CIM in Vienna: A City Where Ideas Meet Before They Become Projects

A Place Where Encounters Happen Naturally

The occasion was the fifth anniversary of the CIM Forum Kotor, but the gathering's essence went far beyond a milestone. In Vienna, people didn’t just talk about creative industries - they experienced them through conversations, glances, and the exchange of ideas.

Branimir Žugić, co-founder and program director, opened the event with a simple idea: to create a space where people genuinely connect. Without formalities that stifle conversation. Without distance, that slows collaboration.

And that’s exactly what could be felt - CIM wasn’t something you just attend, but a space you actively become part of.

Creativity as a Common Language

Opening remarks highlighted the role of cultural diplomacy and collaboration, but without heavy formulations. Ambassadors, institutional representatives, and creatives spoke about the same thing - the need to turn borders into meeting points.

Panels addressed concrete questions: how to connect markets, how to build international projects, and how to make creativity sustainable.

Reanne Leuning spoke about the importance of strategic partnerships, while Michael Stoeger reminded everyone of something often overlooked - art is not an addition, but the foundation of cultural connection.

Wen Liu brought a global perspective, emphasizing the essential role of the exchange of ideas today, while Nikola Novaković, Tamara Kramer, and Katarina Stanisavljević brought the conversation back to a personal level - authenticity, identity, and clarity as key values of contemporary creation.

Music as the Moment That Completes the Story

At one point, conversations gave way to music. It wasn’t a break in the program, but its continuation in another language.

Petra Radulović and Anela Čindrak gave the event an emotional dimension that cannot be planned. In a space previously filled with words, everything suddenly became simpler - music did what words often try to do. It connected.

More Than an Event

The closing remarks by Kristina Gačević didn’t end the story - they opened its next chapter. Vienna was not the destination, but the beginning of a more intensive phase of international collaboration.

Because CIM is not built through individual events, but through a continuity of encounters.

That was most visible in the informal part of the evening. In conversations without an agenda, yet full of meaning. In exchanged contacts that felt more like the beginnings of collaborations than protocol.

Between Idea and Realization

CIM Forum Kotor is increasingly finding its place on the European map of creative industries. Not as a platform that imposes rules, but as a space that enables encounters.

In a time when networking is often reduced to a buzzword, CIM reminds us that it only has value if it leads to real exchange.

Vienna proved exactly that.

And perhaps that is its greatest value - not in what has already been achieved, but in what is just beginning.

For HEDONIST Magazine, one of the media partners of the forum, this is yet another confirmation that stories connecting people, ideas, and places carry a special weight - and a future.