At the 5th International Festival of the Theatre for Children, the virtual puppet performance Thumbellina was awarded a special award of the professional jury for its contribution to the visual expression of the theatre for children.
Mini teater was again convincing with their virtual puppet performance Thumbellina, directed by Robert Waltl and produced by Forum Ljubljana and Cankarjev dom. The jury, lead by the theatre theoretician Henrik Jurkowsky (members of the jury were Dr. Miroslav Radonjić, a theatre expert from Novi Sad and Goran Babić, man of letters from Belgrade) awarded the main award to the puppet theatre Gulliver from Warsaw for their performance The Giant. Živomir Jokovič from the Puppet Theatre Pinokio from Zemun was awarded the prize for directing.
Seven awards for acting
The Puppet Theatre from Niš (Serbia) won the award for the best set design created by Zoran Lozančič. Seven equal awards for acting were won by: Milena Nikolič from Belgrade, Andrea Bakovič from Zagreb, Dario Paoleti from Foggia in Italy, Dragiša Kosara from Zemun, Hana Scharhors from Braunschweig in Germany, Svetlana Mihajlovič from Niš in Serbia and Georgi Angielow from Warsaw.
Andersen in modern remake
Thumbellina was created after the motives of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale. It is a combination of computer animation with a puppet performance taking place in a virtual environment. The animators have brought the characters to the screen and through help of the young audience they help saving the main character involved in different situations.
The authors of this concept are Darij Kreuh and Tadej Fius from Ljubljana, the visual concept was created by Ana Košir (Ljubljana), the music was written by Špela Avsenak and Jelena Ždrale (both from Ljubljana), the dramaturgy was made by Ivica Buljan (Mini teater Ljubljana), the animator in the performance is Robert Waltl (Mini teater Ljubljana). So far, Thimbellina was presented in a number of international festivals: Croatia, Cuba, Venezuela, Poland, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Italy and Austria; in November it will take part in the Theatre Festival in Lahore, Pakistan. .
During this year Festival in Banja Luka, 13 theatres took part with their performances: from Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Belarus, Hungary, Israel, Slovenia and Serbia. The Festival lasted six days and it was opened by the Theatre Boško Buha from Belgrade.
