2023
Prima Vista 2023 – The Impossible Dream
8-13. May
The Tartu International Literary Festival Prima Vista took place from 8th to 13th May 2023. The theme of the festival was “The Impossible Dream.” That choice of theme invited us to think, among other things, about the role of imagination and the ability to imagine and picture things seemingly beyond the horizon of familiarity and feasibility, especially in our present crisis and conflict. Wishing for only the possible and the feasible, wanting only what is within reach already, would not enrich our imagination, and nothing new, nothing different would be born into the world. The genuine place of wishing, thinking of the impossible, and imagining the impossible is literature. The impossible could appear here in uncountable and different forms – starting from a thorough glimpse of a better world and ending with quaintness hidden in the smallest shape, refreshing the mind and enriching the spirit.
Mehis Heinsaar served as the patron of Prima Vista 2023, and its partner town was Paide. The festival featured poets, authors, critics, and translators from all over Estonia as well as from other countries. The program offered events for children, youth, and adults, partly in familiar forms and partly in the search for experimentation and the longing for the impossible.
