Luka Kecman and Jaroslaw Antoniuk: winners of the "Little Prince" Lifetime Achievement Award

The International Festival of Children's Theatres Subotica (its 31st edition will be held from September 22 to 27, 2024), produced by Open University Subotica, will award this year's "Little Prince" Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contribution to the development of culture and performing arts for children to Luka Kecman in the category of domestic artists and Jaroslaw Antoniuk from Poland in the category of foreign artists.

The "Oton Tomanić" award - an award for exceptional contribution to Theory of Theatre for children and youth - will be presented to dr Ewa Tomaszewska from Poland.

Luka Kecman (b. 1962) is a professor of History of Serbian theatre, a theatre expert, a playwright for children and youth and a theatre director. He was born in Novi Sad and finished high school in Sremski Karlovci. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad at the Department of Serbian Literature and Language where he later obtained a master's degree on the subject of Dramatic design in short stories of Petar Kočić. At the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, he successfully defended his doctoral thesis Petar Kočić adapted for the stage at the National Theatre of Republika Srpska obtaining a PhD in Dramatic Arts. He is employed as a full-time professor at the Academy of Arts of the University of Banja Luka, specializing in history and theory of film and theatre. He is the screenwriter of Welcome to the Circus, Do You Know Where We Are, Do You Play Chess, Space Sprinklers, The Bench, Fairy Tale about the Fairy Tale, The Magic Fountain. The last three screenplays received recognition from the Republika Srpska Ministry of Education and Culture and were published under the title The Bench's Fairy Tale about the Magic Fountain. All of his screenplays were performed in theatres of Serbia and Republika Srpska. For Novi Sad Television’s NS Plus program he wrote a children's series The Global Collision of Fairy Tales. He was also a collaborator of the children's entertainment program Zvrk. He scripted and directed several music videos. He penned the script for the children's film The Droplet produced by the Academy of Arts of the University of Banja Luka. The film and his screenplays are often found in the academic curriculum of primary schools in Republika Srpska. As a director, he staged approximately 45 titles of domestic and foreign authors (more than half of which were for children) in theaters of Serbia and Republika Srpska.

Jaroslaw Antoniuk is a Polish director, playwright, theatre expert, the manager of Lomža Puppet and Acting Theatre and the organizer/director of “Valise” International Theatre Festival. He has graduated from the Warsaw State Theatre Academy (1988–1992) and the SGH Warsaw School of Economics (2010). Since 1994, he is the manager of the Puppet and Acting Theatre in Lomža where he was committed to construction of the theatre building from 1995 until 2002. He made his directorial debut with the play Time Release in 1990 and his puppet-theatre debut with Lešmjan's The Forest Story (the play was highly praised at various festivals) in 1995. So far, he has produced around 60 plays, home and abroad (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Belarus, Russia, Montenegro, Spain, Poland) most of which have been awarded. Among his most important plays are The Toy Shop, The Chimenyman, The Happy Prince, Enchanted Deer, The Trial of Kafka, The Little Prince, The Wizard, Pinocchio, Gulliver and others. For his work, Antoniuk has received many domestic and international awards. So far, he has produced 17 plays in the Balkans – in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Mostar, Banja Luka, Podgorica, Kragujevac and Niš.

Dr Ewa Tomaszewska has graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Technology in Krakow in 1986. In 1989, she graduated from the Department of Puppetry Directing of the State College for Theatre in Warsaw at their Department of Puppetry in Bialystok. She was a participant in theatre workshops of Peter Schumann, Hank Boerwinkel and Richard Bradshaw. She directed plays in children's theatres. Since 1990, she has been employed at the Department of Cultural Education at the Faculty of Ethnology and Educational Sciences of the University of Silesia. In 2007, she received a PhD in human sciences at the Institute of Arts of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

Last year’s “Little Prince” award was presented to actress/director Amela Vučenović, puppeteer, pegagouge and author Jelena Sitar and actor/director Bonjo Lungov. Some of the previous notable recipients of the award Festival has been presenting since 2000 were: Branka Veselinović (2019), Zoran Hristić (2016), Minja Subota (2015), Timothy John Byford (2014), Branko Milićević-Kockica (2007), Ljubivoje Ršumović (2006) and many other respected children’s authors. This year's edition of the Festival will take place from September 22 to 27 at several locations in Subotica.

The Festival’s Official Selection Program will showcase 14 children plays from around the world, picked by the Festival selector Zoran Đerić, PhD. The International Forum for Children and Youth Theatre Art Research (on the topic of “Movement, Listening and a Changing Perception of Children and Youth Theatre”) will be supervised by Marijana Prpa Fink, PhD.

This year’s edition of the International Festival of Children's Theatres Subotica is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, the Provincial Department for Culture, Public Information and Relations with Religious Communities of Vojvodina and the Municipality of Subotica. The production of the Festival will be managed by Open University Subotica.