FIAsco

After a disastrous International Arts Festival last year, Costa Rica's Culture Ministry announced it will regroup with a National Arts Festival.

Sylvie Durán Salvatierra officially took over as culture and youth minister on Tuesday, while the ministry's Film Center Director Max Valverde Soto was appointed vice minister.

Costa Rica’s Culture Ministry in a press release confirmed the definitive cancellation of all concerts suspended during the failed edition of this year’s International Arts Festival (FIA 2015).

In testimony Thursday before a Legislative Assembly commission, Costa Rica's former Culture Minister Elizabeth Fonseca downplayed the colossal failure of this year's International Arts Festival, or FIA, saying, "this whole situation has been exaggerated; the gravity of what happened was blown out of proportion.”

Fonseca said organizers' insistence on boosting the festival budget means there's not much money left for other cultural activities that rely on the same funding pool.

Culture vice ministers Alfredo Chavarría Fennel and Carlos Luis Amador Brenes and FIA Director Inti Picado also were dismissed.

President Luis Guillermo Solís said Thursday at a public event that dismissals at the Culture Ministry “are among the possibilities” depending on the report Minister Elizabeth Fonseca Corrales presents next Monday.