“Realistic Dreams” From June 13 to 22, 2025, in Braunau am Inn
“Completely different than usual”
That’s how one Braunau resident summed up the Festival of Regions 2025, which came to a successful close on Sunday.
For 33 years, the Upper Austrian Festival of Regions has seen itself as a “collaboration” between the artistic avant-garde and the social issues and challenges in the regions of Upper Austria. Not a series of events, but an invitation to the festival region to engage in critical dialogue and to dream.
Ten days of “fröhlicher Wahnsinn” [i.e. joyful madness]: intense festival days with around 100 events at 34 venues in Braunau, Simbach, and other locations in the Innviertel region.
A polyphonic, sometimes contradictory, but always lively debate about the present and future of rural areas.
Audible and visible
With temporary objects and sculptures made from waste wood and bulky waste that shaped the urban space of Braunau. From school classes in neon yellow safety vests on a scavenger hunt in the morning to the “Menscha*” of the “Zeche Hinterfotzing” dressed in white and black and singing Gstanzl and Schmähgedichte poems: patriarchal customs written in a “queer” way – a performative takeover of public space.
“Realistic Dreams” has made a tangible and visible impact and sparked discussion.
Audience & response
With free admission to all events and activities, the Festival of Regions 2025 once again attracted around 20,000 visitors and festival participants, personal encounters, contacts, and interactions.
Venues
Mobile dance floors, train stations, parks, trains, city squares, riverbanks, street bridges, taverns, vacant commercial premises, churches, local galleries, and small exhibition spaces—the festival focused on spaces that are often overlooked in everyday life.
Formats
Participatory performances, dance floor pop-ups, listening sessions, banquets, radio projects, workshops, exhibitions, parties, happenings — open and easily accessible.
Participation, cooperation, and a “festival of encounters”
A festival that not only encouraged critical engagement with difficult topics, but also encouraged participation, co-creation, dancing, and celebration.
Realistic Dreams was a festival that relied heavily on cooperation with local initiatives. Many projects were developed together with local communities.
The Fest der Begegnung [i.e. celebration of encounter ] organized this year in collaboration with ZIMT (Center for Interculturality, Coexistence, and Participation), became a city festival with several thousand visitors.
The fact that projects could take place in other locations in the Innviertel region (including Ried, Schärding, Altheim, Ostermiething, and Obernberg) in addition to Braunau is thanks to the Lebensraum Innviertel initiative (KUKI project).
“The first Pride on June 7 in the Innviertel region was fantastic. The atmosphere was unique and the people of the Innviertel showed that the countryside can keep up with the city.”
Andrea Eckerstorfer, Managing Director of Lebensraum Innviertel
What remains of the festival in Braunau?
The festival edition “Realistic Dreams” found its main venue in Braunau, a city that is often reduced in the media to its troubled heritage.
Instead of concealing history, the festival confronted historical ambivalence. Many projects addressed the politics of memory, collective memory, and future identities—subtly or aggressively, but never moralizingly. A central project was Marmorplatte & Scheibe mit Ente [i.e. Marble Slab & Disc with Duck] which, in collaboration with the House of Austrian History, explored new forms of remembrance and reflected on them artistically.
“The goal of seeing Braunau with different eyes was achieved. Braunau was not reinvented – but it was retold.”
Fina Esslinger, chairwoman of the FdR association and member of the 2025 program board, responsible for the artistic program.
“The claim that participatory art actually makes a difference was fulfilled in many places. What remains of this festival are once again “small cultural seedlings” that continue to grow in a region. The ball is now in the region’s court.”
Otto Tremetzberger, Managing Director of the FdR Association
The Festival of Regions would like to thank all participating artists,
media partners, mobility and program partners, sponsors, supporters, and friends!