
Art has no borders
Informing and choosing artists via an open call for mobility and artistic residencies between the Arab world and Europe
The Roberto Cimetta Fund, is an international non-profit making organisation created in 1999 to respond rapidly and directly to individual artists and cultural managers wishing to travel in order to develop contemporary artistic cooperation projects in the Euro-Arab geographical zone and beyond. Since 2014, RCF is also providing sustaining support grants for venues, platforms and networks in the Arab geographical zone exclusively.
13 Rue Henry Monnier, Paris, France
Launched as a multi-national civil society initiative, the Roberto Cimetta Fund (RCF) expresses the determination of European cultural and arts professionals in finding solutions to improve cooperation with their colleagues from the Mediterranean and Arab world, strengthening exchange in a sustainable way via a multilateral mobility programme.
RCF has been distributing over 1500 travel grants over the last seventeen years. These have had a significant, tangible and multiplying effect on artistic exchange and cultural cooperation projects. As an effective and recognised intermediary for and between individuals and institutions, RCF can accomplish assignments that today cannot be fully undertaken by States or the European Community.
A panel of 50 professionally recognised experts from all artistic and cultural disciplines and from both sides of the Mediterranean provide a transparent and reliable method of evaluation and selection of applications. RCF’s Board of Directors and Committee of experts are all personalities from different nationalities, both men and women volunteering their time and energy in support of a necessary cause.
Although under French law and currently based in Paris, the RCF is an international non-governmental organisation (INGO). It operates primarily by providing travel grants (reimbursing flights and visa fees). The applications are received online in French, Arabic or English by the individuals and not by their companies. Two experts from RCF’s committee examine each application. The Board of Directors grants the sums based on the recommendations of the experts.
RCF develops its activities by constantly being attentive to the changing situation in the Middle East which affects the artistic community. Since 2014, the Tamteen programme has been set up along side the mobility programme in order to provide structural funding to small artistic and cultural teams in the Arab geographical zone. In 2016, the Fil Manfa programme was created to respond to the urgency of providing shelters to artists and cultural operators in exile close to the conflict zones. Today, three funds are currently operational: the mobility fund, the Tamteen fund and the Fil Manfa fund.
RCF is a regranting organisation with specific expertise on cultural cooperation. We build partnerships with local authorities, Ministries, foundations and international institutions all over Europe, as well as in the Arab region. The current chair of RCF, Ferdinand Richard, and his team have successfully concluded twenty funding partnerships and eighteen operational agreements since 2010.
We are convinced that intercultural dialogue is the best way to prevent conflicts and enrich the quality of artistic production on both sides. For this reason, RCF runs advocacy actions to support mobility for artists and cultural operators in this zone, organises thematic conferences, contributes to international meetings and debates and publishes studies.
The Roberto Cimetta Fund is named in memory of the well-known and respected theatre and festival director, Roberto Cimetta, whose career ended far too early. He initiated projects that contributed deeply to the development of the international theatre community: the Inteatro Festival in Polverigi, Italy; IETM (Informal European Theatre Meeting); ACARTE, the contemporary performing arts programme of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal, etc.
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