Though it is only mid-summer, preparations have already been completed for the 41^st Belgrade International Festival (Bitef ), which will be held this year from September 15-30 under the slogan "This is Theatre Too". This was an occasion to interview Nikita Milivojević, the theatrical director and Bitef’s manager since 2005.

By Vesna Knežević Baletić

The general impression is that this year Bitef has started on time. How far have you come in preparing for the 41^st Bitef?

- With the first press conference held at the beginning of June, we practically finished the most difficult part of the programme planning for the 41st Bitef. We finished play selection three months before the Festival is due to begin, then we signed contracts with theatrical groups, put tickets on sale, made agreements for performing spaces (and other technical details), launched a marketing campaign ... we have actually finished more or less everything in terms of preparation. At the Bitef site you can get information about the Festival, see excerpts from plays, buy tickets… Just like with directing, preparations are actually the most important and most difficult part of the job. In this, my experience as director is probably my greatest help: without good preparations, there is no good play! The same is true of preparations for Bitef: the two weeks in late September are the result of everything we have worked on during the whole year.

You don’t often fi nd that a theatre festival has its own theatre. How does this function in the case of Bitef and what are the advantages, if any, of such a model?

- It is really an enormous privilege for a festival to have its own theatre… If during all these years the Festival has proved to be a forum for the continual exploration and identification of elements that are new in theatre, then Bitef is a living model of such a concept, something like a studio of the Festival! That is, it seems to me, the reason for its existence. In this sense, Bitef Theatre ought to be subversive theatre in its excess.

And we really need such a place because it implies change, broadening borders, exploration and, over time, it becomes something more than theatre! Somehow, I believe that Bitef Theatre was conceived to be just this when it was founded 18 years ago. Naturally, as with every marriage, both the Theatre and the Festival have passed through various phases in their relationship. It seems to me that the Festival being older, more important, famous and attractive, has slightly overshadowed the Theatre. What we are now attempting to do is bring the Festival and Theatre closer, more precisely, to unite them. I think that Bitef Theatre should benefit more from the Festival… I can say that for me, personally, this is what has motivated me and has been the reason to come to Bitef (apart from the known fact that every director’s dream is to have his "own" theatre!).

- Bitef Theatre has abandoned the repertoire system that prevails in our theatre in favour of the so-called block-system of working plays. What does that actually mean and what are your first experiences?

- Bitef Theatre has a small number of employees, and partners engaged on a project are bound by contracts so there is no permanent ensemble, allowing us to create a repertoire with more freedom … In Bitef Theatre it is possible to work on the principle of the play, meaning that casting is mutually agreed upon among actors i.e. actors choose actors, which is something I am familiar with because in recent years I’ve mostly worked in such theatres and I like the atmosphere of a small selected team. We have concluded that we should use all these advantages in the best possible way, and as of this season we produce premieres in "blocks" of 10, or up to 20 plays. The first results absolutely favour this way of work in every segment, from the number of people in the audience, the number of runs, profit… It is also much easier to organize this way of work so that the old "repertoire system" is like comparing a typewriter to a computer.

- The creative economy claims that culture and sport, apart from being the best and most eff ective in representing a country, are also profitable products in the world. What are Bitef’s experiences and plans in this context?

- On the theatrical map of the world, we can really be proud of Bitef, which permanently connects us to the world through everything that is new, modern, avant-garde, contrary to clichés and conventional thinking. Last year, we seriously began working on some changes within the Festival, which is, I believe, already evident. It is connected to the issue of the longterm strategic development of Bitef, actually to use what is known today in the marketing world as 'brand'. This year we launched a campaign to better ‘sell’ the trademark Bitef, primarily in the region.

- What is the purpose of "Show Case" as an accompanying programme of Bitef, within which plays from the repertoires of our theatres will be presented?

- The 'show case', like other innovations (for instance the block-system), is the result of experiences from other festivals and milieus. Every year, some 40 prominent guests from the world attend the Festival and it is logical to offer them something from our domestic production. From my own experience I know that, wherever I go, I try to learn more about domestic theatre, writers, directors, actors… The majority of plays in the main programme you can see at other festivals because festivals have become something like a big market in which plays are sort of netted, they move from one festival to another, they are scheduled a year in advance as guest performances, sometimes even earlier than that… We are now trying to become part of this big market and Bitef is just the right place to offer what is currently most important in our theatre. I believe that this segment is now very important for us and that it should be especially designed for this purpose … Whatever guests from abroad tell us about our plays and theatre is very useful to hear!

- This year in mid-July, Bitef was a guest at the Venice Biennale?

- That is part of the general new strategy I am talking about. These are the advantages of the Festival that Bitef began to exploit as its most important objective.

Bitef Theatre, in the last two years, has had some ten co-productions with foreign theatres and festivals, and currently we are the theatre that tours the most outside the country. We’ve had premiers in Holland, Germany, Greece, Austria, Poland, Denmark… we have performed in more than 30 cities and this year, for the first time, we were guests at the Venice Biennale! This was a co-production of Bitef and the National Theatre of Užice with a guest director from Italy, Andrea Paciotto, and the play is Servant to Two Masters, the Goldoni play.

- How do you coordinate your engagements as director and as manager of the Bitef Festival and Theatre? Are there any similarities between these activities?

- Essentially, these are all similar things… Anytime you deal with work, there is always the question of direction. A director’s way of thinking assumes that your attention may be divided but that you always have a feeling for the whole, that you think quickly, combine, made decisions and, what is more important, you sometimes decide quickly what is essential and what not… I have to admit that I feel a special excitement in all this. Actually, the total mess in which I find myself at the moment…I view as one useful phase in directing, which will last for awhile and pass…