„Theaters are once again the common places of gathering. There are so many things that we can learn in the theater. It is not a place that offers false hopes to people, as politicians world-wide seem to be in the habit of doing.“  Those were the introductory words with which the director of the International Theater Festival MESS, Nihad Kreševljaković, greeted the audience at the opening ceremony of the 62^nd edition of the MESS festival taking place at the Sarajevo National Theater.  For the 62^nd time, Sarajevo is to be the theater center not only of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also of the entire region, being the host of theater companies and guests from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, Japan, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and, of course, Bosnia and Herzegovina, featuring drama classics in brand new apparel, interpreted in the spirit of the current political and global situation through political, emotional, controversial and “taboo” topics, as well as contemporary authorial productions. What is particularly important, the festival is also featuring authors of BH origins with their first-class European productions. 

In his address, Kreševljaković emphasized that theaters are places of pluralism and cosmopolitism; they are spaces open for different perspectives and spaces of freedom.

„Hence, this is a suitable place from which we can warn you about those phony actors who see the audience as a naïve electorate in front of which they most frequently overact. They will use theatrics to cloud people’s reasoning and stir the basest emotions. Beware those who will lead you into the darkness of ignorance as  such a concept is most favorable for the “extreme right cardinal side of the world” towards which the ship called the Planet Earth has been dangerously leaning in the past few decades –  since the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of the twentieth Century and the aggression against Ukraine at the onset of the 21^st Century. And so, with a view to welcome you to a better planet Earth, we say Welcome to the 62^nd International Theater Festival MESS!” said Kreševljaković.  

This year there is a particularly rich Mini MESS program featuring seven productions for the youngest audiences. This year’s edition of Mini MESS is fully committed to social inclusion. “MESS has opted for utmost respect for the youngsters and their pure, honest emotions with a view to present diversities through the use of subtle language of the theatre so that they might learn to accept them from an early age, develop compassion and learn to think independently and differentiate between good and evil. We do this in the hope that, once grown up and by building on these values, they will pursue to create a more righteous world.” said Una Bejtović, the Festival’s PR manager at the opening ceremony.  

The members of the TAINO band – Nedim Zlatar, Leonardo Šarić (aka Basheskia & Edvard EQ), Belma Zvizdić (aka Malbeku)  i Mirza Mutevelić (aka Atif ∴ ) have in their own, original way marked the beginning of the opening ceremony, interpreting the messages of the official visual representation of the 62^nd International Theater Festival MESS – the messages from drama classics that were penned a long time ago but remain exceptionally relevant to this day. Their collaboration in the music studio goes back a few years, the result of which, among others, is the original music for the Kotlina TV series. 

The 62^nd edition of MESS opened with the Zagreb Youth Theater production of Brothers Karamazov: All Happy Families are Alike , directed by Oliver Frljić. The festival ends on 9^th October 2022.