33rd International Festival of Children’s Theatres - Subotica Officially Opens with Awards Presented to Todor Valov and Gunnar Horn

On Sunday, September 20, the 33rd International Festival of Children’s Theatres - Subotica officially opened with a ceremony at the Subotica National Theatre. This year’s festival runs until September 25 and takes place at several venues across Subotica. The main programme features 13 performances by theatre companies from China, the United Kingdom/Wales, Poland, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina/Republika Srpska, as well as productions by domestic theatres from Subotica, Novi Sad, and Kragujevac. Admission to all festival programmes is free.

The opening ceremony began with the presentation of the Oton Tomanić Festival Award, an honour recognising outstanding contributions to theatre studies and critical reflection in the field of theatre for children and youth. This year’s recipient was Gunnar Horn of Norway. The award was presented by festival director Vladimir Lazić.

Gunnar Horn expressed his gratitude for the recognition, stating: “As a child, I was somewhat of a dreamer, inclined to reflection and imagination. Then I began participating in the work of a youth theatre group and discovered how much joy drama and theatrical play could bring me. That was the beginning of my career in theatre. I am very happy to see that this is recognised and appreciated in Subotica. Over the years, I have been involved in writing, performing, and organising theatre programmes for young audiences, and all of this has brought a great deal of joy, faith, and optimism into my life.”

This year’s Little Prince Lifetime Achievement Awards, honouring exceptional contributions to the development of culture and the performing arts for children, were presented to actress Svetlana Mihajlović in the domestic artists category and Bulgarian director Todor Valov in the international artists category.

Svetlana Mihajlović expressed her gratitude to the audience through a video message: “There are no words that could describe my joy, happiness, pride, and delight at being this year’s recipient of the Little Prince Award at the most prestigious festival in the region. If we count to three, squeeze our eyes shut really tightly, and then suddenly open them, I am sure that you will see beside you all 40 years I have spent on the stage - the boards that truly bring me joy. You will see all my performances, roles, puppets, awards, and all the joy I share with the children I perform for. That is why I can hardly wait for us to see each other again very soon. I know that you, too, understand the wonderful magic of knowing that somewhere in the desert there is a well with singing water, and that somewhere up in the sky there are stars that know how to laugh beautifully - if only you know how to discover them with your heart.”

Festival director Vladimir Lazić then presented the Little Prince Award to Todor Valov, who said in his address that he regarded the award as a great recognition of his work in Serbia, where he has collaborated with all the children’s theatres for 26 years, including 13 years of cooperation with the Subotica Children’s Theatre.

“The Little Prince Award, as a symbol, means that everyone who receives it probably carries within them some of the qualities that the Little Prince himself possesses. And they probably devote themselves to something invisible through their work. I believe that what cannot be seen with the eyes is found in the heart, and that is love. For me, it is love for my profession and for all the actors I work with in this theatre, as well as those I have worked with in theatres throughout Serbia,” Todor Valov concluded.

The opening ceremony also featured the introduction of the festival jury, whose decisions will be announced at the festival’s closing and awards ceremony on Friday, September 25. The jury consists of Todor Valov, recipient of the Little Prince Award; Milica Radulović, director of the Niš Puppet Theatre; and Dr Erika Hughes, director and playwright.

The Young Jury was also introduced. It consists of students from Matko Vuković Primary School: Nikolina Špoljarić, Lana Takač, and Jakov Ivanković Radaković, as well as students from Ivan Goran Kovačić Primary School: Maša Ivković and Nika Šuić.

The festival’s competition programme began following the opening ceremony on the stage of the Subotica National Theatre with the performance of Fantastic Dreams of Mountains and Seas, directed by Miao Zhao and performed by the Zhejiang Modern Drama Troupe from Hangzhou. The production is based on mythological stories from the Shan Hai Jing, known as the “first and most extraordinary masterpiece” of Chinese literature and an ancient text dating from the pre-Qin dynasty period. It tells the story of a boy named Leo and his adventure that transcends the boundaries of time and space.

“This book is beloved and widely read in China. However, we did not want simply to transfer ancient mythological stories onto the contemporary stage. The performance explores the relationship between the modern family and a traditional story that speaks of courage, curiosity, and love. Although this is a Chinese story, it is, in fact, quite universal and can be applied to any culture or society,” said director Miao Zhao.

Before the official opening ceremony, the National Theatre also hosted the opening of the exhibition The Child and the Puppet: the Theatre of Sándor Hartig, organised to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Zrenjanin Puppet Theatre. The exhibition was created by Ljiljana Dinić. Following introductory remarks by Ilija Tatić, the festival’s executive producer, the exhibition’s author addressed the audience, as did Jovan Caran, a puppeteer and actor, one of the previous recipients of the Little Prince Award, and a former collaborator of Sándor Hartig.

“Sándor Hartig’s mission was to bring the art of puppetry closer to children and their parents, and to raise awareness of the fact that a child is the creator of the puppet and of the performance they complete through their imagination, both while creating it and while watching it on stage. That is why the exhibition is interactive and intended for children, who are allowed to touch every exhibit, observe the puppets, move them around, and create a stage,” Ljiljana Dinić explained.

Jovan Caran noted that Hartig was easier to describe through a puppet than through words. He created a small mechanism in which Hartig’s figure moves from a miniature book towards a blue bird, a symbol of art, hope, and the eternal search for meaning. “This small moving mechanism is not merely a tribute to one man. It is also a reminder of a particular outlook on life - the belief that the blue bird is not an unattainable ideal, but something that comes into being when knowledge and imagination, dedication and play, duty and dreams begin to breathe together,” Caran concluded.

On the second day of the 33rd International Festival of Children’s Theatres - Subotica, Monday, September 21, audiences will be able to attend the following performances in the competition programme: The Forgotten Story, performed by the Children’s Theatre of Republika Srpska (at National Theatre, 10:00 a.m.), The Butterflies in Love, performed by the Subotica Children’s Theatre (at Subotica Children’s Theatre, 12:00 p.m.), Alice’s Dreams, performed by the Kragujevac Theatre for Children and Young People (at Jadran Stage, 5:00 p.m.).

At 11:30 a.m., the traditional Student Exhibition of Festival Posters will open at the Danilo Kiš Foundation for Youth Culture and Creativity. The exhibition features works by students of the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. Later that day, at 1:15 p.m., an exhibition dedicated to the 2026 recipients of the Little Prince Lifetime Achievement Award, Svetlana Mihajlović and Todor Valov, will open at the Open University Subotica Gallery.

At 6:30 p.m., Hotel Patria will host a promotional event for the book 70 Years of the Children’s Theatre of Republika Srpska. At 7:00 p.m., audiences will be introduced to the 23rd issue of Niti, a magazine dedicated to puppetry, along with the 16th collection of essays, Theatre for Children: an Artistic Phenomenon.

As part of the film programme, the Eurocinema will screen Chickenhare and the Secret of the Groundhog at 11:00 a.m.

The workshop Speech Disorders in Preschool and School-Aged Children and the Puppet as a Medium for Speech Development, led by Branka Rudman, will take place from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the Danilo Kiš Foundation for Youth Culture and Creativity.

The second day of the festival will also mark the beginning of the 17th International Research Forum on Children and Youth Theatre, taking place at the Subotica City Library until September 24. This year’s Forum focuses on research into The Phenomenon of Space and Environment in Theatre for Children and Youth. The event is organised by the Open University Subotica and the Theatre Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad.

The complete festival programme is available on the festival website: https://www.lutfestsubotica.net/

The International Festival of Children’s Theatres - Subotica is traditionally supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, the Provincial Secretariat for Culture, Public Information and Relations with Religious Communities, and the City of Subotica. The Theatre Museum of Vojvodina acts as the festival’s production partner, while the Open University Subotica serves as its executive producer.