The Backlight Photo Festival is focused on photography, but it also accepts photography-based projects that are combined with other media. The festival is rooted in documentary photography and still open to different artistic approaches. It promotes intercultural dialogue by focusing on revealing the hidden, the veiled, the lost and forgotten. Each Backlight forms a new, unique entity. The 9th edition of the Photo Festival in Tampere/Finland opens the doors 17th September 2011. The Tampere-based Photographic Centre Nykyaika has organised the international triennial since 1987.

Backlight 2011 Photo Festival theme and working title has been “Migration and Nomadic Living in 21st Century – Rural Traditions and Urban Hypes”. Specialists in European countries incl. Russia were invited to nominate art- and documentary-positions, rooted in diverse cultural backgrounds and speaking authentic languages in order to stimulate an intercultural dialogue on Migration and Nomadic Living in 21st Century. Artists were also welcome to submit directly to Backlight.

Blockfest is an urban city festival dedicated to hiphop culture and will be held this year in 19th – 20th of August in Tampere city center. Organised for the fourth time the event has already taken time to establish themselves in the Finnish festival summer, offering performances from domestic top artists all the way to foreign star guests. Last year, tickets were sold out in advance.

Circus Ruska Festival is the oldest contemporary circus festival in Finland. In January 2011 the festival will have its 7th anniversary in Tampere.

The festival brings together new contemporary circus acts, where the circus techniques go hand in hand with new expression methods. The main point of the programme is to show Finnish performances as well as new talents from abroad. Over the years the audience, critics and artists alike have praised the festival for its warmth, versatility and good mood.

Have fun at the Tampere Floral Festival!

Enjoy nine days of flora and free events in downtown Tampere in late July. The Tampere Floral Festival is a fun-packed summer event for the whole family, and its diverse programme offers something for everyone.

Floral Terrace, Market Café, Frenckell Wine Village, Floral Rock, Samba Carnival, MotoRisti Church and a whole lot more… In the evenings, top Finnish bands perform on stage in Central Square. Free admission!

Come and enjoy the festival – you can wear your favourite floral dress!

Mänttä Art Festival opens to the public for the sixteenth time. Curator Otso Kantokorpi has borrowed a theme from the Bible: honour your father and mother. Despite the biblical connotations, the theme is explored through life in general with all its emotions. The exhibition does not exclude anyone – we all have a relationship with our parents. Fifty artists explore the theme through kindness as well as pain. The exhibition also features eight artists from another Capital of Culture, Tallinn. Father and mother have come to Pekilo.

Mukamas Theatre has organised the international puppet theatre festival in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 in Tampere. It is the biggest international puppet theatre festival in Finland and it has established its position as an important developer of Finnish puppet theatre.

In addition to all the Finnish professional puppet theatre acts there have been festival performers from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the USA.