TESTIMONIALS

"This is going to be a major, major international event. The curation of it...I was so impressed with that panel on colonialism because I saw three people with totally different stories, who were able to challenge each other and grow each other's thoughts."

Sean Penn
Actor, Director

"ZEG is one of the most inspirational and thought-provoking festivals I have been to.The calibre of speakers, range of opinion and experience and variety of topics make it stand out a mile. I always come back looking at the world in a different way and full of ideas, as both a speaker and a member of the audience. Being hosted inTbilisi not only provides a welcoming and convivial backdrop to everyone joining from across the globe, it also brings a fresher, different and more insightful perspective to events held in places like Western Europe or the US."

Rachel Corp
CEO, ITN

"Yup, I'm in Tbilisi, Georgia, bowled over by the hospitality and even more so by the bravery from the international journalists I've met, risking freedom and life to report on attacks on democracy. Inspiring."

Armando Iannucci
Satirist

“ZEG is, without doubt, one of the most interesting festivals I have been to in recent times. There is an urgency to each session, and a vibrancy to the conversations that made me feel fortunate to be in attendance.”

Aman Sethi
Journalist and Author of "A Free Man."

"ZEG blew my expectations out of the water. From the moment I arrived until the moment I left, I felt like family. The keynotes, the conversations, the panels, the emcees, and the venues were all world-class. I'll be back next year andI'm bringing some friends with me! The world needs to know about ZEG!"

Nick Laparra
Host of Let's Give aDamn Podcast

I deeply appreciated the potent mix of modesty with the tough mindedness/will to protect legitimate and effective media. The festival was intimate and often deeply moving. I think this is a signal that you placed things on the most important fault lines of humanities democratic crisis."

Matthew Pye
Founder, ClimateAcademy

"It was a wonderful time for me in ZEG festival. As a speaker it was a very great opportunity for me to talk about the exile journalists and also stories fromAfghanistan. At the same time I met many journalists from international agencies. As people say, communication is the key to success. At the ZEG festival I made lots of new connections."

Shafi Karimi
Journalist

It was a real celebration for me to attend each session. I hope that our constructive critisism will contribute to the future editions to be even bigger and bigger success.

Audience feedback

More than anything, this access to the eclectic mix of experts from Los Angeles to Prague, from Israel to Germany distinguished ZEG from any other festival I’ve attended. ZEG provided an unparalleled exposure to a diversity of ideas in an intimate setting.

Audience feedback

We went on walking tours, wrote fiction, watched documentaries and banqueted under the stars, often side-by-side with the speakers we had heard from earlier in the day.

Audience feedback

During daytime panels we learned about everything from immigration and education to the power of perfume and the future of protest, but the experience wasn’t limited to an auditorium.

Audience feedback

It started with Tbilisi, a city that feels like it’s letting you in on a secret. It’s both off the beaten path and a microcosm of the world, with the edge of Berlin, the sophistication of Paris, the potent mix of East and West one finds in St. Petersburg and the political upheaval of, well, everywhere. ZEG gave us a window into all of it.

Audience feedback

I’ve been to many arts and media festivals, including more than ten years of New Yorker Festivals, but at ZEG I had an experience like no other. As a Coda Story reader since its launch, I knew to expect content that was nuanced, in-depth and sometimes challenging but I was not prepared for the adventure that was ZEG.

Audience feedback

I've just had the privilege of spending three days with the team, audience, volunteers and speakers of the ZEG Storytelling Festival. An amazing collection of humans. What they pulled off would not be possible in London, Paris or New York. A reminder for me, as always, that content and timing are key.

Audience feedback

Unforgettable indeed! What a great festival. Already legendary.

Peter Pomeranzev
Author and journalist