Festival d'Automne à Paris

Festival d'Automne à Paris: the benchmark for contemporary creation since 1972

Created in 1972 by Michel Guy, who would later become Secretary of State for Culture, the Festival d'Automne à Paris has established itself as one of the major international contemporary creation events. Each year, from September to January, it unfolds an ambitious and demanding program across some sixty partner venues—theaters, museums, concert halls, and art centers—scattered throughout Paris and the Île-de-France region.

A multidisciplinary and nomadic festival

The uniqueness of the Festival d'Automne lies in its resolutely multidisciplinary nature. Theater, dance, music, opera, visual arts, and cinema coexist in a program that rejects genre boundaries. The festival is also nomadic: it does not have its own venue but is hosted in the major Parisian cultural institutions, from the Centre Pompidou to the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, including the Philharmonie de Paris, the Théâtre de la Ville, the CENTQUATRE-PARIS, Nanterre-Amandiers, and the MC93 in Bobigny.

An exceptional artistic direction

Since 2022, artistic director Francesca Corona has brought a new dynamic to the festival, strengthening ties with the international scene and emerging artists. She succeeds Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota (2011-2022) and a lineage of visionary directors who have helped make the Festival d'Automne an essential institution in European cultural life.

Over eighty events per season

Each edition features over eighty performances and events, bringing together world-renowned artists and emerging creators from five continents. The festival has thus supported the careers of major figures such as Pina Bausch, Bob Wilson, Patrice Chéreau, Tadeusz Kantor, Peter Brook, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Romeo Castellucci, and Christoph Marthaler.

International reach

With an annual budget of 5.5 million euros and around 250,000 spectators per season, the Festival d'Automne à Paris serves as a privileged observatory for global contemporary creation trends. It actively participates in the circulation of works and artists internationally, co-producing with major European and global cultural institutions.