Interview with Anca Ungureanu, Identity and Communication Director, UniCredit Bank
Year after year, UniCredit Bank, the official partner of FITS, promotes the festival’s theme through unique projects that capture the interest of the spectators. This time, we are invited to the “Friends’ Square,” a special space designed for conversations among friends to rediscover the courage of childhood. This is just one of the surprises. I had a chat with Anca Ungureanu, Identity and Communication Director, UniCredit Bank.
We meet again at FITS this year. There is a lot of Friendship here. Indeed, this year FITS celebrates friendship. After Beauty and Miracle, the themes of the previous years, I find this invitation from the organizers to look towards each other with friendship more than welcome. This includes the desire and effort to better understand each other, the willingness to listen to each other more and more often, to share our emotions with each other. And the Sibiu International Theatre Festival seems to me the perfect setting for all these things.
Moreover, we all see throughout the city UniCredit’s messages for the other banks that are partners of the festival. All these messages end in ‘With friendship.’ It is somewhat unusual.
Anca Ungureanu: We have been partners of FITS for 21 years, and this is a relationship that very few brands have with a cultural event in Romania. In fact, right now, I can’t think of any other example in this sense. Such a relationship cannot exist without respect, of course, and without understanding that the effort to communicate the theme, for example, must be a shared one to have the greatest impact.
We, at UniCredit Bank, stand by FITS even in this manner, promoting the theme of each year in our own way. For this edition, we thought, therefore, to send a message of friendship to the other partners in the field we operate in, trusting that we can be friends, not just competitors, precisely because we are united in supporting this wonderful event that is FITS. In fact, I believe it is the only cultural event in Romania that has six partner banks.
So, even more, it was an idea that had a positive echo with the other partners, and I want to take this opportunity to thank them for the openness they have shown. I hope our messages inspire everyone towards a better understanding and friendship.
What else have you prepared for the audience in Sibiu during this edition of FITS?
Anca Ungureanu: Do you remember how it was when you were a child? Do you remember how easy it was to make friends? You would see a child, quickly size them up, throw them a simple ‘do you want to be friends?’ and that was it! Best friends. You didn’t think about whether it was ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’, whether it was cool or not to make the first move. You didn’t care if you had common interests or not, and you didn’t wonder whether it was ‘right’ or not to be seen together. No. You simply connected with them. And you took it from there.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, as the years passed, we lost this ability to connect with people. We started building walls around us, we started caring about what others think, and we started fearing that we would be judged or rejected. In doing so, we lost the simple joy of getting close to a new person.
‘The Friends’ Square’ is UniCredit Bank’s invitation to rediscover the courage of childhood, the boldness and naivety of that time. This year, in Huet Square, we have a special space arranged for conversations between friends. I know we are usually found in the large Square, but for this edition, the theme inspired us to create a more intimate setting, and we believe Huet Square is a more suitable place for discussions. The space is arranged together with our partners from Romanian Design Week, so we can say that Friendship, in this setting, becomes a true installation.
We continue, of course, to support the ‘Culture Factory,’ which now belongs to the community, we also continue to make navigating through the over 830 events at FITS more accessible, both through the customizable mobile application and through the printed program magazine, distributed in thousands of copies, so that lovers of performing arts can find information and recommendations more easily and choose the events they want to attend.
Recently, at an important gala aimed at recognizing the merits and achievements of banking and non-banking financial institutions in Romania, UniCredit Bank received three distinctions – congratulations. Among them, the bank was also recognized as the “Most Visible Supporter of Culture in 2023”. What does this recognition mean for you?
Anca Ungureanu: Most importantly, I believe it is a celebration of the team I work with and the partners who give us the opportunity to create memorable projects together that support and organically grow the communities in Romania. Through culture, yes, because all efforts in this direction, all initiatives we support, represent a form of education, and an educated community is stronger, more united, more prepared for challenges. This is the most important reason why we support projects like FITS, the Romanian Design Week, Diploma, or the Romanian Creative Week in Iași – to name but a few of the most comprehensive ones. However, there are dozens, larger or smaller ones, and I believe that each of them leaves its mark on the community it addresses.
