promotion of human rights and citizenship”, he said Rui Marques, artistic director of Festival Política, yesterday at the event’s presentation.
Ricardo Rio, president of Braga City Council, highlighted that the Politics Festival is “an unavoidable milestone on Braga’s agenda” and has received a lot of interest from Braga residents.
“It has been a great success, not only due to the quality of the programming that has always been available in all editions, but also due to the mobilization that has been very significant. Braga’s participation in the festival has been very important”, said Ricardo Rio, at the festival’s presentation.
The mayor of Braga also indicated that the festival encourages civic participation among young people.
“The festival is aligned with the municipality’s objectives of stimulating civic participation and the involvement of the younger population on citizenship issues in their most diverse dimensions. It is a festival that brings current issues to, through culture, bring them to the younger population”, highlighted the mayor of Braga.
The program consists of 24 activities over three days, all with free entry.
The big highlight is the partnership with ‘Resistance – Youth Festival of Modern European History’, which will present performances over the three days of the Politics Festival.
The Resistence festival emerged in 2022 with six European partners (one of them being the municipal company Theatro Circo), and was formed by young people for young people. It was based on Braga’s candidacy process for European Capital of Culture.
“The objective of the project (Resistance) is to commemorate historical moments that, in some way, represent turning points in the construction of a Democratic Europe. We talk about moments like the 25th of April, the Prague Spring in the Czech Republic, May 68 in France, Fascism and post-Fascism in Italy, post-colonialism in the Netherlands. The performance is built by young people”, pointed out Joana Meneses Fernandes. executive administrator of the Municipal Company Theatro Circo.
The Politics Festival program includes, on May 3rd, at 6 pm, the Lucas Pina concert on Rua do Castelo. At night, at the Youth Center, the show ‘Fado Bicha Mata o Fado Com Amor’ takes place.
On May 4th, at 6 pm, the documentary ‘Onde Está o Zeca?’, written by Tiago Pereira, will be shown. Next, at 9:30 pm, Hugo van der Ding’s show, ‘What Matters is Participating’.
When it comes to cinema, the film ‘The Teacher’s Room’, by Ilker Çatak (May 2nd at 7pm) and the documentary ‘Maghreb’s Hope’, by Bassem Ben Brahim (May 4th at 11.15pm) will be shown.
The program also includes the debut in Braga of the ‘Beer&Politics’ debate concept, which has as its theme ‘Do we need Greater Political and Civic Participation?’. Participating in the debate is António Fernando Tavares, director of the Department of Political Science at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Minho (May 2nd, at 6 pm).
Three exhibitions are also planned on ‘LGBT+ History in Portugal’, ‘After All, How Many People Abstain in Portugal?’ and Affective Polarization: Causes and Implications for the Democratic System’. The program can be consulted at festivalpolitics.pt.