Palm Off Fest

Is it far? Divadlo pod Palmovkou is preparing the seventh edition of the international festival Palm Off Fest
Prague, 31 August 2023 On 1 September, Divadlo pod Palmovkou starts pre-selling tickets for the next edition of the Palm Off Fest, an international meeting of theatres (not only) in Central Europe. The festival, which focuses on political and social controversies, will take place this year from 13 October to 20 October 2023.
The subtitle of the seventh edition this time will be the motto Is it far away?. Indeed, this speculative question can be asked of every performance from the diverse selection from Poland, Kosovo, Moldova and Slovakia that we have invited to this year's edition. The events we have been living through in Europe for the last year and a half demonstrate all too clearly how fragile our European space is and how events that we may have perceived as far away until recently often affect us.
The festival will open with the Slovak National Theatre's production 24, which explores the emotions in Slovak society caused by the conflict in Ukraine. In the production, the audience will experience actors' confessions, stand-up and direct address by actors who have written some of the texts themselves. The fate of the Ukrainian newcomers, the attitudes of the Russian side, but mainly our relationship to what is currently happening in Europe make this production exceptionally topical.
Fear as an overarching theme is the theme of Mihai Eminescu's Siberian Writings, a Moldovan production of the National Theatre, which deals with Stalinist terror using the example of the Bessarabian Romanians. The terror unleashed by the Soviet leader resulted in the destruction of tens of thousands of lives in present-day Moldova, and the local society is still dealing with its consequences today.


The relationship between art and politics is explored by the Qendra Multimedia theatre company from Pristina, Kosovo, in their production Project Handke or Justice for Peter's Follies. The central theme is the controversial decision to award Austrian writer Peter Handke the honorary title of Nobel Prize winner for Literature, despite his well-documented support for Slobodan Milosevic.


Controversy may also be caused by the unconventional production of Easy Things, which breaks out of the usual theatrical schemes and is brought to Libeň from the Polish Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn by the charismatic, popular and award-winning actresses Irena Telesz-Burczyk and Milena Gauer under the direction of one of the most acclaimed Polish directors of the young generation - Anna Karasińska.
 In addition to the theatre programme, the festival will also present a rich accompanying programme; a lecture "The Near and Far Worlds of William Shakespeare" by Professor Martin Hilsky, poet, scholar and our greatest translator of Shakespeare's plays, or an exhibition by academic painter Teodor Buza, a Moldovan-born artist who will present his 99th solo exhibition at the Palm Off Fest. In addition, audiences can look forward to the traditional discussions with the creators after each performance and poetic theatre and music evenings.


The festival week will close with a concert by the music group Dunaj. It will be exceptional with the addition of the basic three-member line-up of Dunaje by the two music producers of this album - Petr Ostrouchov (formerly One Hundred Animals, now Blue Shadows) and Ondrej Mikula (Aid Kid, An Animal Named Autumn, Kittchen), and will be joined by singer Bára Zmeková.