The 31st edition of the Sibiu International Theater Festival, one of the largest and most important theater and performing arts festivals in the world, ended yesterday, June 30.
This year, FITS proposed to the public over 830 events, in which over 5,000 artists from 82 countries were involved. The theme of the edition was Friendship, and the official hashtags #PrieteniPeViata /FriendsForever and #FITS2024. It was an edition that gathered friends of the festival from all corners of the world and offered them the opportunity to meet art at the highest level.
During the 10 days of the festival, personalities such as John Malkovich, Tim Robbins, Isabelle Adjani, Pippo Delbono, Jan Fabre, Neil LaBute, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Lukasz Twarkowski, Rafaela Carrasco, Hervé Koubi or David Gutiérrez appeared before the public.
The last day of FITS ended with two special events. The closing gala of the Sibiu International Theater Festival took place on Sunday evening, at the Astra Museum in Sibiu, with the “Madrigal – Marin Constantin” National Chamber Choir staging the show Rituals, a concept show built around universal rituals. Directed by Emil Pantelimon and under the baton of conductor Anna Ungureanu, the Madrigal Choir offered an exceptional artistic treat to those present in the lake area of the Astra museum complex. The show was created especially for this year’s edition of the Sibiu International Theater Festival, and took place after sunset, on the shores of Lake Dumbrava. After the Madrigal Choir’s concert, multiple sequences dedicated to the rituals were staged in the museum space, until after midnight. The area around the lake became a great artistic universe, where the audience witnessed video mapping projections in the forest, at the same time being in permanent dialogue with the artists.
The second special event that closed FITS 2024 was the drone show, combined with eco fireworks and music, in the Theater Square. Compared to last year, this year’s show lasted longer, about 15 minutes, and involved 280 luminous drones that put on a real show in the sky of Sibiu, under the excited gaze of thousands of spectators gathered in the city center.
Also at the closing of the festival, thousands of people enjoyed the Gypsy Folie live concert in Piața Mare. The formidable Macedonian brass band took the West by surprise in 1997 with the album L’Orient est rouge. The characteristic stormy style of the band became extremely popular after that: their strong rhythmic drum section plus four tubas, pathos-filled soloists and funk elements of the music invite any kind of audience to dance. Eastern brass bands are a specialty of Roma throughout the Balkan region, from Serbia to Macedonia.
Last but not least, the last day of FITS 2024 brought numerous theater, music, dance and circus performances to the public. The Son of Florian Zeller was played at the Culture Factory – UniCredit, directed by Cristi Juncu from the Toma Caragiu Theater in Ploiești. Nicolas is a young man going through a difficult time. After his parents’ divorce, he remains in the care of his mother, Anne, while his father, Pierre, has remarried and has a little boy with Sofia, his second wife. Unable to adapt to the new reality, Nicolas isolates himself from school, friends and family, and the memory of the child always smiling, with contagious joy, becomes more and more distant. Restoring Nicolas’ emotional balance turns out to be more difficult than the two parents expected, even after he moves into his father’s house.
The street show Legend of Hamelin, a possible history of the Saxons brought before the public an incident told by many voices over time. It is assumed that the first Saxons came to Transylvania from Hamelin. Their journey has been imagined by all authors fascinated by fairy tales, being transformed into one of the most powerful stories about human vulnerability in the face of truth. The show is directed by Andrei and Andreea Grosu from the National Theater “Radu Stanca” Sibiu and was performed at the Evangelical Church in Turnișor.
A dreamland. Nostalgia for a past we didn’t live. Or that I forgot. A contemporary art curator, former singer in her youth, wins the selection to represent Romania at the Venice Art Biennale, with her performative installation called “10 things we lost at the Mamaia Festival”. Throughout the six months spent in Venice, 10 performers locked in the exhibition relive real or fictional memories from the history of Romanian light music, spent (or not) in Mamaia, linked to iconic stars, but especially to small, unfulfilled artistic destinies. That meant the show 10 things we lost at the Mamaia Festival, a production of the Constanța State Theater, by Gabriel Sandu, directed by Elena Morar and Gabriel Sandu. The show earned a nomination for the UNITER Award 2024 for Debut, Ramona Niculae and a UNITER nomination for the Award for Best Supporting Actor, Ștefan Mihai.
The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter was played at the Gong Theatre, directed by Andrei Huțuleac from the Metropolis Theater in Bucharest. Charlie hasn’t left the house in years. Not even to greet the couriers who deliver his food. Charlie is very sick. This could be the last week of his life. The show “Whale” turns us into witnesses of a lonely man’s attempt to come to terms with his own choices and, above all, to win the forgiveness of those he loves. The show earned a nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the UNITER 2024 Awards Gala – Sorin Miron. Also at the Gong Theater was staged the show Slave to two masters alla turca, by Carlo Goldoni / Kıvanç Kılınç, directed by Muhammet Uzuner. Italian writer Carlo Goldoni’s classic comedy, the world’s most performed classic comedy for centuries, is now adapted by Kıvanç Kılınç in 19th-century Istanbul, the last period of the Ottoman Empire. Adapting the text, Kıvanç Kılınç located the places and characters and created a rhythm by using rhyming language. Muhammet Uzuner staged the folk theater traditions of two Mediterranean countries, which have many similarities between them, by synthesizing the elements of “Commedia dell’Arte” and “Middle Play”.
The 32nd edition of the Sibiu International Festival will take place between June 20 and 29, 2025
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