Visit-Montenegro.com: Theatre City in agony

Budva- After 22 years of existence, many a rise and a few falls, Theatre City Budva (Grad Teatar Budva) seems to lower its curtain this summer, for good. It is wonder that despite the hard times of sanctions, bombing, replacement of managers during the festival, it still survived and won merits of the most outstanding cultural event in the country. This year, however, proved to be crucial.

Financial collapse of the Municipality of Budva, which is the main sponsor of the event, put into a question this year’s festival. It is a stunning fact that during last year not a single euro was paid for Drama program (the case was similar with other programs), as well as the fact that overall debts piled up to the outrageous amount of more than EUR 1 million.

All former sponsors, especially the Government which provided the most of funds for years, turned their back on it, and for several years now they do not grant a single euro for the program while the financial crisis prevent the municipality from active involvement in solving the problem. It is unlikely that the public institution “Grad Teatar” as well as the municipality of Budva, which is its founder, will manage to make a debt repayment before the festival starts.

It is a surprise that the festival, which put Budva on the theatrical map of Europe and won even 47 Sterija awards for its production and co-production, is constantly short of money.
For the first time after a long period, the festival program is not announced this year. There are doubts that there will be any production work and international guest performances are about to be called off, so it was clear long before that this year’s program, even if it was to happen, would sink low.
However, the executive manager, Merin Smailagic, is convinced that the festival will be held this year, after all, and that the program will be modest but yet prestigious.

-This year, the municipality of Budva, which is our founder, got stuck in unfavorable financial situation, and therefore the program of the 23rd festival Theater City will be released later than usually.
In the previous period, according to the conclusions adopted by the Managing Board and as agreed with the representatives of the founder and “Multimedia Group”, we have tried to reach the solution to overcome problems we are facing. We have decided to make less financially demanding program which will meet aesthetic standards fostered by the Theater City.
Our audience will have the opportunity to watch the international spectacles, performances with top viewer rating from the region, one production and revivals of our co-productions. Concerning musical part of the program there will be some progress towards more modern musical expressions.
The literary program will remain at the same level as before, which is reviewed by both the critics and audience as extremely successful. Visual art program will be based on classical art program and presentations of three outstanding artists. In preseason and post-season we will present more liberal artistic forms.
I believe that this is just one of those years in which conditions for organizing the festival are bad, but this, however, won’t affect its quality – Smailagic said for Daily “Vijesti”.

Nevertheless, it is claimed in the “Multimedia Group”, which is in charge of selecting the drama program, that the agreement on settling the debt for the current year and the year before was not reached.

- It is true that nothing of last year’s expenditures has been paid and we were ready to reprogram and postpone the payment of debts in order to make the Theater City festival happen. We are ready to finance the major part of our drama program and cover all transport expenses through loans but we are not in charge of making such decision. We doubt that finances are the only issue in the whole story. If it really was the only problem there wouldn’t be major obstacles for the festival to be arranged since simple agreement on debt reprogramming could solve the problem – it is said in the agency which co-produced and produced six performances over the past two years.

We were interested in why there was no festival program yet but the “Multimedia Group” claimed that the program has been prepared since the 1st of February and due to the lack of initiative to sign an agreement on how the debt is going to be settled (and this didn’t implied immediate repayment) its public release got delayed.

By all accounts, last year’s event - when four co-production works comprised also the world premiere of the play “Caligula” directed by the controversial Slovenian director Tomaz Pandur, made many people think that Budva returned to those glamorous shows by which it was recognized before – was merely a nice try. Thus, like in Greek tragedies, it is not difficult to guess how a theatrical piece ends in the famous Theatre City Budva. In conclusion, the only point at issue is that there is barely anyone interested in this year’s tragic play.
By V.L.