The Jury composed of Igor Burić (Chairman), Goran Ibrajter and Bogdan Janković, from 25th to 30th June, saw nine plays within the main competition programme of the 42nd International Festival of Alternative and New Theatre (INFANT) in Novi Sad and has unanimously reached the following decisions:
The Award for the Most Successful Experiment, a performance as a whole, is to be shared equally by the plays “The Past” by Constanza Macras and the troupe DorkyPark from Germany and “A Short Story of the Anti-Christ” by András Urbán and the Bitef Theatre from Belgrade.
The high quality of the programme and the consistency of the selection have practically made it necessary for the main prize of Infant to be shared. Coming from different production circumstances, both the play “The Past” by Constanza Macras and the play “A Short Story of the Anti-Christ” by András Urbán have been singled out as very successful entireties composed of various artistic disciplines - dance, acting, music, visual elements... Moreover, the awarded plays treat topics that are particularly relevant and important for the present moment, shaping them after the pronounced contemporary sensibility of the performing ensembles and the audience they are counting on. While “The Past” presents an almost philosophical problem of temporality and history as an ideological phenomenon of oblivion, “A Short Story of the Anti-Christ” focuses on one of the foundations of human civilisation, even humanity - the issue of religion. The truth, sincerity, our body and soul, as they are traditionally divided, in these plays are put to a serious test.
The Award for the Most Original Exploration of One Segment of Theatrical Language is given to the play “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, adapted and directed by Oliver Frljić and produced by the Zagreb Youth Theatre (Croatia).
Oliver Frljić has once again surprised the theatrical audience who expected another political pamphlet, but what they got was a version of the most famous Shakespeare's piece of studious dramaturgy, directing and acting. The daring decision and a well-thought out procedure to extend the scene of the mousetrap to the meaning of the entire play - Hamlet is no longer the one who doubts, he actually knows that the world, the court is against him and his ideals - relies mainly on acting, which proved to be the key element of the viability of the director's concept.
The Award for Particular Expressivity in the Border Areas between the Theatre and Other Arts, or creativity in the widest sense, is given to the play “Ballerinas” by Milena Minja Bogavac and the Forum for New Dance of the Serbian National Theatre co-produced by the Student Cultural Centre Novi Sad.
Although the play “Ballerinas” speaks about an exceptional profession that has, so to say, come to the verge of extinction on the contemporary theatrical scene of Serbia, the audience can easily identify with the problems presented in an unexpectedly exciting way - not with dance, body, costume, music, but verbally, through the so called verbatim form of theatre. Directly, with a lot of irony, auto-reflection and humour, the performing ensemble of the play sovereignly rules over the scene of the demanding genre field.
Novi Sad, 30th June 2015
Igor BurićGoran Ibrajter
Bogdan Janković