Cultura Circular was a capacity-building programme for arts and culture festivals across Latin America and the Caribbean, delivered by Julie’s Bicycle with support from the British Council Americas. This case study highlights the work of Festival Internacional de Literatura Filba in Argentina from the programme’s 2025-2026 cohort.
In culture, sustainability and climate change are no longer distant concepts but immediate realities. Across music, literature, and the performing arts, various events are showcasing innovative formats for community engagement and environmental awareness.
Drastic changes in ecosystems and extreme weather events increasingly resonate in daily conversations. What can be done in the face of this scenario? How can one overcome anxiety or discouragement? These questions are pressing, and the cultural sector offers a fertile field of action for those seeking answers.
Festivals, regardless of their discipline—be it music, performing arts, literature, or visual arts—and whether they take place in cities or rural areas, on a small or large scale, are fundamentally gathering points. Once a year, they serve to bring together people, traditions, customs, rituals, and emotions, driven by shared interests and, increasingly, by environmental awareness.
Festival Internacional de Literatura Filba
The Filba, held every September in various neighbourhoods of the City of Buenos Aires, stands as the nation’s most significant literature festival and a key reference point in Latin America. It gathers authors from across the globe, founded on the principle that “access to culture and art is a right for everyone.”
Organised by Fundación Filba, this event is a fixture on the region’s cultural calendar and has a long-standing commitment to sustainability. Measures include eliminating paper and gifting attendees native plants. The last edition featured a survey to record public transport choices, allowing for an evaluation of the carbon footprint and promoting better mobility practices.
Filba centres its mission on three key pillars: promoting closeness to literature, demonstrating a socio-environmental commitment, and celebrating the literary arts. According to its director, Amalia Sanz, the organisation aims to “break with traditional formats.” She emphasises:
It is a festival, it is not a fair, it is not a congress, which is why we want to recover the idea of a celebration, of an encounter and of closeness between readers and authors.
A notable example from the festival’s most recent edition is its response to the severe flooding in Bahía Blanca, which caused material losses to popular public libraries. Filba swiftly launched a robust solidarity campaign, involving publishers and individuals, to collect donations. This effort resulted in over 12,000 books collected and transported to libraries to rebuild the collections of the affected institutions, showcasing culture’s essential role as a support network during a climate and ecological crisis.
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