Tales of a neighbourhood: reviving Limassol’s hidden stories
A brand new festival will take over an old neighbourhood in Limassol next weekend collecting oral stories, photographs and treasures of its people and history. It’s time to welcome The Neighborhood of Cine Volos Festival on October 25-27.
Presented by the MITOS Centre for Performing Arts, the festival will act as a platform that explores interdisciplinary practices of social gathering and engagement, strengthening ‘meeting places’ through art and culture.
The primary goal is to document and collect tales, images, and other information related to the neighbourhood, material that will contribute to the creation of the first Neighborhood Stories Archive. MITOS, in designing a sustainable strategy for the festival, has invited an interdisciplinary and multi-artistic network of collaborators to implement pre-festival activities, the three-day festival, and post-festival actions.
The upcoming festival is open to local residents and other visitors, offering free entertainment and participatory activities. It activates and connects existing infrastructure such as the Cine Volos Park, the Adults Employment Centre, the courtyard of the Limassol Municipality Food Bank, and the parking lot of the Sklavenitis supermarket.
The particular neighbourhood where the festival is taking place was named after the Cine Volos cinema, built by entrepreneur Antonis Volos (with architect Fotis Kolakides), and operated with both winter and summer halls from 1950 until 1985. The first residents came primarily from Paphos and the Limassol district, and their arrival is linked to the industrial development of the Tsiflikoudia area.
Later, the next waves of residents were of refugee and immigrant backgrounds, while today, the redevelopment of the city’s western areas and urban planning changes have brought new dynamics to the neighbourhood and even more stories to tell.
Throughout the three-day programme, visitors can take part in guided architectural walks, catch outdoor film screenings, enjoy discussions with professors over coffee, listen to open mic stories, play bingo games, watch performances, browse installations and even take part in a public community Sunday lunch. The full programme can be found online here.
The Neighborhood of Cine Volos Festival
3-day festival by MITOS Centre for Performing Arts. October 25-27. Cine Volos area, Limassol. Free. Facebook event: I Geitonia tou Sine Volos. Tel: 99-962686