INTRODUCTION - ÖRDÖGKATLAN
The first, defining accident: in June of 2008 I recieved a phonecall: the 10 days in the Valley of Arts that have been already fully organized, would be cancelled due to the lack of funds. Our decision was to go against our bad luck and organise the festival anyway. A festival of our very own. A festival taking place south of Pécs, in the beautiful Szársomlyó statue-park, and at its sorroundings. However small and humble it might be, we felt it was our sign to get started on our own path. We managed to get a meager funding from Pécs, the then-current cultural capital of Europe, and the nearby villages also wanted to take part, and helped out- there was some income from the tickets, and from a sum of 40.000 Euro, we created a highly successful two and a half day long festival. It was tiny, but it was alive, and it was ours.
The name
The choice of name (The Devil’s Cauldron) might be somewhat misleading; one might associate it with some heavy-metal festival, so we thought it best to shortly tell the story behind it:
One of our main locations is the forementioned statue-park, where this summer we had the Tiger Lillies performing, for example. This statue-park is originally a quarry, that is called by the locals „the devil ploughed mountain”. This name is inherited from the legend in which the devil desperately wanted to get the most beautiful girl, Harka, but for that he would’ve had to plough the whole mountain top-to-bottom in just one night.
To make a long story short, he didn’t quite finish it, he disappeared, leaving behind this beautiful quarry, where foreign and Hungarian sculptors have been working for decades now, leaving behind their works of art in the park.
Patrons
One of the first things we did on the summer of 2008 was the election of our patrons. Formality, you might say – flourish. And that’s true. But by choosing (and of course winning over) our two patrons, we defined ourselves quite a bit. For example, we established how politics might never, from any side, enter this festival.That wasn’t an easy decision, since politics is where funding usually comes from, but that is okay. It wasn’t easy, because choosing to operate under such names as Tamás Cseh, and Mari Törőcsik, two artists who are legends, masters, absolutes of the culture of Hungary, we believe we have a huge responsibility to live up to. But they were also our pledge to never, ever let go of our ideals of diversity and quality for any financial or political power. Mari Törőcsik is one of the greatest actresses of all time, and Tamás Cseh, who passed away two years ago, exactly during the time of this festival, was a musician and has been a living legend since decades. An unbelievable artist and a wonderful person.