Molenfest2025 is a multidisciplinary festival celebrating Molenbeek's diverse community. It's part of the Brussels neighbourhood's drive to change its image, that's often associated with violent crime, as it bids to become the European Capital of Culture in 2030 (ECOC2030).

Sint-Jans-Molenbeek

Molenbeek is hosting the second edition of its multidisciplinary street festival, Molenfest 2025, which celebrates the area's diverse community through art, music, dance, and performances. The event is part of Molenbeek's ongoing effort to reshape its international image and reinforce its candidacy for the European Capital of Culture in 2030.

The festival features workshops led by artists and mediators, engaging local residents in creating costumes, choreography, and music for parades and performances. Molenbeek is home to approximately 95,000 people from 114 nationalities, with a significant youth population, and organisers hope the festival will highlight the neighbourhood's cultural richness.

Molenbeek's street festival sets sights on becoming EU culture capital

A multidisciplinary festival celebrating a diverse community takes place in Molenbeek until September 7th. This is how Molenfest 2025 presents itself on the streets of a Brussels neighbourhood associated with violence, including having housed the perpetrators of terrorist attacks a decade ago. The second edition of the festival is also used to reinforce its candidacy for European Capital of Culture 2030. The dream began in 2016 after the attacks in Paris and Brussels, and Molenbeek was known all over the world, but this candidacy is an opportunity to show another Molenbeek, a Molenbeek that is rich in its diversity, its youth, its culture, its art. Renowned artists and mediators lead workshops with the community to create costumes, choreography, music, etc. that will be used in parades as well as dance, circus, theatre and other performances. Molenbeek has about 95,000 inhabitants from 114 nationalities, and 40% of them are under 20 years old.

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