Interview with Rainer Osnowski: The attention to culture has grown

Lit.Cologne, one of the largest literary festivals in the country, was hit hard by the pandemic. The anniversary edition - twenty years old - had to be completely canceled on the opening day in March 2020. The existence of the festival seemed acutely endangered. All catch-up appointments in autumn have also been canceled. From today until June 12th, lit.Cologne 2021 will take place, and for the first time completely digitally, after it was initially planned as a live event again. In 54 events, bestselling authors such as Isabel Allende, Sebastian Fitzek, Elke Heidenreich or Frank Schätzing can be experienced as well as literarily demanding writers such as Leïla Slimani, Ulrich Peltzer, Ingo Schulze, Judith Hermann or TC Boyle, as well as politicians, scientists and activists.

It starts again with the great Cologne Literature Festival.

How relieved are you?

Huge.

The press conference for the presentation of the program, which we always take place in close collaboration with politicians and sponsors, actually felt like a large part of normality.

Isn't it a bit bitter that you are now starting with a purely digital edition at exactly the point in time when everyone - also in North Rhine-Westphalia - is talking about relaxing live events?

That's the irony of fate.

But there will only be small, careful openings.

I think that's way too slow, but of course we have to stick to the official guidelines.

Even in four weeks we probably wouldn't have been able to play in thirty venues in the way we had planned.

We are now taking place in the digital with all our might.

Aren't you afraid that after a year of continuous zoom people will gradually become screen tired?

I'm sure we all feel the same way that we long to come out again, to the theater, to readings.

I just called a very good friend in Berlin who is going to a real restaurant again today: with service, without plastic packaging.

That is hardly imaginable anymore.

But it's just an interim period.

Maybe you go to the restaurant first and then visit lit.Cologne digitally.

That can also have a charm.

Was lit.Cologne 2021 initially planned as a pure public festival?

We thought hybrid from the start, at least wherever possible.

A normal scope was planned: 104 events for adults and more than eighty events for children and schools.

The school program was postponed to autumn early.

At the beginning of April we then had to decide to go completely digital.

Did you already book any halls there?

They were of course reserved.

But with an option to exit.

Outside of the school program, about half are also missing.

What was sorted out and why?

We went through the program point by point.

A few authors feel rather uncomfortable with a purely digital form, so they dropped out.

We have moved the theme evenings and portraits of unjustly forgotten authors to the next festival in spring.

What will the events look like now?

And is everything live?

We want to deliver lively, professional image design, not what we know from Zoom conferences.

We have turned one of our largest and favorite venues, the Theater am Tanzbrunnen, into a production and streaming location.

Two thirds of the events will take place there live;

We planned the implementation with stage builders and directors.

In the case of foreign guests, there are records.

This has the advantage that we can optimize it visually and subtitle it.

We have entered into a cooperation with the Berlin digital festival re: publica.

Leaving the live character is a fundamental decision, isn't it?

It would be different if you knew that TC Boyle or Isabel Allende were sitting in front of the camera at that moment.

This will feel like a live connection.

We won't rule that out for the future of the festival either.

We see the digital as an extension of our spectrum and want to continue to offer individual events in hybrid form.

But of course lit.Cologne will remain a live festival.

With an audience in the hall and for an audience in the hall.

Will there also be readings?

Yes, but actually a little less.

According to our analysis, long author readings are not in great demand on the internet.

We therefore focus on the conversation.