This year, Pablo Ganguli completes ten years of creating Liberatum global cultural diplomacy festivals and artistic ventures around the world. At the age of 17, Ganguli started his first cultural relations mission in the South Pacific. Over the last ten years, the international British cultural brand Liberatum has presented a new kind of innovative cultural diplomacy festival on the world stage. Countries as diverse as Russia, India, Morocco, Papua New Guinea and Turkey have hosted remarkable Liberatum projects – from education to human rights, science to fashion, and literature to cinema. Special Liberatum events have taken place in major European cities such as Paris and London featuring leading cultural figures of our times. Liberatum programmes consist of opera, theatre, modern ballet, art exhibitions, music and dance performances, fashion events, architecture , film screenings, debates, discussions, talks and Q&As.  The festival events are open to the public completely free of charge and our mission is to connect the finest international cultural minds with their counterparts in the country where we host the festival. The audience enjoys access and dialogue with participants and collaborators. But what sets Liberatum apart is the way it weaves all these artforms together in unconventional forms to produce memorable results.

Some of the international collaborators, participants and guests at Liberatum events and festivals have included Nobel Laureate Sir VS Naipaul, actress Goldie Hawn, filmmakers Andrei Konchalovsky, John Hillcoat, Stephen Frears, Shekhar Kapur, Sir Richard Eyre, Mike Figgis, Christopher Hampton, Terry Gilliam, musicians and conductors Thomas Ades, William Orbit, Johnny Borrell, Peter Donohoe, Annie Lennox, Valery Gergiev, Alex James, Michael Nyman, authors Gore Vidal, Saadi Youssef, Vikram Seth, Hanif Kureishi, Martin Amis, Benjamin Zephaniah, Orlando Figes, Hari Kunzru, Nadeem Aslam, media figures GQ editor in chief Dylan Jones, Evening Standard editor in chief Geordie Greig, Dazed and Confused and AnOther Magazine editor in chief Jefferson Hack, Vogue Italia editor in chief Franca Sozzani, Janet Street-Porter, Wallpaper editor in chief Tony Chambers, Jon Snow, artists and curators Gavin Turk, sculptor Antony Gormley, Ekow Eshun, Sir Mark Jones, Michael Craig-Martin, Grayson Perry, Julia Peyton-Jones, Terence Koh, Waris Ahluwalia, Polly Morgan, Sir Norman Rosenthal, Charles Saumarez Smith, Mikhail Piotrovsky, politicians Rory Stewart, former UN Under-Secretary General Shashi Tharoor, Clare Short, fashion designers and style icons Daphne Guinness, Lily Cole, Jasper Conran, Gareth Pugh, Stephen Jones, Philip Treacy, Henry Holland and architect Zaha Hadid – to name but a few!

Liberatum’s new programme for 2011 features a range of small-scale but groundbreaking festivals as well as major cultural summits, and special events in Istanbul ISTANCOOL, Rio de Janeiro UBER RIO, and London. In addition, Liberatum is developing plans to create world class cultural celebrations and festivals for the Arab World (Doha), Venice and Hong Kong among other culture-rich cities. Liberatum collaborates with both emerging and iconic talents from all artforms all over the world who take part in stimulating artistic programmes featuring original content.

For further information on Liberatum 2011 festivals/special events and press invitations, please email us at