The Theater Festival, or Borštnikov Festival, is a prestigious festival that takes place every year, in mid-October, at the Slovenian National Theater in Maribor. The festival has a long tradition, it is the oldest and most important theater festival in Slovenia. It was named after the director, playwright, translator and founder of the Slovenian art theater - Ignacio Borštnik. The program of the event is made up of several thematic items, and Slovenian performances are included in both the competition program and the international program. The festival usually lasts about 14 days and is very popular with tourists and locals alike. In this period, Maribor turns into a city of culture and art. It is sponsored by the state of Slovenia and the municipality of Maribor.
The Borštnikov Ring is an award given by a special jury to a Slovenian actor for his life's work, and there are other awards that are given for the best artistic achievements in directing, acting and other categories. The festival has developed into an international festival. He exceeded all expectations of the public during his 53-year tenure. He became an ambassador of Slovenian theater, a promoter of theatrical creativity and a very good mediator for international relations. He contributed to a great extent to the development of the theater and to the diversion and removal of all brakes in this artistic expression.
Brief summary: Since 1966, Slovenian theaters have gathered in Maribor at the Maribor Theater Festival, organized by the Slovenian National Theater Maribor. It represents the largest manifestation of this type. The first name of the festival, in 1966, was the Week of Slovenian Drama, and in 1970 it was renamed to Borštnik's Meeting after the director Ignacio Borštnik, and this name has remained until today, with the fact that it is increasingly popular as the Theater Festival in Maribor. This year, the Borštnik prsten award for life's work was awarded for the first time. Before 1990, the festival was held in other cities of Slovenia and was intended to move from Maribor to Ljubljana, but it remained in Maribor because it belongs there. Until 1992, all theaters could present at least one performance on the competition program, however, this changed over time and only representative and higher quality performances could be entered on the competition program. Independent theater producers and creatives did not like this, they thought that in this way they closed the possibility to express diversity in creation, different poetics, aesthetics, etc.
But on its 45th anniversary, the festival was reorganized and internationalized. The mission of the festival is to select the best performances from the Slovenian theater scene, to reward theater creators in all age groups, to have an exchange of performances, presenting foreign performances and thus promoting diversity in the creation of theatrical expressions.
In 2018, the management of the festival was taken over by Aleš Novak, who extended the festival and introduced some novelties, such as the Day of Theater Creators, training, international student theater and strengthened the international character of the festival. The jury at the festival is made up of 4-5 people and is made up of people from closely related industries: critics, writers, producers, directors. Another jury is responsible for the winner of the Borštnikov ring award
Autor of the article:
Bojana Pantić - correspondent for the city of Maribor
