A wink at the dreamers, the believers in utopias, the pursuers of ideals, that is the theme of the Writers Unlimited Winternachten Festival 2012. Writers and thinkers from the Netherlands and from afar speak out on their dreams, they dream with us about freedom and how it can be realised. Writers Unlimited Winternachten Festival 2012 offers a mixture of current affairs and literature, music and film in a varied programme in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag. Most of the programmes are in English.

The festival begins on Thursday afternoon 19 January with the presentation of the Oxfam Novib PEN Awards. In the evening followed by the Winternachten lecture by the Nigerian writer Helon Habila (Oil on Water), who gave his speech the title Literature as a Way of Seeing.

On the evenings of Friday 20 and Saturday 21 January the Winternachten take place with varied programmes in five halls. With a ticket you can freely walk in and out of dozens of programmes with writers, films and musical performances. In addition to literature there are films and there is music, and at the end of the evening everyone dances into the night. This year for the first time there is an opportunity to have dinner in the theatre at 6.30 pm before the programmes.

On Saturday afternoon the NRC Readers' Club discusses The Great Gatsby and on Sunday morning the live broadcast of VPRO's OVT Live can be attended.

On Sunday morning VPRO's OVT broadcasts live from the festival.
The festival ends on Sunday afternoon 22 January in the Koninklijke Schouwburg with a Tribute to Hella, a festive occasion, celebrating the life and work of Hella Haasse, with performances of among others Loes Luca and Willem Nijholt. Following it the Jan Campert Awards of the Municipality of The Hague will be presented, including the Constantijn Huygens Prize.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night the Filmhuis presents a series of films with introductions and post-screening discussions round the theme of 'Keep on Dreaming'. On Wednesday night Theater aan het Spui presents the screening of Mahabharata, by Marjolijn van Heemstra and Satchit Puranik.

Meet the foreign authors in our Meet & Greets, in Theater Dakota and Theater Concordia among other venues.

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