This year’s animation and game festival BLON, taking place September 11–14 in Klaipėda, will present the prestigious WINGS award for the first time in Lithuania. This is an international award given to video games created by female developers, women-led studios, or teams.
This international award is presented by the Swedish organization “WINGS Interactive,” which aims to recognize video games created by teams where women and other gender-diverse creators hold important positions. Winners receive a monetary prize and a special award, and the award itself is presented at the most important video game festivals, including “A MAZE. / Berlin” and “Independent Games Festival Awards.”
“We are delighted with the partnership we’ve established with the BLON festival. By presenting the WINGS award here, we hope to draw even more attention to the games presented here and to the region’s developers,” says Astrida Refstrup, Head of Developer Relations and Business Development at “WINGS Interactive.”
Important recognition of the festival’s achievements
According to Artūras Rumiancevas, curator of BLON festival’s video game program, the partnership with “WINGS Interactive” is an important recognition of the festival’s achievements.
“This is a major accomplishment for our team that the WINGS award will be presented at the BLON festival this year. It has always been important for us to see and represent female creators. I believe this partnership will become a creative boost for the entire Lithuanian video game industry,” says A. Rumiancevas.
The WINGS award will be presented in a separate category at the international video game competition “Aware Game Awards,” organized by BLON festival for the third year.
Otherness and accessibility
This year, 10 games will compete in the contest, revealing themes and phenomena unusual for games. These games will compete for the festival prize, while WINGS competition nominees will also be presented alongside them. All games participating in the competition, as well as creations by Klaipėda developers, can be played and evaluated by festival visitors themselves.
“The goal we set for ourselves when curating the festival’s video game program is otherness and accessibility,” says A. Rumiancevas. “We aim for games to explore problems unusual for games, but not only that. We look for easily understandable experiences accessible to a wide audience, experiences that are not subject to traditional game genetics. Usually games are inseparable from competition and goal achievement – that’s the main reason we play them. In our program, we reject this idea and offer play that may not provide dopamine, but experiencing it will make you emotionally richer.”
This year, visitors to the game exposition will be able to become part of civic protests in Czechia, rediscover the city of Kutaisi in Georgia while witnessing its relationship with art and art history. Those seeking simpler sensations will be able to empathize with the role of a tree, ruin a date for an unsuspecting couple, or become a wolf police officer and fight an inner beast. Most of the event’s games are easy to understand and experience; you’ll be able to try them out and comprehend them in a relatively short time.
Festival program
BLON festival, now in its eleventh year, is the only festival in the Baltic states that brings together video game, digital art, and animation creators and their admirers. The program features internationally acclaimed feature-length and short animated films, as many as five animation competition programs, an engaging international virtual reality exhibition, and the video game competition “Aware Game Awards.”
The winner of the “Aware Game Awards” competition will be awarded a 1000 EUR monetary prize, while the WINGS award winner will receive a 2000 EUR prize.
September 11–14, festival events will take place in various Klaipėda spaces: the creative industries incubator “Culture Factory,” the culture and meeting space “Herkus Kantas,” the “Arlekinas” cinema, Klaipėda Puppet Theatre, and the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery will open its doors for virtual reality experiences.
Tickets to festival events can be purchased on the festival website https://blon.lt. They are sold at a discount until September 1.
The festival is funded by the Lithuanian Film Centre, Klaipėda City Municipality, and the Lithuanian Council for Culture.