Every year at the beginning of summer, Šibenik says hello to all the children of the world.

Every day at the beginning of summer, King Krešimir’s city abounds in play.

Šibenik is a children’s city and a city of children. The reputation has been confirmed for the 62nd year in a row by inviting children and numerous artists to the festival to spend time getting together and creating. They will greet one another in a sincere and open way and see themselves in each other, an artist and a child, an artist and an artist, a child and a child, thus creating the prerequisites for maintaining everything that is beautiful and good. In addition, these encounters can open up numerous possibilities for creating something new for a more beautiful and better period of growing up, for a more beautiful and better life and world. Šibenik is a city of play as well as a city of art. Art does not exist without play and art without a child would lack its authenticity. Children’s games and games for children roll joyfully through the streets of King Krešimir’s city and end up being joined together and intertwined in the fourteen festival days. During the festival Šibenik reminds and encourage children and adults to play with words, voices, sounds, movements, lines, stains, colours, frames, scenes, songs, dance, and music. This series of activities is almost infinite if we acknowledge the fact that each game has countless possibilities in how a game pans out, with each end of the game being just a short break before a fresh impetus to a new game or a new creation.

Every year in the course of the festival, encounters, play, art and children say goodbye to spring and welcome summer celebrating in the squares and streets of Šibenik the days with the most daylight hours. It is in the light and warmth of the bright and illuminated streets of Šibenik’s old town that the most fruitful ideas for new games and new creations are conceived. This light and warmth greatly facilitate open, lively and sincere perspectives in the encounters of children and artists.

Let’s stretch out our hand and catch the light, keep the warmth and happily join the 62nd International Children’s Festival. Let’s enjoy every picture, word, encounter, smile, sound and movement of those who love playing and growing in the creation process. May every festival minute of the brightest days of the year be convivial, beautiful and good and every step graceful and effortless.

Let’s start together.

Sanja Polak
Writer for children and adults