Bitef's unruly artistic team

Miloš Lolić, European theatrical director, and Borisav Matić, playwright, are part of the former team of the artistic directorate of 59. Bitefa. We are talking with them about the events that are why, twenty days before the announced start, it is still not known whether the biggest international theater festival in Serbia, with a great reputation in Europe, will be held this year. Therefore, Lolić took part in the events as program curator and Matić as a member of the artistic directorate. They became a former team, because the festival board did not approve Milo Rau, the director who opened last year's Bitef with a speech against "Rio Tinto", to come to the festival, and whose play they Pelico Process Lolić and Matić proposed. The public, domestic and foreign, called this move by the Board censorship.

"WEATHER" You will be written down in the history of Bitef as the person whose decision led to the only censorship this festival experienced. How are you feeling??

MILOS LOLIC: I do not agree with you that our decision is the cause of censorship, our decision is that Bitef has a relevant program, the cause of censorship is somewhere else. And the feelings are mixed, to say the least. I feel proud that in the worst conditions we managed to curate an eloquent and provocative program, I feel defeated because someone decided to prevent the performance of that program. I feel grateful because every day we receive letters of support from all over the world. I don't know how we will be remembered except as a phantom artistic director who prevented our most important festival from being suitable for those who are incompetent.

BORISAV MATIC: We, as a team of the artistic directorate, have found ourselves at a turning point in history for Bitef, but our position is not much different from the rest of the cultural scene, which suffers disparagement, threats, financial subjugation, censorship and other forms of open violence. I do not feel special in any way, but as part of a broad collective that is under the attack of fierce repression, but does not agree to be silenced.

Did the members of the Board have the opportunity to watch the play? Pelico Process Mila Rau that you suggested to them?

MATIC: Performance Pelico Process it had its premiere in May of this year and at the time of discussions at the Committee sessions, it had performances only at the festivals in Vienna and Avignon. That made it the most exclusive show in our selection, because Belgrade would be among the first to host it. The members of the Board eventually had the opportunity to watch a recording of the play, but they were not interested in that.

LOLIĆ: Details related to Rau's play were dealt with only by the chairman of the Committee, who was the only one who voted for our program, while the other members of the Committee, those who voted for the elimination of Rau's play, did not show the desire to deal with it. Frankly, I didn't know or care what anyone thought of Milo Rau, given that he is inescapable as one of the most important theater makers today, so he has a place at Bitef whether anyone likes it or not.

What do you think?, what is the essential reason why the Board rejected your selection?

LOLIĆ: Fear, order, blackmail, obedience, there can be so many things, right? I'm talking about the means for violently maintaining control over various sessions and collegiums throughout Serbia, and I assume that we experienced a part of that at the sessions of the Bitef Board. There, on the occasion of Milo Rau's speech from last year's opening of the festival, the question "haven't we learned anything?" was asked. It would be best if the media rebroadcast the entire notorious speech now, if only to prove that it was not scandalous. A year later, it is still relevant, and there is nothing new in that speech that has not already been said in our public, including in the assembly. Isn't it absurd that Bitef will be sacrificed this year because someone was bothered by a poetic speech full of quotes from the history of drama?

MATIC: It is significant that the three members of the Committee who voted against our program did not send a single word to the public about their historic decision and the scandal that reverberated in European theaters. They do not take even a minimum of responsibility, just as it can be seen in the minutes of the Board meetings that they did not offer any valid argument why Rau should not participate in Bitef.

Did you resign?, or the Board has fired you by rejecting your program, regardless of the fact that he gave you the trust to create it?

LOLIĆ: After a series of Board meetings where pressure was exerted to remove Rau's play from the proposed program, and after our successive insistence that censorship is absolutely unacceptable, the manager of the Bitef Theater Miloš Latinović, who was present at the meetings but without the right to vote, proposed a mutual termination of the contract.

MATIC: Given that we had fulfilled everything that was our contractual obligation until then, the only way out of the newly created stalemate was an amicable separation, because the majority of the Board has a completely different vision of the festival than the one offered by the artistic directorate - while we conceived a socio-critical program, they tried to control possible criticism.

photo: promo

What was the conception of your selection?

MATIC: First of all, it should be noted that our artistic director team consisted of three equal members, but Ana Vujanović decided to retire after her exceptional contribution, continuing to support Miloš and me in our further work. Together, we three-rounded the program that deals with various forms of systemic violence, from totalitarian state repression to family and sexual violence. Uncompromising performances by two renowned world directors, Brothers Romeo Castellucci and Pelico Process Milo Rau, we contrasted four plays by local young authors (Andreja Kargačin, Ana Janković, Aleksander Zain and the Akcioni odbor collective), who thoughtfully map the repression they live in and bravely determine their position in it. As many as three of those four plays would be co-productions of Bitef, and even two would only have their premiere at Bitef. It was also an important task to provide as much support as possible to the domestic performance scene at the time of the abolition of cultural funds, so both foreign plays, Rau's and Castellucci's, were included in our program, among other things, because their concept involves actors and naturalists from the environment in which they are performing.

Are you, creating the Bitef program, thought about this government, that your selection suits them too?

LOLIĆ: That cannot be the task of the artistic director of a relevant international festival. For almost 60 years, Bitef has been a space of freedom of expression that must not yield to any pressure, from any side. In fact, I consider Bitef obliged to stand against the dominant narratives, to bring together representatives of the performing arts who are misfits and disobedient. Bitef is obliged to provoke even its loyal audience, to give a platform to those who bother and to those whom no one understands.

MATIC: For me, only such a Bitef is worth existing. I joined the art direction team because I believe that art should be dangerous, and Bitef is an example of such art. It is necessary to keep that indomitable spirit of the festival, for which it has been known all over the world for decades, and I believe that it cannot be killed by this act of censorship. On the contrary, the domestic and international theater public is very upset, which confirms to me that Bitef will return even stronger, faster than we can assume.

How did the Board comment on the proposed plays that talked about the current student protests? What do you think?, why did they accept them even though, I guess, they refer to the current rebellion against the regime, and they did not accept Milo Rau's performance, which has no direct connection with Serbia?

LOLIĆ: In addition to Milo Rau, the members of the Board were also bothered by the performance of the collective Action Committee (students from different departments of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts) in our program, which deals with the student struggle and the experience of plenary self-organization. The Board insisted that Master's work has no place at Bitef, even though I gave them several examples of world festivals where Master's works are performed on an equal footing, because this is where the most experimentation takes place. I think that the members of the Board quickly saw the problem of rejecting even two plays from the planned program, so the FDU students were asked to be transferred to the accompanying program, while the other plays were not mentioned because they were concentrating on preventing the arrival of Milo Rau in Belgrade.

You had an indescribably small budget at your disposal. How did you pack the entire program into a budget of 20 million dinars? Did Bitef have an offer from any sponsors??

MATIC: That humiliating budget is not enough even for smaller-scale festivals, let alone for such an important international festival. However, we refused additional sponsorships and tried to deliberately operate only within an impossible budget, not as proof that the festival can survive even without invested money, but to avoid further influence of problematic private interest in a public good such as Bitef.

LOLIĆ: There were discussions about including in this year's Bitef, in addition to the existing sponsors inherited from the previous edition of the festival, new donors, such as the Mozart betting company, but we rejected that proposal, not wanting to further jeopardize the festival's independence in any way.

Really, why did you accept to be festival selectors without a budget in the first place, and that in a situation where the government is destroying the entire culture, and not just Bitef?

LOLIĆ: I believe that endangered institutions should be fought for in every way and until the last breath. They are ours and we need them, even the independent, non-institutional scene needs them. I didn't want that, disgusted by the budget and angry about the circumstances, we would just leave Bitef to the people installed by the party, who would turn it into a suitable festival with nice performances and a bunch of questionable sponsors. Although a part of my close friends and colleagues was of the opinion that this year's Bitef, which was crushed by the City Assembly, should be boycotted, I did not want to simply reject the challenging opportunity to fight for Bitef's autonomy and integrity from within.

MATIC: Not long after we started working, a front of young artists and students formed around Bitef, who needed to articulate resistance to repression through their work, and we knew that holding a festival where they are the focus of the program could not lead to a semblance of normality. We wanted to shape resistance through our work in culture, so that culture would not remain marginalized during current social changes.

Do you, after all, according to you, Bitef should be held this year or not? If there is one, will it be the mere maintenance of normalcy that the government insists on?, as one part of the public believes?

MATIC: Bitef suffered censorship for the first time in its long history, currently has no artistic director, and only two of the five members of the Board have not resigned. In recent weeks, the board has contacted numerous theaters and artists from several countries in the region, in order to quickly put together a new program, but it remains questionable whether anyone will participate in the censored edition of the festival. I think the facts themselves answer your question.

LOLIĆ: After the huge international support that followed from the moment we went public, I am convinced that Bitef is where we who care about the libertarian Bitef gather. It is naive to think that censorship can stop anyone's actions, especially the actions of Milo Rau. The artists from our program are extremely defiant, they already find ways to prevent the stifling of their own and other people's freedom. So persistent and resistant to bans, they are an example of the future that Bitef deserves.