The Interview with the Student Coordinator Lucie Ošmerová
Lucie is the coordinator of this year’s festival SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER. What are her feelings towards the festival? And how does she perceive its present form when compared to the previous years?
- What does festival SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER personally mean to you?
The festival has several layers. On an academic level, it is an important project that brings us immeasurable experience in the field of organizing a festival. On a social level, it is an amazing opportunity to acquaint yourself with different cultures, be it the foreign or your own. And on a personal level, it is a fulfilling feeling that we students can create something on such a large scale and most of all something tangible.
- What are the things that were going through your head when you accepted the position of coordinator? Were you happy? Or maybe a little nervous and worried about what awaits you and what challenges will these uneasy times present us with?
Back when I applied for this position, it was at a time when no one could really imagine what will happen in the coming months. Even though the position of a coordinator isn’t by any means exactly specified, I was looking forward to doing something that I wanted to do, something I was good at, something I was encouraged to do by others, and something I could learn a lot from. Of course, as the situation began to develop, everyone started being nervous, but not for a second was I discouraged or regretted going for it in the first place.
- You have been part of the festival’s creative team in the previous years. How different is working on an online alternative, rather than on the standardized version of the festival?
The whole preparation process is much more demanding. We have nothing to go off of, we’re doing something no one has ever done before. We can only rely on ourselves to think it through, plan it out, and above all, make it happen. When it came to individual parts of the festival, a question had to be asked: Can it be transferred to the online environment? And if it can’t, what can we use to substitute it? This is how the festival game ENC:PLAY! Was invented, which acts as a replacement for the Chill-out room or ENC:STAGE!, which replaces the Open Air Stage.
- You supervise all the festival sections as the coordinator. How did the creative process itself, when you couldn’t all meet in person? Was it difficult?
Yes, unbelievably. We have to Video-chat, make phone calls, or write emails for every single little thing. Communication is much more difficult and, paradoxically, a lot of important information gets lost online. What could be solved by a quick chat in a hallway or during a cigarette-break, takes up more than an hour of our time thanks to dysfunctional virtual communication. Despite that, I must say that we always got the results we wanted, only the journey took a bit longer. It’s one thing to organize an online festival, but it’s something completely different to organize an online festival online.
- Do you think that even this difficult time has some positive effect on theater?
I believe that people will start to appreciate culture and theater more. That it shouldn’t be taken for granted and that it truly is an important part of society.
- What is your most intense memory out of all the festival years?
I believe that the most intense memory is yet to come and that it will be on Saturday night, March 27. After that point, we will be able to say that the 31st year of the festival is finally over and that we have done everything we could for our festival.
Thank you for the interview
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