Matej Milošev: Everyone Carries Both Darkness and Light Within

33rd International Festival of Children’s Theatres - Subotica – Day 4

Matej Milošev: Everyone Carries Both Darkness and Light Within

On Wednesday, September23, the fourth day of the 33rd International Festival of Children’s Theatres - Subotica, the competition programme featured the following performances: The Star and the Darkness by Mala Scena Theatre from Croatia, The Carrot Tale by Bóbita Puppet Theatre from Hungary, and Felicia by Quintoequilibrio Theatre from Italy.

At Subotica Children’s Theatre, the performance The Star and the Darkness, directed by Buga Marija Šimić Milošev, explored the fear of darkness in a gentle way. The performance also addresses unpleasant emotions, dreams, boredom and silence.

“When I was little, I was afraid of the dark and so was Buga. That was our starting point since we believe it’s such a universal theme. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, where you come from or what you do — at some point, you have probably been afraid of the dark. We started from that, with the idea that things are not necessarily as frightening as they seem. Everyone carries both darkness and light within. For every performance, including this one, we worked with a psychologist because we want to understand what we are doing and make sure that everything is presented to children in an appropriate way,” said Matej Milošev, co-creator of the performance.

In The Carrot Tale, written and directed by Attila Szabó and performed at the National Theatre, tiny stories are so small that they’ll fit in the palm of your hand — and yet they reach for the sky, persistent like the eponymous deeply rooted carrot that cannot be pulled from the ground by one person alone.

“The idea was to play with a rhythmic text that children learn as early as kindergarten, and to use it to introduce them to rhythm as an element of theatre. But the main message of the performance is that we can achieve something only if we work together. If everyone tries to do things on their own, we will never succeed. We are not enough on our own; we need to work as a team,” said actress Barbara Szalai.

The contemporary puppet performance Felicia was presented at the Jadran Stage. The performance combines the aesthetics of a fairy tale with profound social themes, moving beyond established clichés.

Director Quinzio Quiescenti said of the performance: “We decided to address an issue that the whole world is thinking about today: prejudice. People are often afraid to make contact with someone they do not know, and we are afraid of the unknown precisely because we don’t know it. That is why it is important to take the time to get to know others, to appreciate differences and the way they intertwine, and to create something new from them. As we grow up, we begin to feel the need to sort things into certain categories, whereas children are much more open. That is why this performance is actually addressed to adults, while our message to children is to preserve their openness, because the way they think now is beautiful and good.”

A conversation with Little Prince Award winner Todor Valov was held at Hotel Patria. As part of the film programme, the animated feature Stitch-Head was screened at Eurocinema.

On the fifth day of the 33rd International Festival of Children’s Theatres - Subotica, Thursday, September 24, the competition programme will feature The Immigrant: A Puppet Tragicomedy in 8 Scenes with an Epilogue by Teatro Firulete from Spain (Subotica Children’s Theatre, 10 a.m.) and Aladdin and the Magic Lamp by the Ruse State Puppet Theatre from Bulgaria (Jadran Stage, 5 p.m.).

At the National Theatre Subotica, the Subotica Symphony Orchestra will perform Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67, one of the best-known works of music written for children. The concert will be performed at 11 a.m. with narration in Hungarian, and at 12 noon and 1 p.m. with narration in Serbian.

At Hotel Patria, a conversation with Oton Tomanić Award winner Gunnar Horn will take place at 6:30 p.m.

The book Friends from Nature by author Svjetlana Pravdić will be promoted at the City Library at 12 noon.

The workshop A Universe Made of Cardboard, led by Jovan Caran, is scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Danilo Kiš Foundation for Youth Culture and Creativity.

As part of the film programme, the film The Last Whale Singer will be screened at Eurocinema at 11 a.m.

The entire 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.