Atelje 212 board stays on: 'We will be a kind of barrier'
The board of Belgrade's Atelje 212 quit over the appointment of Ljubisa Ristic, then reversed itself at the ensemble's request. Its July 30 statement promises resistance in September.
The ensemble is away on its summer break, the building on Svetogorska Street is dark, and the only thing Atelje 212 has produced this July is statements. The latest one landed on the morning of July 30: the theatre’s governing board, which had voted unanimously days earlier to walk out, is withdrawing its resignations and staying put.
The trigger was a fast-tracked decision by the Belgrade City Assembly on July 24, 2026, which named the director Ljubisa Ristic, 79, acting head of Atelje 212 in place of the dramaturge Gordana Goncic. An acting director may hold the post for no more than one year. Actor Lazar Jovanov took over Ristic’s old job at KPGT. We wrote about the appointment when it happened. What nobody could say then was how the body that formally governs the theatre would respond.
It responded by resigning. The board said it had been neither consulted about the removal nor told the reasons for it, meaning it learned of the change at the top the same way the public did. Its members are:
- Milan Lucic, chairman
- Gorica Popovic
- Milica Mihajlovic
- Ksenija Radulovic
- Ljubisav Milunovic
Why did the board change its mind?
Because the company asked it to. After talks with actors and staff, who pressed the members to stay, the resignations came off the table. “We decided to honour that request and continue to carry out our duty,” the statement reads. The reason for staying is put plainly:
We stayed so that we would, after all, be here as a body that can react to whatever is waiting for us at the start of the new season in September
The line that travelled furthest is shorter: “We will be a kind of barrier.” The board is careful to add that remaining in office is not an endorsement of how the appointment was handled, but a matter of responsibility towards the theatre, the ensemble and the public interest. In Serbian cultural politics that is an unusual position, a supervisory body that stays in order to argue rather than to sign.
Ristic: I am not waiting for September
The new acting director made clear on July 28 that his calendar differs from the one the building runs on.
Unlike the actors, who are on a nice three-month summer break, I am not waiting for September, I have to work.
On the company itself he said: “Atelje 212 is a great theatre, with an excellent ensemble, and they are all major artists.” He also said he does not know every member of the current company, because he no longer works with some of his former collaborators. Asked about the reaction inside the house, he replied: “Let everything take its course. Let everyone do their job as they think they should and say what they think they should.”
The ensemble put its own answer on social media, in two sentences: “We are following the rescue operation for the acting manager with interest. The bug is in the ear.” Among those who shared the post were Gordan Kicic, Tamara Dragicevic, Ivan Mihailovic, Marko Grabez, Jovana Gavrilovic, Ana Mandic and Hana Selimovic.
The one thing never stated in any of this exchange is why Goncic was replaced at all. Atelje 212 closed the previous season with six Sterija Awards and a positive financial result, the kind of record that normally extends a mandate in a publicly funded institution. Any answer will arrive in September, when the company comes back and it becomes clear what exactly this barrier is holding back.
