My Theatre Sweeps Eight Sterija Awards in Novi Sad
Boris Liljesevic's authorial project from Atelje 212 was named best production at the 71st Sterija Theatre Festival, taking eight awards in a unanimous jury vote.
- Atelje 212's production "My Theatre" was named best at the 71st Sterija Theatre Festival in a unanimous jury vote.
- Boris Liljesevic's authorial project took eight awards in total, including the prize for direction.
- Acting awards went to Nenad Jezdic, Vojin Cetkovic, Ana Mandic and Bojana Milanovic.
- Dusan Kovacevic was honoured for contemporary drama writing, with the festival closing on June 3.
For a moment the hall in Novi Sad went quiet before the winner was read out, and then most people already knew the name. Atelje 212’s “My Theatre”, an authorial project by director Boris Liljesevic, was declared the best production of the 71st Sterija Theatre Festival, and it did so by a unanimous jury decision, a rare luxury of agreement at a festival that thrives on argument.
A title that plays with its own craft ended the evening with eight awards in total, a number that turns a single night into quiet dominance. The piece builds its subject out of theatre itself, out of what happens behind the curtain and inside the heads of those who step in front of an audience, which makes the prize feel almost like theatre rewarding theatre for its honesty.
What did the jury actually reward?
Liljesevic took the award for direction, which rounds off the authorial project at the level of signature: idea, staging and execution all come from the same hand, and the jury clearly read it as a coherent directorial poetics rather than a sum of striking scenes. Alongside the directing prize, the production gathered a cluster of acting honours, something that rarely happens without the sense of an ensemble breathing as one body.
This year the acting awards were spread across several titles:
- Nenad Jezdic for the role of Luka Laban in “The Professional”
- Vojin Cetkovic for his role in “My Theatre”
- Ana Mandic for her role in “My Theatre”
- Bojana Milanovic for a role in “Madame Nola” by the Serbian National Theatre of Novi Sad
The writing was singled out too. Dusan Kovacevic received the Sterija award for contemporary drama, for “The Professional”, a play that has withstood decades of fresh readings and clearly still has something to say to the Serbian stage.
The best production of the 71st Sterija Theatre Festival is “My Theatre” by Atelje 212, an authorial project by Boris Liljesevic, the jury decided unanimously.
This year’s festival programme revolved around eight productions the jury watched from May 26 to June 2, before the 71st Sterija Festival officially closed on June 3. The pace was not light, and crowning a winner that speaks about the very nature of acting feels almost programmatic, as if the festival wanted to remind everyone what all of it is for.
Who else took the honours?
Beyond the competition, the festival handed out lifetime achievement awards, which always carry a different weight because they measure a whole career rather than a single season. The lifetime achievement award went to actor Svetozar Cvetkovic, a name that generations of viewers associate with some of the most recognisable roles on the domestic stage.
The second lifetime achievement award went to writer Radomir Putnik, a name audiences outside theatre circles may say less often, yet without whose work the map of contemporary Serbian dramaturgy and criticism would look noticeably poorer. Pairing an actor with a writer in the same category reads like a quiet comment that theatre is never only what we see on stage.
If “My Theatre” wins by talking about its own craft, one question is worth asking even after the festival has closed: is the domestic stage at its strongest when it stops pretending to look elsewhere and dares, instead, to look straight at itself?
