Festival MIMI 2013

You know me, normally, my pretentious little editorial is something like a Dada-esque dazibao pamphlet.
But this year, it’s no joke: Darth Vader is targeting Culture, and he’s looking really mean!…
One should benefit from the breath of air of “Marseille Capital of Culture” like the condemned man’s last cigarette, in order to camouflage – for a brief moment (until 31/12/13) – the return to Europe of hyper-populism that is anti-intellectual, anti-yuppie, anti-newspapers, anti-original-version, anti-ecologist: in short, anti-everything… Anti-Culture.
The poor stuff themselves with reality TV, the nouveaux riches sell it to them, the old rich pose as the fierce guardians of the Great Works of Humanity (of course, because it’s theirs), teenagers are fed things for teenagers and, pathetically, old people try to appear young, while, quietly, the leisure monopolies are eroding cultural rights, and Europe is split into two sides, North against South!
Darth Vader seizes the opportunity, and under the cover of so-called savings (who really believes that cancelling 0.X% of the Culture budget will pay back the State’s debt?), he attacks everyone’s dignity and free will…
Let us face facts: music enthusiasts, arts lovers, defenders of cultural rights, and peace campaigners – who are above all responsible, economical, far-sighted and realistic (no peace, no business) – have no choice: they must absolutely resist this troublemaker.
Well then, this year, let us see MIMI like a kind of training camp: no more light-hearted banter and stories of charm and seduction on the beach, no more sun cream, flip-flops and bikinis… You are the Culture Commandos! Now we scramble about, we creep under the barbed wire, and we prepare to enter a hostile environment…
Get smart and get tough, it’s a Holy War for cultural diversity… Things are going to get hot!

Ferdinand Richard
Director, A.M.I.