Today (June 23) the first press conference on the 59th was held. Bitefu where it was confirmed that this festival will be held in the traditional time, from September 14 to 20. And, that would be more or less all the journalists could convey to the public about the new Bitef.
The press conference was called on the occasion of the concept and program of this year's 59th Bitef. However, that did not happen, the plays that will come to Belgrade this September due to Bitef have not been announced.
Spasoje Ž. Milovanović, the president of the Bitef Board and also the selector of this year's festival, told the journalists that there will be six-seven plays in the selection, and that the program will be ready "today or tomorrow", about which they will be informed later.
"Dare to find out"
Why did the management of Bitef invite the journalists if they had nothing to tell them? No answer was given, even though journalists asked.
However, that is not the only reason why this press conference was unusual.
It was held in the National Theatre, in the Big Stage. Spasoje Z. sat on the stage. Milovanović i Jelena Medakovic secretary for culture of the city of Belgrade, and there were journalists in the auditorium.
Milovanović, a playwright by training and the founder of the Theater at the Crossroads festival in Niš, said that he had seen 87 domestic and foreign plays and that the title of the selection "Dare to find out" stuck to him as a common thread.
He explained that the plays he chose are not brought together by their subject matter or aesthetics, but by their world view.
"From those plays comes the open doubt that there is a final truth, that there is something that we all know, and that we haven't researched, haven't thought about certain events before. Each of the plays tries to talk about the event it deals with and the way in which that event was later interpreted in modern times."
The journalists learned that the 59th Bitef will feature performances from Argentina, Lebanon, Slovenia, Portugal, Italy, Montenegro and Serbia.
Dusko Miljanic MontenegroFrom the play "Medea"
Considering that speaking about his concept Spasoje Ž. Milovanović mentioned the play The subject of Medea Montenegrin National Theater from Podgorica, directed by Slovenian artist Diego de Brea, it can be assumed that it will be at this year's Bitef.
The show that refused to come
Actually, at the moment, only the one that will not come and should have been known about the selected performances, and that thanks to the question from the audience and not the selector's information.
Namely, a colleague asked Spasoj Ž. Milovanović, is it true that the German troupe canceled their arrival, because they do not want to give legitimacy to this selector/Committee that currently leads Bitef, because they are directly connected to censorship and the cancellation of artists' freedom of expression, thus compromising a festival that has a huge reputation and historical importance.
Selector Milovanović replied as follows: "They were invited. They thanked. That story is over." He did not state the reason why they refused to come.
As we found out, the British-German Gob Squad refused to come to Bitef. Censorship and cancellation of freedom of expression for artists, which, according to the colleague, are mentioned in their email, will be related to the fact that last year's Bitef was not held because the authorities consider that Milo Rau, the director of one of the invited performances, is undesirable in Serbia.
Elem, the selection "fell". It is possible that Gob Sqiuad's email arrived too late to cancel the press conference, and certainly not early enough to replace the canceled performance with a new one, and to present the new Bitef to the public as if everything was in the best order.
The director of the Goethe Institute in Belgrade, Dr. Christof Feldhus, did not attend the press conference, although he was announced. It is assumed that he showed solidarity with artists from his country. The official reason for his absence was not given.
The city supports Bitef
Jelena Medaković told journalists that Bitef is important both for the City and for the audience and that "it has all our support". She pointed out that the Secretariat for Culture provided 27 million dinars for this year's edition of Bitef.
She did not answer SEEcult's question about why Bitef was not supported last fall, she only explained that "she only got information about it from the media, like all citizens" and that she took office only in December 2025. Journalists did not even find out whether the damage caused to Bitef's reputation due to last year's non-maintenance was analyzed.
It is not unimportant to mention that this year's Bitef was supported only by Coca-Cola. Let us recall that Bitef's long-term partners were embassies, foreign cultural centers, and sponsors.
At the time of writing this text, I received an email from Bitef with the website of this year's edition, and on it there is a link that says "time sheet 59BITEF26". But, instead of this year's, it has the Bitef program that was held in 2024.
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