The Spectaculo Interesse 2019 expert jury (Kateřina Lešková Dolenská, Marek Waszkiel, Martina Maurič Lazar) awarded the following:
FESTIVAL GRAND PRIZE FOR BEST PERFORMANCE
the production Eh Man He | Zero en Conducta and Rotativa Performing Arts | Spain
AWARD FROM THE DEPUTY MAYOR OF THE CITY OF OSTRAVA
“for an intimate artistic approach to a contemporary theme”
Production: Invisible Lands | Livsmedlet Theatre and Grus Grus Theatre ry | Finland
AWARD FROM THE DEPUTY GOVERNOR OF THE MORAVIAN-SILESIAN REGION
“for a full-blooded acting performance and for the inspiring use of puppetry techniques”
Production: Goon: Bloody Revenge | IDDQD | Czech Republic
SPECTACULO INTERESSE FESTIVAL DIRECTOR’S AWARD
“for sparking the audience’s imagination”
Production: Upside Down | La Baracca – Testoni Ragazzi | Italy
HONORABLE MENTION
“for the theatrical treatment of the theme and the precise acting and animation”
Production: Alfa Farm | Alfa Theater | Czech Republic
HONORABLE MENTION
“for a powerful human message, realized through minimalist means in a production about children and for children”
Production: Nekde Drugje | Ljubljana Puppet Theatre | Slovenia
HONORABLE MENTION
“for creating a theatrical world that is accessible and relatable to the youngest audience members”
Production: Šššš. Šššš. Hůů. Haf! | Naivní Theatre Liberec | Czech Republic
CLOSING REMARKS BY JURY CHAIR KATEŘINA LEŠKOVÁ DOLENSKÁ:
“The jury of the 13th annual Spectaculo Interesse International Festival, on which I served alongside my wonderful colleagues Martina Maurič Lazar from Slovenia and Marek Waszkiel from Poland, faced a difficult task.
The main, i.e., competition program featured a total of 23 diverse productions, which differed not only in their means of expression and, of course, their chosen themes, but also in the target audience for which they were created. This ranged from productions for the youngest audiences—as young as one year old—through productions for preschoolers, for children of both younger and older school age, all the way to titles for teenagers and adults.
That immense diversity and variety of how puppet theater conveys a message is always fascinating. To see what the creators have devised, how far they’ve gone in their artistic quest, or to what traditional form they’ve returned. In this context, one can’t help but dust off and slightly modify the good old bon mot from the movie Forrest Gump: that it’s not life, but a puppet festival, that “is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re gonna get.”
So our jury spent the entire week carefully sampling the offerings, and we ultimately tried to organize our reflections on the contenders for festival awards according to the target age groups of the individual productions. Even so, it was no easy task. The festival’s programming had prepared a veritable whirlwind of performances for us.
Nevertheless, we ultimately managed to find some common threads and points of connection in the program, whether formal or thematic. First and foremost, we were deeply grateful to see that so many artists are not indifferent to what is happening in the world today, and that they are sharing their humanistic and compelling messages with audiences of all ages. Themes of migration, the search for a new identity in a different culture, loss of home, uprooting, and loneliness frequently emerged; the program also featured a production with an environmentally urgent message. It is clear that puppet theater is by no means limited to retelling fairy tales to entertain children, as most of society unfortunately still believes.
It is also very good news for the further development of our field that it is precisely through puppet theater in the broadest sense that we can tell stories that are gripping, compelling, timely, sad, cruel, full of pain, but also full of hope. And we saw that this can be achieved using both traditional puppets and ready-made objects, sophisticated technology or multimedia, but even something as simple as plain paper.
In short: we’ve just had a veritable feast of puppetry. The key criterion by which we ultimately awarded the prizes was to select productions that push the art of puppetry another step forward.”