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Founded in 1967, on the initiative of Mira Trailović and Jovan Ćirilov, BITEF (Belgrade International Theatre Festival), became one of the biggest and most important European Festivals. This year’s edition of Bitef, the 57th in a row, will be held from October 3rd to October 10th under the slogan ‘Strength, Don’t Let Yourself Be Anyone’s‘. With nine performances in the main program, Bitef will present productions from Germany, Lithuania, Hungary, Sweden, Greece, Burkina Faso, Belgium, and Serbia to the audience.

Selection Team and Main Program

This year’s selection team of the festival consists of Artistic Director Nikita Milivojević, dramaturge and co-selector Tijana Grumić, and producer and co-selector Ksenija Đurović. The 57^th edition of the festival will be the first of new artistic director Nikita Milivojević. He was appointed to the role earlier this year, taking over from theatre critic and scholar Ivan Medenica, who was BITEF’s artistic director for the past seven years.

On October 3rd, as a prologue to the festival, the audience will have the opportunity to watch the performance of „Divine Comedy“ directed by Frank Castorf and produced by the Belgrade Drama Theatre, selected by Ivan Medenica. In the main program, eight more performances will be presented.

The festival will officially open on October 4th with the German play „Children of the Sun“ by Maxim Gorky, directed by Slovenian director Mateja Koležnik and produced by Schauspielhaus Bochum.

On 5^th October there will be a performance of Goodbye, Lindita by Mario Banoushi, for the National Theater of Greece from Athens, which will be hosted at the National Theater in Belgrade.

On 6the October, there will be a performance of All Adventurous Women Do by Tanja Šljivar and director Selma Spahić on the main stage of Atelje 212.

There will also be a Hungarian piece Singing Youth by the authors Judit Berec, Bence Gyorgy Palinkas, and Mate Sigeti, produced by Trafo House of Contemporary Arts from Budapest, which will be performed on the 6^th and 7^th of October.

On 7th and 8th October, audiences will have an opportunity to watch ‘Sun and Sea,’ a contemporary opera performance that premiered in 2017 at the Lithuanian National Gallery of Art and won the ‘Golden Lion’ at the Venice Biennale.

On 8^th October, Bitef Theater will present The Desire to Make Solid History Will End in Failure by author and choreographer Igor Koruga.

The final two performances will be Joan of Arc – Jeanne by the Croatian author Ivana Sajko, directed by the former festival selector Anja Suša, a production of the Riksteatren Theater and Dramaten in Sweden, and Wakatt by author and choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly from Faso Dance Theater, which will close the festival, though venues for these last two performances have yet to be decided.

The festival’s Artistic Director, Nikita Milivojević, revealed that this year’s festival slogan, „Strength, don’t agree to be someone’s,“ is actually a borrowed line from the poetry collection by the young poet Radmila Petrović.