10 Jul Summary of the XVI KROKODIL Festival
Dear Friends,
We are proud to announce that yet another successful edition of the KROKODIL Festival is behind us. More than 2000 visitors enjoyed a rich program spread over three June days, featuring over 50 different events—readings, sofa interviews, mini-concerts, panel discussions, debates, professional meetings, theatrical performances, workshops, and more—with more than 100 participants, in two zones—the kids and debate zones—as well as on the main stage.
Numerous visitors who filled the space in front of the Museum of Yugoslavia enjoyed the free daily programs in the pleasant shade of Hyde Park during the hot days, alongside their children, family members, friends, and pets. Our food court provided refreshments and snacks, offering coffee, cold drinks, ice cream, hot dogs, and, of course, plenty of water.
It can be said that the festival atmosphere over the three days was pleasant, family-friendly, and positive, with favorable weather except for the second evening when rain postponed the evening program on the main stage. The event was rescheduled for the next day in the debate zone, when the weather was once again ideal. The rich combined program from the main stage and the daily debate program went according to plan and uninterrupted, much to the delight of the visitors. Despite the necessity of holding a real marathon of events that lasted from 11 AM until almost midnight, all were well attended by a cheerful, engaged, and wonderful audience.
International stars presented at this year’s KROKODIL Festival included Mathias Enard from France, Arnon Grunberg from the Netherlands, Iraqi-Finnish writer Hassan Blasim, and Andriy Lyubka from Ukraine.
The well-known KROKODIL sofa interview format was this year reserved for conversations with legendary rock photographer Brian Rašić and historian Dubravka Stojanović. On the third evening, Bosnian actor and writer Feđa Štukan was also supposed to join us for a sofa interview, but he was denied entry into the country. He landed at Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade but was held in the immigration department, from where he joined us via a WhatsApp call, thus allowing the Belgrade audience to hear him live, albeit in this manner.
The musical part of the festival was entrusted to three unique singer-songwriters. Duda Buržujka, Jelena Petošević, and Ane Paška captivated the KROKODIL audience with their exciting mini-concerts, each in her own way.
This year’s festival, the sixteenth in a row, also featured young authors whose time is yet to come but have already attracted readers’ attention—Nađa Petrović, Dora Šustić, and Filip Grujić. Alongside them, well-known and established voices of the regional literary scene, three great names—Marko Tomaš, Faruk Šehić, and Nikola Madžirov—also read their works.
On the final evening, the feminist performance “PeachPreach,” led by absolute regional literary star Rumena Bužarovska, presented for the first time in Serbia the unusual storytelling of women, transgender persons, and drag queens from the region in its newest and exclusive edition. The theme of the “PeachPreach” special was “Oral and Moral.” This storytelling event gathers women who humorously and very directly dismantle patriarchal value systems with their stories. At KROKODIL, the storytellers were Jana Jakimovska, Lila Milić, Mima Simić, Monika Herceg, Markiza de Sada, and Jelisaveta Blagojević.
In the debate zone, for the first time, we held B2B meetings of local, regional, and international publishers under the name “Meet me in Belgrade,” which will from now on continue to be held traditionally every year. This premiere edition gathered as many as 26 publishers from 9 countries and 10 linguistic areas! They had the opportunity to meet through short and dynamic conversations, similar to the popular “speed dating” format, and then to exchange experiences in more detail and initiate future cooperation through a series of longer “1-on-1” meetings.
The debate zone program also included panels on the future of literary and translation residencies and their role and contribution to publishing, the format of staged readings of dramatic texts, the state of civil rights in Serbia today and citizens’ awareness of them, disinformation and media manipulation, and undue influence on the rise of violence in our society.
We officially started KROKODIL’s new program unit, Fake News from the Past, with a conversation with the same title held in the debate zone. Moderated by KROKODIL’s board member Milena Berić, writer Arnon Grunberg, executive editor of Istinomer Milijana Rogač, professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts Ana Martinoli, strategic communications and public diplomacy expert, former head of operations for the Western Balkans Jasna Lambert, and historian Dubravka Stojanović spoke about media literacy today in Serbia, disinformation and how some EU countries are fighting it, where the Western Balkans stand regarding that efforts, deep fake content and political campaigns, attempts to manipulate information, and attempts to change basic cognitive knowledge among citizens, especially in the post-pandemic era. They also discussed which sources of information young people trust today and what fact-checking means when it seems that most leading online tools for verifying the credibility of information are losing ground.
The tenth jubilee gathering in the series of events titled Why Do You Say Love When You Mean War? was also held in the debate zone. Dolores Milošev Erdeg, Yasserstain, Klara Hrvanović, Pavle Cicvarić, Smiljana Tucakov, Dubravka Stojanović, Jasminka Petrović, Tamara Marković, and Milena Berić summarized impressions and topics we have raised during the events across Serbia in the past year, through an open discussion in two rounds. A strong focus of this conversation was on analyzing undue influence that leads to the rise of violence in our society, especially the one spread through political circles and systematically legitimized by far-right ideologies to strengthen nationalist beliefs, particularly among young people in Serbia. One of the central themes was defining and deconstructing the culture of violence and our societal contribution to that culture.
A special program segment in the debate zone was dedicated to Ukraine. The documentary film “Stolen Children of Ukraine” was screened, followed by the debate “Courage: Made in Ukraine,” where the audience had the opportunity to hear firsthand from Ukrainian authors Larysa Lebedivna and Andriy Lyubka about the current situation in their country and the fight against Russian aggression. The conversation left no one indifferent, further confirming our belief that through implementing various programs and activities that represent direct response to Russian aggression against Ukraine, we can make Serbian society better, more empathetic, and more cooperative regarding the suffering the citizens of this war-torn country are going through. An exhibition of photographs from KROKODIL’s humanitarian trips to Ukraine over the past three years, during which we delivered aid packages with essential supplies to the most vulnerable citizens, was also presented.
The daily programs in the kids zone brought a lot of excitement and positive energy. The youngest KROKODIL audience enjoyed a literary-art workshop led by our prominent children’s author Jasminka Petrović, with the participation of guest authors and illustrators for children and youth from abroad: Klarisa Jovanović from Slovenia, Mercè Galí from Spain, and Arianna Papini from Italy; a circus skills workshop conducted by Cirkusfera, where children had the opportunity to try juggling, hula-hooping, and to test their balance skills; inclusive art workshops of Petrykivka painting and stencil making in Pop art style; and group activities with therapy dogs, led by Svetozar and Jelena from the “Friendly Paw” Center for Pet Therapy. Children also watched two exciting theater plays, “Forest Fairy Tale” and “The Princess and the Pea,” performed by the Touring Theater Ćira. For the first time, we organized creative workshops for adults—an embroidery workshop in collaboration with Marina Čabrilo and art therapy in collaboration with Marija Trkulja.
We sincerely thank everyone who was with us at the XVI KROKODIL Festival!
Of course, we also owe gratitude to all the donors who financially supported the festival’s realization.
See you next year!
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