With this year's theme Love, we explore love in all its facets. Portraying it’s romance, warm family love, and the dark sides of love. Celebrating that love is love, and the power of love to bring about change. We will be joined by storyteller and comedian Soula Notos to guide us through three days filled with stories as our host extraordinaire. As we see every night as a package experience curated with love for a full night of stories, we sell only daytickets. The language of all performances and shows is English.

Check out SFN2024’s program: Storytelling Festival Nijmegen

Today is Purple Friday (Paarse Vrijdag), a national day of solidarity with our rainbow community, celebrating diversity and freedom to love and be loved as you desire. Love is Love!

20:00 | Sunni Lamin Barrow / Hollandse Luchten - A Fist of Tongues

Spoken word artist Sunni Lamin Barrow takes you through different stages of a journey he himself made: his flight from The Gambia to The Netherlands because of his sexual orientation.

How does your environment influence who you are allowed to be? Sunni takes you back tohis childhood and shares the stories and poems he made about that time,influenced by the fear of punishment and exclusion that exist on LGBTQ+ expression in his motherland.

A Fist of Tongues is a poetic performance in which Sunni explores the different stages of his life since he fled The Gambia. In this performance, in which storytelling merges with visuals, sound design and dance, Sunni testifies about what it is like to live as an African queer person, and about the decisive influence that parents can have on how you develop.

21:20 | Queer Story Night

Let’s come together for a night of queer stories, hosted by Soula Notos! After all, what’s a better way to strengthen the community and to fight bigotry than sharing stories. Featuring;

Crystal Hassell's performance dives into the raw, layered experiences of navigating queer spaces as a person of color, peeling back the many ways belonging, culture, and community intersect. Through humor, vulnerability, and sharp insights, she unearths the tensions and joys of embracing a multifaceted identity. Her story pulls you in and leaves you rethinking inclusivity.

Geoffrey van der Ven beholds the world with a curious eye, bringing sharp, critical, and activist stories to life. His spoken word and theatre work is personal, centring on queer and BIPOC identities, inviting audiences to pause and reflect. Fresh off his tour with his solo show Het is niet nieuw, which explores the queer history of Africa, Geoffrey is now creating a new show, What's the Difference, focused on queer shame and set to hit the stage in 2026.

Emma Voerman, woman, and father of four children. She wrote a book and a play about her process that made her discover she was trans at the age of 55. As a storyteller, Emma shares her stories that contain much recognition for both trans and non-trans people.

Sandro van der Leeuw is a writer, performer and visual artist. Both on- and offstage his raw and intimate work focuses on queerness, (sexual) consent and mental health struggles. He embraces audiences with his vulnerabilty, and, in doing so, he dares them to be soft and vulnerable alongside him. With his spoken word pieces he performed on big stages like Lowlands, Theaterfestival Boulevard and Wintertuin Festival, and his short stories were published in De Revisor, Extra Extra and Wobby. Sandro recently won 'Het Rode Oor', a price for the best erotic short story of The Netherlands and Belgium, and is currently working on his debut novel, that will be published by De Arbeiderspers.

Kourara is a graphic designer and activist who found a way to turn art into a voice for change. Over time, Kourara’s creativity became more than just making things look beautiful—it became a way to speak up and share stories that matter. Portraying personal experiences to talk about what it's like to navigate the world, combining art and storytelling to connect with others and spark understanding. In art Kourara creates something honest, personal, and meaningful that helps others feel seen and heard.