The Budva Theatre City festival will be celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. An ambitious programme has been prepared, which together with five premieres produced in cooperation with theatres in the region, will include a revival of those plays which have made the greatest impact on the festival’s audiences in the last two and a half decades. 

Budva is the most popular seaside resort in Montenegro and the festival will begin on July 8 with the play Kanjoš Macedonović, directed by Vida Ognjenović, produced in co-production with the National Theatre of Belgrade. A performance of Konte Zanović, directed by Radmila Vojvodić in cooperation with the National Theatre of Montenegro will be the performance to close the festival on 19 August.

“The Budva Theatre City is a festival that belongs both to the city of Budva and to Montenegro as a whole, but I would like to see it described as the most important European drama festival, which is the goal we have set for ourselves. It is supposed to represent the force of cultural integration in Europe and around the world. We must insist on maintaining this course because, as such, the festival will gain in significance and culture in Montenegro will grow and develop,” said Merin Smailagić, director of the Budva Theatre City festival in an interview for Southeast Europe: People and Culture. 

The audiences coming to this Budva City Theatre jubilee festival will have the opportunity to see the first performance of The Cherry Orchard directed by Dejan Mijač and co-produced by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre from Belgrade. There is also the musical Zorba the Greek directed by Mihailo Vukobratović, co-produced by the Terazije Theatre from Belgrade. The fifth co-production is a ballet under the title of The Divine Comedy, directed and choreographed by Edward Clug in co-production with the Belgrade-based Bitef Theatre. 

Everything in Budva is linked to tourism, which is what was behind the idea of a great summer festival that brings together theatre, classical music, painting, literature. It started as something new to offer more demanding guests. 
“Culture and touristic development have been brought together in a carefully thought-out manner. High culture has proved itself capable of finding a place for itself in Budva.” says Smailagić.

The director of Budva Theatre City says that carefully planned programmes have always been tuned to developments in the tourism market and that events taking place during the festival have always been adjusted accordingly. 

This is why he says that, during the first few years, when the guests in Budva were mainly foreigners, the festival programme mainly put on non-verbal theatre performances, ballet, concerts and exhibitions. Later on, when the guests were mainly Yugoslavs, the programme incorporated the most outstanding and high quality theatre productions from well known theatre houses in Yugoslavia. With the return of foreign tourists over the past few years, there has been a mixture of cultural works aimed at local visitors and foreigners including non-verbal spectacles, performed in city squares. 

During the course of this year’s jubilee edition, some of the most popular productions will be revived including The Hen directed by Jagoš Marković, Don Krsto, directed by Vida Ognjenović, La Dispute directed by Alexandru Darie, Pippi Longstocking directed by Nikola Vukčević, together with the ballet Othello directed and choreographed by Maša Kolar and Zoran Marković.

Smailagić says that this year’s jubilee has a special importance and that it bears “witness to the times and traditions”. “We have produced enough high quality material to have a festival using only our own productions. The situation is similar in all other segments of the festival: musical, literary, and artistic,” says Smailagić.

During the 25 years the festival has existed, productions were performed in the most exciting parts of the city and its surroundings and welcomed many important names, both locally and worldwide. The festival award Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša has been bestowed on authors such as Ronald Harwood and George Konrád. 

“We are proud of the fact that many people come to Budva solely for the festival. It is important to say that the critics come from among the most demanding intellectual audiences. They have shown a great deal of respect for what the Theatre City has had to offer its audiences,” concludes Smailagić.