“The program has been organised top-down, although in many ways the approach has been bottom-up as well”, explained the director of the festival, Concha Hernández, during her presentation in Madrid on 11 February. “This helps it to reflect the creativity of women and women's groups in every discipline and professional sphere”.

Spain's Minister of Equality, Bibiana Aído, stressed the need to “highlight the talent of creative women, which has been suppressed by male ignorance for so many centuries”. And culture is exceptional in that it provides a true reflection of artistic “democratisation”. The minister also highlighted the need for the future of every society to be built on cross-cutting equality since, in the words of Albert Einstein, “you can't build the future with ideas from the past”.

The European Presidency shared by Spain, Belgium and Hungary will give a very special flavour to the program, which will be seen in the works of creative women from these three countries being included.

Another new feature of the event is that its extensive and intense cultural program is being internationalised. Thirty Cervantes Institute centres on five continents will carry out a wide range of activities, in addition to specific activities planned for capital cities such as Paris. “Our centres will be large windows onto the world”, said Carmen Caffarel, Director of the Cervantes Institute, and the quality of many of the participating artists will be seen through them. “This is a key obligation of the Cervantes Institute”.

Furthermore, this will be the first time that the visual arts have been included in the festival, as well as being part of the program for ARCO, the international contemporary art fair. The visual arts will take centre stage, not only in galleries and other exhibition centres, but also in the multicultural project by Karin Elmore, “Tu cuerpo/El Mío” (“Your body/My body”), which will feature immigrants from Madrid's Lavapiés neighbourhood. The performance will also be shown in Lima (Peru).

The event will have added emotion through memories of great women such as the singer Mercedes Sosa, explained its artistic director, Luis Martín: “An icon of song and popular music, a fighter of the steamrolling Argentinean dictatorship, a creative woman and a rebel... Mercedes Sosa could be said to represent the spirit that runs through the whole of the festival”.

Ellas Crean is a major cultural event organised by the Spanish Government through its Ministries of Equality and Culture, in collaboration with another 50 bodies and organisations.