Café des idées

Un café complice avec Boris Charmatz, Café des idées, 2024 © Christophe Raynaud de Lage / Festival d'Avignon

From June 29 to July 21 at the Saint-Louis Cloister
Free admission - Coffee and light refreshments are available.

The Café des idées is a venue where leading figures in the fields of literature, the performing arts, and research come daily to discuss and exchange ideas. Debates, conferences, workshops, and broadcasts constantly enliven this place which embodies the spirit of the Festival d’Avignon: a space of sharing and discovery, open to all.

Debates and meetings

A few meetings from the Café des idées:

  • La matinale du Festival d'Avignon, a regular event inviting the artists behind the Festival to answer Zineb Soulaimani's questions about the shows on the program.

  • Making Waves Avignon: a radio program that gives young people the microphones, hosted live by young people from Bobigny, Noisy-le-Sec, Avignon and Annecy, accompanied by the Making Waves team.

  • Les Midis de la culture with France Culture: united by their shared love of art and creation, artists, journalists and researchers discuss the latest cultural news.

  • A screening of 15 mini-films in the courtyard of the Cloître Saint-Louis by the Formiga Atomica company.

  • Justice and criticism, in conversation with Christiane Taubira

  • Conversation with Enrique Vila Matas

  • Conversation with Marie NDiaye and Delphine de Vigan

  • And other meetings and debates with numerous partners...

Discover the whole Café des idées program

The Avignon Festival Bookshop

Books by Café des idées participants are available directly from the courtyard of the Saint-Louis cloister, where a "flying bookshop" has been set up. Otherwise, the entire bookshop is housed in the Maison Jean Vilar, a spacious, calm and temperate setting, offering an exceptional choice of over 3,000 references dedicated to the shows and debates that animate Avignon. The collection of plays and essays on theater is extended to dance, circus, puppetry and the performing arts as a whole.

AFD contributes to implement France’s policies of sustainable development and international solidarity through its financing activities for the public sector and NGOs, its research and publications (AFD Editions), its training in sustainable development (AFD Campus), and its awareness-raising actions in France. Climate, biodiversity, peace, education, urban development, health, governance, culture… AFD teams are involved in more than 3250 projects and 115 countries.

AFD and the Festival d'Avignon have entered into a partnership to strengthen the Festival's sustainable and international dimension with Ça va, ça va le monde! - RFI, make it a place for debate and thought the Café des idées and open it up to a wide range of actors and audiences with Making Waves Avignon.