This year's Bitef, with 1664 Blanc as general sponsor, will be taking place under the slogan "Beauty Will (Not) Save the World". In 10 festival days it will feature bold performances from different meridians, trying to answer one question - is beauty enough to save a world tortured by capitalism, ecological crisis and other problems that plague contemporary society?
Antigone in the Amazon by the NTGent city theatre from Belgium is a performance from this year's programme in which yet another mythical and ancient female figure is reinterpreted and presented in a new and contemporary light by blending it with modern contexts. Famous Swiss director Milo Rau, well-known to the Bitef Festival audience, concludes his trilogy that reinterprets ancient myths with this piece.
For the purposes of this production, Rau and his team travelled to Brazil, where capitalism and fire devour forests and nature, and where 1% of the population owns 45% of the land, and produced this piece in collaboration with MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra), the largest landless workers’ movement.
Four performers on stage and many more participants, members of Brazil's indigenous peoples, recreate the story of Antigone by participating through video projections, placing it within the context of a specific event of 1996. Rau navigates between video and live performances on stage, between ancient drama and documentary material, between reality and fiction.
This allegorical piece about the fight of the people for a dignified life will be presented 2 and 3 October at the "Mira Trailović" Stage of the Atelje 212 theatre.
Palmasola - a Prison Village project by Cristoph Frick and KLARA Theaterproduktionen from Basel (Switzerland) is based on years-long research of one of the most notorious prisons in the world, the so-called Palmasola prison-village in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.
Built in the late 1980s, the prison is currently inhabited by over 6,000 men and women, of whom only 25% have been officially convicted. Frick and his team are the only artistic company that has so far been granted permission to spend time inside Palmasola, talk to the inmates and other actors in this specific system and, in general, document their stay, which formed the basis of the performance.
Watching this performance, in close contact with the performers and with no possibility of distancing oneself or relaxing, the viewer has the opportunity to somewhat experience what life is like in this prison village, but also to get a new perspective on the outside world they live in and the laws of survival within it, which may not be that very different from those in Palmasola.
The piece will be presented 1 and 2 October at 8pm, while the location of the performance is yet to be revealed.
Rupture by Slovenian director Jan Krmelj, produced by City Theatre Ljubljana, is based on a text by a British author who, for the purposes of this performance, was given the pseudonym Rrose Sélavy. In an introductory note to the text she emphasizes that the production must not be marketed under her real name and that the original title of the text may not be used.
This intervention already provides a key to interpreting the text, which explores the fate of two climate activists found dead in their apartment in 2021, yet about whom there is no information on the Internet despite it allegedly being a documentary story.
Young director Jan Krmelj, who recently won the Borštnik award for directing this piece, skillfully plays with the manifold meanings and layers of the text while constantly shifting between reality and fiction, personal and political. In the times of post-truth and omnipresent surveillance, this exciting performance lays bare the mechanisms of control and raises questions pivotal to the moment we live in.
Rupture will be presented 1 October at 8pm, at the "Olivera and Rade Marković" Main Stage of the Belgrade Drama Theatre.
This year Bitef will be taking place from 25 September to 4 October under the slogan "Beauty Will (Not) Save the World". The main programme will introduce the Belgrade audience to as many as 10 productions, hailing from Germany, France, Switzerland, Bolivia, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia.
Patrons of the festival are the Secretariat for Culture of the City of Belgrade and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia. General sponsor of the 58Bitef24 is 1664 Blanc, which has recognized the significance of the festival as a cultural event and contributes to its success. Traditionally, the festival has received support from the EU Delegation, Institut français and Goethe Institut. Partner and friend of the BITEF festival is the New Moment New Ideas Company, creative agency of the festival. Generali osiguranje Srbija, Erste Bank a.d. Novi Sad and Coca-Cola Hellenic Serbia are once again partners of the festival.
