13th MITEM Festival Brings International Premieres to Budapest

The 13th MITEM festival will feature a Bucharest production by acclaimed Romanian director Andrej Șerban, the final stage work of the late French writer and director Valère Novarina, a new Croatian-Hungarian co-production by the Feledi Project, and several Serbian performances presented as part of the Serbian-Hungarian cultural season. The program was announced at a press conference held at the National Theater on February 18.

“The principles have not changed: we are organizing an open festival based on dialogue, characterized by diversity, courageous debates, and intellectual connections between creators,” emphasized Attila Vidnyánszky, CEO of the National Theater, in his introductory remarks at the press conference. The founder and artistic director of MITEM first praised the collaborations that have resulted from the past twelve meetings, which help to open up new theatrical worlds previously unknown to Hungarian audiences.

He mentioned, as examples, the rich network of relationships developed over several years with Romanian and Serbian theater artists, the new theater collaborations established with Bulgaria and Slovakia, and the co-production plans taking shape with the Mongolian National Theater for a performance about Attila the Hun.

He also talked about how it is becoming increasingly difficult to select from Western European theaters because too often the current political message overrides aesthetics and the representation of universal human values.

According to Vidnyánszky, one of the most exciting European theatrical languages today is represented by Romanian theater, which is constantly present in the MITEM program with its bold and experimental performances.

The director also remembered Valère Novarina, who passed away in January and was a great admirer of Hungarian culture. It is no coincidence that he had already established a good relationship with him as a theater director in Debrecen, which later led to the production being staged in Paris. This year, his play Gondolatalakok (Thought Forms) will be performed at MITEM by the L’Union Des Contraires theater company, whose artistic director was Valère Novarina.

“An interesting feature of this year’s program is that it begins and ends with Richard III. The festival will open with a production by the Harag György Company of the Northern Theater in Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti), and the closing performance will be presented by the Israeli Gesher Theater,” said Edit Kulcsár, the festival’s main organizer, highlighting the program. Kulcsár also emphasized that there will be another premiere in the festival program, this time János Feledi’s Croatian-Hungarian co-production Kanáripaprikás, which will be shown at MITEM.

Among the guests at the press conference, Ioana Anghel, director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Budapest, also spoke appreciatively about Hungarian-Romanian theatrical relations, emphasizing that in recent years, a great many Romanian theatrical performances have appeared at MITEM, including Hungarian-language theaters that are highly regarded in the Romanian theater world. A prime example of this is that the festival’s opening performance, Richard III, by the Satu Mare theater company, won two of the most prestigious awards in the Romanian theater world last year, the UNITER Awards, receiving the awards for best director (István Albu) and best performance in May. She noted that the Hungarian theater company in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) has been one of the most frequently honored companies in the history of the awards.

She also emphasized that cooperation between Romanian and Hungarian artists is indeed very good, as they regularly perform and direct at each other’s theaters.

She pointed out that the Bucharest performance coming to MITEM, directed by Andrej Șerban, is, in her opinion, the great Romanian artist’s best work to date. István Bessenyei Gedő, director of the Harag György Company at the Northern Theater in Satu Mare, added that their production of Richard III will now be performed in a third capital city thanks to the festival.

Playwright and dramaturg Kirill Fokin spoke about the emerging global minority theater organization, with the next important stage of the initiative coming at MITEM. He mentioned that in December 2025, representatives of interested theaters exchanged ideas at a webinar, including theaters representing the Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Welsh, Frisian, and Catalan theaters, whose productions will be featured in a special section of the festival.

The briefing was attended by Irén Novák, Deputy State Secretary for Arts and Community Culture at the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, who also emphasized the importance of joint thinking, highlighting that the National Theater, as a cultural strategy institution, has a huge role to play in dialogue with other cultures.

She said that it is no coincidence that there is such sensitivity towards ethnic theaters operating in a minority situation, as the head of the institution, Attila Vidnyánszky, himself came from such a situation and is well aware of the problems that characterize these communities.

Milan Rus, director of the Serbian Theater in Hungary and ministerial commissioner for the Serbian-Hungarian cultural season, emphasized that although Serbian theater has been present at MITEM every year, this year it will be even more prominent.

Via MTI; Featured photo: Facebook/Nemzeti Színház

The post 13th MITEM Festival Brings International Premieres to Budapest appeared first on Hungary Today.

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