The city of Ambanja is preparing to host the 3rd edition of the beauty festival. From August 26-29, the cocoa city will welcome this new international edition, led by the Diaconie de la Beauté association. This event continues previous editions with a clear commitment to international openness.
Diaconie de la Beauté continues its expansion across Madagascar. After the capital of the North and the perfume island hosted the first two editions, this third edition now takes place in Ambanja, still in the Diana region. Sambava, Morondava, Nosy Be, and Antananarivo have already hosted their respective editions. Several Madagascan cities now have the opportunity to receive this event.
Between spirituality, arts, and cultural heritage, the event aims to make beauty a language of evangelization and a lever for social cohesion. The announced presence of Daniel and Anne Facérias, founders of the movement, should give this edition particular resonance.
This time, beauty will not be merely an aesthetic matter. It will also be spiritual, cultural, and social. For its third edition held in Sambirano, the beauty festival aims to reach new heights by bringing together, over four days, artists, church members, local communities, and guests around a shared ambition: to make art a path of encounter, transmission, and evangelization.
The program unfolds in two parts. The first phase will feature an international spiritual retreat over the first two days, led by Mgr Robert Le Gall, archbishop emeritus of Toulouse, alongside Mgr Donatien Francis Randriamalala, bishop of Ambanja and patron of the Diaconie movement in Madagascar.
Showcase of Talents and Cultures
The second part, on August 28-29, will focus on cultural festivities with various performances by artists from different disciplines. "Diaconie de la Beauté is built around three distinct axes: spiritual, event-based, and residential. At each event organized during the year, these three dimensions are systematically respected," emphasized committee president Bira Ephreim.
Beyond the religious dimension, Ambanja also aims to showcase its cultural wealth and territorial expertise. Traditional costumes, dances, music, crafts, and other local artistic expressions will be central to the program. An artistic and cultural carnival planned in the city streets should be a highlight, with participation from artistic groups and various communities.
Exhibition-sales will also provide visibility for artists and craftspeople while showcasing local products and expertise. The artists' mass constitutes a central moment of the program. A grand artistic and cultural show will extend this approach with performances blending Christian expressions and local cultural traditions—a meeting between two worlds that organizers view as complementary rather than opposed.
Beyond the four-day festivities, a major objective of this edition is the inauguration of the artists' house in Ambanja, designed to provide artists with a space to develop their talents, encourage training, and foster artistic creation inspired by faith. This structure could become one of the main lasting legacies of this third edition.
The project in Ambanja thus rests on an expanded conception of beauty: a beauty to be contemplated, but above all a beauty that brings together, transmits, and transforms.