The Storytelling Festival in Skellefteå is a week full of the power of storytelling and delight in watching and listening. Here, we meet storytellers from the Storytelling Town of Skellefteå and from the region of Västerbotten. Together with national and international guests, they offer a host of storytelling experiences for all ages and tastes.

The festival is a display window for all forms of storytelling. The aim is to show the importance of storytelling, both on stage and as a working method in several other contexts such as teaching, integration, transfer of cultural inheritance and corporate storytelling. The programme offers storytelling in many different forms – storytelling theatre, storytelling cafés, literary storytelling, seminars, music, competitions, workshops, story times and a lot more. During the festival week programmes are being organized throughout the Municipality of Skellefteå.

The Storytelling Festival 2020
The 12th Storytelling Festival will take place from 12. to 18. of October 2020. Diversity and breadth are, as always, the motto of the festival. This year we are happy to present a wide range of professional storytelling guests from all around the Nordic region and Europe with stories in Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and English. As always there are more than 100 events during the storytelling week, in many different places in the Skellefteå municipality.

Organisation – a collaboration project
The Storytelling Festival is a collaboration project with various actors who wish to retain the strong storytelling tradition in the region, and develop the role of storytelling in Skellefteå. Those who from start took the initiative to arrange the festival was Skellefteå Municipality’s Cultural Administration, Skellefteå Museum, Västerbottensteatern – the regional theatre and Västerbotten Museum. Today the festival is arranged by Nordic Storytelling Centre in Skellefteå, a part of Västerbottensteatern. The theatre has been commissioned by Skellefteå Municipality to establish Scandinavia’s first-ever Storytelling Centre. Funding for the new centre has also been awarded by Västerbotten Region and the Swedish Arts Council.

The festival is still a collaboration project with the initial organisers. There are also many other local actors involved, such as educational associations, societies, schools, cafés, folk high schools, bookshops, libraries and others.

Welcome to Skellefteå – a place for storytelling!

Web: berattarfestivalen.se (mostly in Swedish – summary in english)