"May BITEF not become synonymous with the destruction of artistic freedom, and democracy"
Statement by Milo Rau
(26 October 2025)
For the past year, I have been following the events surrounding the BITEF Festival with a mixture of disbelief and sadness: the scandal surrounding my last fall's opening speech, which was completely detached from the content of the speech; the dismissal of Nikita Milivojevic; the cuts in subsidies and the change of the legal framework of the festival by the Secretary of Culture. The latest decision by the festival's Board to disinvite my show “The Pelicot Trial,” which has now become public, completes this annihilation of artistic freedom of one of the biggest festivals in Europe. All in all, it is without a doubt the most damaging action against the freedom of art I have experienced in my entire career as an artist and curator in the last 20 years. For no comprehensible reason, one of Europe's most important festivals is being destroyed before our very eyes.
I therefore stand one hundred percent behind the artistic direction and the team of the festival in all my capacities: as a citizen of Europe who rejects this interference with artistic freedom, as well as any destruction of democracy. As an artist who has been closely associated with the festival for many years, greatly admiring its impressive programming and importance in connecting the local and international scenes. As the director of one of the world's largest cultural festivals, the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen), which produced the “Pelicot Trial” together with the Festival d'Avignon and now wanted to come to Belgrade to restage and perform it with local actors. And finally, as the initiator of the “Resistance Now” campaign that connects over 200 artistic institutions across Europe, opposing the curtailment of artistic freedom and working closely with the European Parliament, the UNESCO, and many other international institutions.
But that's not all: as part of a close partnership between the Vienna Festival and BITEF, various co-productions between Vienna and Belgrade are planned, all of which are now threatened with destruction, including the new play by the young Serbian director Andreja Kargačin. So I think that what is being destroyed here is more than “just” a program, but the reputation (or even existence) of one of the oldest and most important festivals in Europe. As I said in my opening speech last year: "I love this festival for many reasons: It is a festival that is both international and local. A festival that is as committed to beauty as it is to protest. A brave, a diverse festival." May BITEF not become synonymous with the destruction of all these values, synonymous with the destruction of artistic freedom, and democracy. We are currently only one step away from that.
Read the press release issued by the Artistic Direction Team for the 59th edition of BITEF