"October in Zhovten" is a multidisciplinary festival with an international conference and a public program for a wide audience. The festival aims to implement the idea of decentralization of culture, the cultural identity formation and to develop a methodology for building a local identity on the example of Zhytomyr.

NGO "Zhytomyr, voice up!" is the institution that works for a long time to change Zhytomyr: it organizes festivals, training programs, creates media resources; keeps constant communication with the city dwellers for joint consecutive work on the development of socio-cultural spheres of the life in the region. This time a public organization initiated the project "October in Zhovten" – the Zhytomyr Festival of Contemporary Culture.

The festival aims to recommission the former Zhovten cinema as a new cultural center and lay the foundation for a new cultural infrastructure in Zhytomyr region. The long-term project results involve in the further functioning of the Zhovten cinema as a progressive institution promoting the development and changes in the cultural life of Zhytomyr with the involvement of public initiatives, government and business. The festival should become a catalyst for changes both in the
local area and in more global areas of the country in the long run.

Festival organizers are Lyudmyla Zubko (NGO "Zhytomyr, voice up!") in partnership with the Zhytomyr City Council, Zhytomyr region state administration and the "Ya Gallery" art center. The project is supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine and by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The project is supported by the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.