Dracula - Myth and reality » Festivals

Dracula Festival @ The Rosenbach Museum and Library

Tue, 19 May 2009 18:00:18 +0000

As fall settles in, our thoughts switch from summer BBQs to Halloween costumes and fun-sized candy. So while you’re planning your events for the ghoulish month of October, try to schedule some time to celebrate Dracula at The Rosenbach Museum and Library.
The week-long Dracula Festival is filled with entertaining events with informative facts that you can really sink your teeth into (come on, the pun had to be used at some point). The Rosenbach has authority on the fanged man, as it is the “home of Bram Stoker’s research notes and outlines for Dracula.”
The 2008 Dracula Festival:
Book Signing The New Annotated Dracula, Reading and Book Signing with author Leslie Klinger
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 from ?6:00pm – 7:30pm
Dracula Festival Hands-On Tours: The Growth of Stoker’s Dracula
Wednesday, October 22, Saturday, October 25, and Wednesday, October 29? at 3:00pm
Signature Program: Dracula Parade Featuring Spiral Q Puppet Theater at the Rosenbach
Saturday, October 25, 2008 ?at 5:30pm
Monster’s Ink: The Bogeymen in Sendak’s Closet
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 ?at 6:00pm
For more details about the festival, visit Release The Bats on the Rosenbach’s website.
Rosenbach Museum and Library
2010 Delancey Pl, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 732-1600
www.rosenbach.org

Halloween – as a farytale

Tue, 19 May 2009 17:57:08 +0000

Halloween – as a farytale
At first side, it seems there is no pleasure to be around witches, demons or vampires, but Halloween is a holyday that celebrates the fact that the science fiction world comes into the real world.
On Halloween you can dance with vampires, demons, fairies, angels, cowboys, ghosts, snowball men. You can eat the traditional dinner of sweets, at the light of the candles made from pumpkins.

Halloween – a little bit of history and meanings
Even if Halloween is a pagan celebration, it has been accepted by the church, because the people continued practicing it during time.

The celts, that lived 2000 years ago, in the area that is now called Ireland, United Kingdom, and north of France, were celebrating the new year on the 1st November .That day was the end of the summer and c the rops and the beginning of winter, asssociated with death many times. The celts believed that in the night before the new year the fine line between the dead people’s world and the living world is broken and that the ghosts of the deceased come back to hunt the earth, making problems and the crops. Because of that in the night of 31 of October they celebrated Samhain, a festival where they built shrines, where they brought animals to sacrifiy and crops to put.

During the celebration day they worn leather costumes or clothes made out of animal heads.When the celebration day was over, they used fire tfrom the altar shrines, in order to fire up the early fires that were put off just a few hours early. Their purpose was to protect them for the winter. Probably from here came later the ideea of the pumpkins turned into candles.

After the roman conquest, the celtic SAMHAIN was combined with two roman celebrations: Feralia, a day at the end of october, in which the romans commemmorated their deads and the festival that honoured Pomona, the goddess of fruits and trees.

In the VIIth century, the Christian influence reached celtic lands. Pope Banifaciu the IV th established the day of 1st november to be dedicated to commemmorate the saints and martirs: „The saints day”. It is a celebration that is similar to the celtic one, but established by the church.

Untill the thirties, in USA, the Haloween brought by the enghlish colonists was an old celebrations, focused on the community, with parades and parties all over the cities. During these times appeared the tradition „trick or treat”, that dated probably from the the celebrations of the Saints Day in England. During festivities, the poor people asked for food and the other people offered them pies called „soulpies” in exchange for their promise to pray for the souls of the deads in their families.

Halloween costumed parties – Some ideas for Halloween costumes

Tue, 19 May 2009 17:54:22 +0000

Haloween costumes
Phantom: You need only a white sheet. It doesn’t matter if it’s old. The older, the better. You have to make 2 wholes for the eye and draw a nose and a mouth. Watch out for the size, if it’s too long you’ll step on it and fall.
Clown: Look for all the old clothes you have, all colours. The colourfull, the better (You did well not to throw them away, even if you don’t wear them ?).You need a marker and some paints. You should really have a hat, a tie or a bowtie, and straps.
Scarecrow: You need very large and old clothes, even tattered and patched. Any scarecrow has it’s legs and hands tied with a rope, so you need to do it. The interesting part that involves the straws is that if you manage to get them you’ll be senzational. You can put some in your pants, and a lot of white powder, in order to make you pale.
Pirat: Nothing easier: a pair of dirty old jeans, a black shirt and a wide belt. You have to cover an eye with a dark scarf. Don’t forget the sword or at least a bottle of rom.
Zoro: To be Zorro you need black trousers, highsteel boots, a black scarf with 2 wholes for the eyes and a black hat.If you can borrow Antonio Banderas’s accent you really impress.
Witch: You really have to buy a witch hat, maybe a wig. You also need a green or blue long dress and a magic stick. If you want to fly you cand have a broom.

The horror and fantasy film festival DraCOOLa

Tue, 19 May 2009 17:51:12 +0000

The horror and fantasy film festival DraCOOLa that was programmed in august 2008, won’t be held this year anymore. It was postponed for 2009, because of some organizing problems, declared the representative of the Association for Promoting the Romanian Film (APFR), the film director Tudor Giurgiu.

He said that the reasons to postpone the festival concern organizational issues and financial problems. George Scripcaru, the mayor of Brasov, announced in April 2008, that it was decided in a meeting of the Local Council, that the project for the International Film Festival DraCOOLa was approved and will be financed with 350-400.000 euros.This sum will be sustained by the local council and other sources like sponsors.
It seems that the project didn’t go as planned.

THE HISTORY of COUNT DRACULA
The festival was to be dedicated to the history of count Dracula and wanted to attract passionate tourists of the story of Dracula.

Although, in Romania, it is well-known even in preschool, that Vlad Tepes had nothing to do with the Bran Castle, that he spend very little time in the monument visited by thousands of tourists annually, the count is still haunting the surroundings of Brasov, because of the British writer Bram Stoker. Bram Stoker, based on some folkloric sources and historical dates, but also inspired by great Transylvanian stories, created a romantic and literary character, a vampire called Dracula, that is well-known around the earth, in hundreds of film and books.

Although, most of the tourists found out already that Dracula isn’t connected with the Castle Bran, and it has rustic furniture, ceramics, arms and armors, it still attracts thousands of visitors. The film festival from Brasov wanted to make known all around the world this confusion between Dracula and Castle Bran, and wanted to benefit now that it is known as a national brand.

Source: BrasovulTau.ro, translation dracula-souvenirs.com team

The “Dracula Dreaming” festival will be held at Brasov in 2008

Tue, 19 May 2009 17:47:36 +0000

The fantasy and horror film festival called “Dracula Dreaming” will be organized in Brasov, at the end of August, by the director Tudor Giurgiu.

Tudor Giurgiu declared for Mediafax that the new festival will be organized together with Amprenta Advertising from Cluj, an agency that he has collaborated with, in order to organize the Transylvania International Film Festival (TIFF). The director said that more details about this festival will be revealed at the end of January 2008.
With a budget of 500.000 euros, Mr. Cristian Grindea from Amprenta Advertising will be in charge of organizing the event. The promoting campaign of the festival will include: the TV, the press, the radio, indoor, outdoor and also will be online said for Mediafax Cristian Grindea.

The organizers intend to include”Dracula Dreaming” festival in the tour with the same genre festivals like “Horror fest” and “Dead by Dawn” from Great Britain, “The Fantastic Film Festival” from Bruxelles and “Fantasy Film Festival” from Germany.

Tudor Giurgiu set the base ground for the Transylvania International Film Festival (TIFF), which was held for the first time at Cluj. It was the most important film festival from Romania and it gained so much popularity that in the last edition 160 films from 39 countries have participated.
Author: Ruxandra Belgun, Source: BrasovulTau.ro, translation dracula-souvenirs.com team, 20-12-2007

UPDATE, 15.04.2008

The film festival Dracula Dreamin or Dracoola International Film Festival?
A few weeks ago, we have announced that in Brasov would be held at the end of august the film festival Dracula Dreamin. These days a new information appeared: at the beginning of august will be another film festival, in Brasov, called “Dracoola International Film Festival“

Are we talinkg about the same festival or there are just two diferent festivals? We have to wait and see which one will be held in august: the first or the second one which seems more pompous and in the trends ?
The Dracoola International Film Festival“ project is a result of the partnership between the “Asociation for the promoting the romanian film”, the “Amprenta Advertising”company, and the Brasov city council that offered it’s full support for this first edition of the film festival.
During the 4th -10th of august 2008, the old center of Brasov, specially the Square area is going to be dedicated to the festival.
We will come back with more information about it. Stay tunned.

The source: iubescbrasovul.ro

Dracula – Myth and reality

Tue, 19 May 2009 16:58:42 +0000

Dracula – a character that is always en vogue for so many centuries, is a name that inspired and still inspires many legends, a word that brings fear into some regions where it is spoken, show the real identity: demon, wear wolf, vampire, or fearless leader, unmerciful, unforgiving; a fighter for law, for justice and liberty.