Sighisoara Festival - between kitsch and sublime

If it's the last week-end of July, than must be the Medieval Art Festival from Sighisoara. This year as well the fortress was assaulted by the almost 30,000 tourists that came with their backpacks to the highly spoken cultural event, which this year more than ever had the aspect of a kitsch art bazaar. Although the fortress hosted many cultural moments, few of them managed to escape the ridicule and the most important events (for instance, the classical music concerts in churches) were attended by a small number of art lovers.

However, the street show was impressive, almost every visitor, either rocker, hippie or "knight" fitting perfectly on the huge stage of the fortress. Even though the organisers have been claiming for several years that the main purpose of this festival was to raise funds aimed at strengthening the city of Sighisoara, but very few steps in this direction have been taken so far.

In exchange, there are more and more "merchants" in the narrow streets, making it almost impossible for the thousands of tourists to move towards the main attractions: Turnul Cismarilor, Biserica Romano-Catolica, Turnul cu Ceas and so on. Except for the few stalls from where you were able purchase a souvenir recalling the medieval age, you were urged to buy "at promotional prices" baseball clubs, meat hammers or the famous pink panther made of green plush.

The points of attraction for people willing to spend their money on follies were the sidewalks populated by plastic artists who were making portraits or were painting (sometimes skillfully) the passers-by' faces, for rather small tariffs. Their slogans, even though not always persuading, were stirring smiles from the people that were struggling to walk up to the fortress through a hard-to bear crush: "Let me paint you: you'll no longer need plastic surgery," or "Come on and see the real face of things."

Among "entrepreneurs," one could see a young girl dressed up in a fancy Middle Ages costume that was selling... medieval kisses. In order to prevent an excessive crush in the fortress, the rock and folk concerts took place in Piata Sigma, where Vama Veche, Pasarea Colibri, Ducu Bertzi, Nicu Alifantis and La Strada performed in front of several hundred tourists "lodged" directly on the... lawn. Among the plays performed in Piata Cetatii, "Toujours l'amour" directed by Dan Puric was encored by thousands of young people, who only at the end of the show hurried towards the spot where Vama Veche had already begun to sing. It seemed like a genuine ad-hoc carnival was organised every minute on the streets leading to the citadel.

"Eminescu" Hall each day was to project movies inspired from the Middle Ages but, due to a traffic crush, the motion-picture projector that was to be brought from another city was destroyed. The programme of the festival was permanently altered, and changes were announced only to the press, so as many performances were missed by interested persons.

The programme, which was 5,000 lei, only in a few cases was useful to those that were trying to catch the most interesting actions. Street shows took place chiefly on scenes placed close to the fortress, while the only "costume parade" was offered by actors walking to-and-fro between the "working place" and the soft drink stalls. In exchange, "knight fights" took place each day in Piata Cetatii, presented by a uninspired "duke." People crowded at these unsuccessful shows, probably in search for some elements to remind them that they were attending though a festival of medieval art.