Bitef

In memoriam: Robert Bob Wilson (1941-2025)

03.August 2025. Marina Magyarev

We watched and listened to him breathlessly

We know Robert Bob Wilson, one of the greatest visual and theater artists, for his performances that were at Bitef, and especially for the great lecture he gave during the wars of the nineties.

City and Bitef

20.May 2025. Sonja Ciric

Svetozar Cvetković: Miloš Lolić is the new artistic director of Bitef

As "Vreme" learns, the new artistic director of Bitef is Miloš Lolić, and the new date of the festival is the end of November. To make this decision, the Bitef Board waited for the new rules of the City Assembly

Beograd

25.April 2025 Sonja Ciric

Festival rush in September

September will be the month of festivals in Belgrade this year: Fest, Bitef, March Festival, "Seven Magnificent"... Unless the City Assembly decides that some of them will take a break this year

Bitef and the City Assembly

23.April 2025 Sonja Ciric

Svetozar Cvetković: We will make a decision about Bitef that we will not be ashamed of

The city assembly did not respond to the proposal of the Bitef Board that Nikita Milivojević, the previous artistic director of the festival, continue the work he had started, and he wrote a letter thanking him for the offer. Svetozar Cvetković, chairman of the Board, believes that a solution will be reached after all

Culture and the City

16.April 2025 Sonja Ciric

BITEF and FEST: Waiting for the City Assembly

The changes to the rules of the city's cultural manifestations, which were announced by the City Assembly back in March, are unlikely to be implemented. Will there be time to implement them until September when Bitef and Fest start, that is, will they be held at all

05.April 2025 Sonja Ciric

Bitef Board: We have created the conditions for this year's Bitef to take place

The Bitef board refused to decide on the program of this year's Bitef, as recommended by the Secretariat for Culture, because it is not according to the Festival Rules, and proposes that Nikita Milivojević be the artistic director for the second term as well

City and Bitef

28.March 2025. Sonja Ciric

Svetozar Cvetković: We insist on respecting the Bitef Rules

Svetozar Cvetković, the president of the Bitef Board, insists that the City Assembly respect the Rules of this festival and resolve the legal crisis in which he found himself after the City Assembly did not appoint the artistic director of Bitef

City and Bitef

27.March 2025. Sonja Ciric

The City Assembly's play with the Bitef festival

According to the City Assembly, there are no obstacles for Bitef to continue preparations for this year's edition. However, according to the rules by which the festival operates - there is. Did the announcement of the city secretary of culture that there will soon be changes and redefinition of cultural manifestations refer to that?

Festivals

15.March 2025. S.Ć.

The members of the board of the main festivals in Belgrade have been changed

The Assembly of the City of Belgrade appointed board members for the seven main festivals in the city. Dušan Kovačević heads the Fest Board

City and Bitef

13.March 2025. Sonja Ciric

Nikita Milivojević is no longer the artistic director of Bitef

According to the decision of the City Assembly, Nikita Milivojević's mandate was not extended, and the new artistic director of Bitef was not elected. Thus, the list of international festivals whose work has been stopped by the City Assembly during the last month has been increased to four. It is assumed that the reasons are ineligibility and the Expo

Studies

30.October 2024. Marina Milivojević Madjarev

Bitef, always a useful scandal

Ksenija Radulović:
Opening borders professional Bitef reception in Serbia;
Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, 2023.

Bitef 2024 (1)

02.October 2024. Marina Milivojević Madjarev

Checking the boundaries of the theater

This year's Bitef began very dynamically from the very opening and was what we think Bitef should be - a festival that brings together creative, innovative and socially aware artists who reflect on the relationship between theater and contemporary society.

Bitef

27.September 2024. S.Ć.

Milo Rau: There is something terrible, monstrous, something horrible about us, humans

We are transcribing in full the speech Milo Rau opened Bitef on Wednesday, which is still being talked about. "Scholz called on Serbs to make sacrifices for Europe, for so-called 'sustainable' energy." 'Europe' means, of course - Volkswagen. The displacement of 20000 families and the poisoning of fertile soil for future generations. Yes, that's what 'sustainable' means - sustainable in death," he said, among other things

58. Bitef

06.September 2024. S.Ć.

Can beauty save the world?

About freedom, human rights, aging, rape, the planet, theater, and many other things that are important to us now, 10 performances of the new Bitef will talk, for which 60 percent of the tickets have already been sold.

58. Bitef

27.August 2024. S.Ć.

Tickets for Bitef at a reduced price

With discounts of 20 and 10 percent when buying tickets online, Bitef promotes this type of sale as a practice that reduces printing and creating unnecessary waste

Interview

06.July 2024 Sonja Ciric

Ksenija Đurović: Because of Bitef, Komedi Fransez will come to the Balkans for the first time

Ksenija Đurović, part of the selection team of the Bitef festival, explains that a combination of lucky circumstances helped them bring the oldest theater in the world to Belgrade. Apart from Comedie Française, this year will also see the use of the drug GHB for the first time

Culture

17.March 2024. Sonja Ciric

Jan Fabr comes to Belgrade and promotes "Guidelines for the performer of the 21st century"

During his latest guest appearance in Belgrade, the great director, choreographer and visual artist will promote the book, which he says is only a manual and not a method. The book was published by the Institute for Artistic Play, whose students Fabr will be a visiting professor

Culture

30.December 2023. Sonja Ciric

2023 in culture: The year when the general interest was not important

There were outstanding titles, festivals, awards and successes worth remembering. And yet, they were overshadowed by wrong decisions based on interests that are not universal and relegated to the memory of 2023

Culture

11.October 2023. S.Ć.

Bitef Grand Prix for Anja Suša

The play "Jeanne", which she directed in Stockholm and for which she just received the Bitefa main prize, is a kind of return of Anja Suša to this festival, of which she was the selector.

Culture

04.October 2023. Sonja Ciric

Bitef Polyphony: And the frail fawn will come

Overcome wildernesses, bypass traps, break through fears, and find strength again - this is the message that unites the performances of this year's "Polyphony", the traditional accompanying program of Bitef.

Culture

01.October 2023. S.Ć.

This year's Bitef is opened by director Boro Drašković

On Wednesday, the 57th Bitef begins with the German play "Children of the Sun", respecting the continuity with the previous concepts of the festival

Interview: Nikita Milivojević, artistic director of Bitef

06.September 2023. Sonja Ciric

Theater is not a hippodrome

"For my taste, so-called current plays often have a kind of superficial didacticism. When I say that, I mean a certain imposition of ideas on the viewer, what he should think and the like. In the theater, I'm not so interested in someone's intelligence, what remains hidden, inferred, is always much more important to me than what is said directly."

Culture

08.June 2023 S.Ć.

New Bitef: Continuity with the previous one is highlighted

Nikita Milivojević, the new artistic director, and his selection team have chosen nine plays which, judging by the first information, continue to boldly speak about our present, like the previous Bitefs.

Culture

27.April 2023 Sonja Ciric

Ksenija Đurović: We need Bitef for everyone, but at the level of high culture

Brave and unscrupulous Bitef, which will be open to all audiences, is the guideline that the new artistic director Nikita Milivojević and his team of selectors Ksenija Đurović and Tijana Grumić will try to implement in the following programs of this festival.

Beograd

25.February 2023. Sonja Ciric

New rules for Bitef, Fest, Bemus and the like: The influence of politics on culture and by law

Thanks to the new rules of the City Assembly, the government has the opportunity to influence the artistic and programming conception of 14 cultural manifestations of importance for Belgrade: it chooses a selector and appoints the president of the manifestation's board from among its own ranks. The new president of the Bitef Festival Committee is the Secretary of Culture of the City. For now, Bitef is working as if nothing happened, and they expect that it won't

Culture

22.February 2023. S.Ć.

Change in Bitef: A sign of the government's attitude towards professional individuals

Public reactions regarding the appointment of Nikita Milivojević as the new artistic director of Bitef are negative, but not because of this well-known director who succeeded Ivan Medenica, but because of the Secretariat for Culture of the city, which is the reason for Medenica's departure

Interview

18.February 2023. Sonja Ciric

Ivan Medenica: I will not harm Bitef by working illegally

"A situation has arisen in which the city secretary is directly pushing me to break the law, to falsely present myself to foreign partners as the artistic director of Bitef. I didn't agree to that"