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SILENT OBSERVERS

DE/BG, 96 min, 2024
Director, screenplay, editor: Eliza Petkova
Director of photography: Constanze Schmitt
Production: Red Carpet, Wood Water Films, rbb

With the decline of the population, a traditional way of life is coming to an end in a remote Bulgarian village: the camera follows the last remaining residents from the perspective of domesticated animals. Did the neighbour punish her violent son and turn him into a donkey? Is the cat possessed by a vampire? The villagers’ affection for the animals contrasts with the matter-of-fact way in which they treat them. With great attention to detail and for her four-legged protagonists, Eliza Petkova succeeds in creating a fascinating and mysterious portrait of a village.

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SABOTAGE

Written and directed by Yael Ronen
Translation and artistic collaboration: Irina Szodruch
Music: Yaniv Fridel and Ofer (OJ) Shabi

Jewish documentary filmmaker Jona Lubnik wants to shake up the complacency of his German fellow citizens with a provocative film. He has long avoided political issues, but now he feels compelled to act because he is convinced that the past must never be used as an excuse to remain silent about the present. His wife is a successful neurologist and fears that his film project could turn into a political scandal that would damage her career and the entire family.

In her latest play, Yael Ronen takes a sharp look at the mechanisms of (self-)sabotage and exposes them through comedy.

The premiere will take place on December 4, 2025, at 8 p.m. at the Schaubühne Berlin.

 

The Kurt Hübner Directing Award from the German Academy of Performing Arts and the City of Bensheim goes to Fritzi Wartenberg for her production of Werner Schwab’s radical comedy VOLKSVERNICHTUNG ODER MEINE LEBER IST SINNLOS at the Burgtheater in Vienna. “Fritzi Wartenberg’s approach to directing is fearless and incredibly smart,” explains juror Almut Wagner.

The award ceremony is expected to take place in March 2026 at the Parktheater Bensheim as part of the Gertrud-Eysoldt-Ring award ceremony.

Additional performance dates at the Burgtheater: December 3 and 21, 2025; January 10 and 17, 2026.

DIE ALLERLETZTEN

Written and directed by Marco Damghani
Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin
Part of 7th Berliner Herbstsalon ЯE:IMAGINE: THE RED HOUSE 

WAR AND PEACE. A stage essay about Russia, Ukraine, and compulsory military service
by Calle Fuhr in cooperation with CORRECTIV

In his new stage essay, Calle Fuhr addresses the question of what a contemporary security policy might look like. Does Germany need conscription again? Or is the new armament simply excessive? In search of answers, he examines the history of Vladimir Putin, the corruption surrounding the Nord Stream pipelines, and Russia’s strategies to harm Western democracies.

The world premiere will take place on November 22, 2025, at 7 p.m. at Depot 2 of Schauspiel Köln.
Additional performance dates: November 27, December 3 and 14, 2025.

The Peter-Weiss-Preis of the City of Bochum goes to Yael Ronen!

The jury unanimously selected Yael Ronen as the winner in the “Theater” category. In her work, “theater becomes a place of debate, collective self-questioning, and the possibility of empathy, without smoothing over the contradictions of the present.” Many of her plays “deal with trauma, resentment, and discrimination, with fears and moral ambivalence, often against a backdrop of extreme violence, war, and displacement. It is the same dark terrain that already preoccupied Peter Weiss. Like him, she takes a critical stance in her theater work—from a position that is deeply oriented toward life and dialogue,” the jury said in its statement.

NORA. EIN THRILLER

A play by Sivan Ben Yishai, Henrik Ibsen, Gerhild Steibuch and Ivna Žic
With translations by Tobias Herzberg and Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel

Director: Matthias Köhler

Almost 150 years after the premiere of Ibsen’s NORA, Matthias Köhler stages the bourgeois theater thriller in an adaptation by authors Sivan Ben Yishai, Gerhild Steinbuch, and Ivna Žic, who create a powerful field of tension between modern and past voices, also addressing Nora’s privileged situation and the perspectives of the children.

 

Die Premiere findet am 1. November 2025 um 18 Uhr im Antoniushaus des Theaters Regensburg statt.

 

CALL ME PARIS by Yana Eva Thönnes
a co-production of Schaubühne Berlin
and Biennale di Venezia – 53. International Theatre Festival

The world premiere took place on June 1, 2025, at the Biennale di Venezia in the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, and now CALL ME PARIS is finally coming to Berlin!

The play is about the traumatic memories of two doppelgängers from the noughties. The famous It girl Paris Hilton unwittingly becomes the star of a sex tape posted online by her ex-boyfriend, entitled “1 Night in Paris”, while in Bergisch Gladbach, a young girl nicknamed Paris finds herself in her own version of this video. To regain control over her image and ultimately over herself, Paris embarks on an eerie journey into the past. How did she become “Paris”? Where is the tape now? And if what we see is only a copy of the original, who is the girl on the screen?

The premiere at the Schaubühne Berlin will take place on October 29, 2025, at 8 p.m.

 

Since 2000, the NESTROY Prize has been awarded for outstanding achievements on Viennese and other Austrian stages.

In 2022, author Lisa Wentz received the Nestroy Prize for her play ADERN and now AZUR ODER DIE FARBE VON WASSER (AZURE OR THE COLOR OF WATER) is nominated for Best Play, which premiered at the Theater an der Josefstadt.

Director Jakab Tarnóczi is nominated for Best Newcomer for his production of the Austrian premiere of RUTHERFORD & SOHN (by Githa Sowerby) at the Schauspielhaus Graz.

There are also nominations for acting performances in the following productions:

• Stefanie Reinsperger as Best Actress in, among others, Fritzi Wartenberg‘s production of the world premiere of ELISABETH! (by Mareike Fallwickl) | Burgtheater
• Jörg Ratjen as Best Actor as Wolfram in the Austrian premiere of Marius von Mayenburg‘s ELLEN BABIĆ | Burgtheater
• Felix Kammerer as Best Supporting Actor in the role of Banic’s assistant in the German-language premiere of Ayad Akhtar‘s DER FALL MCNEAL | Burgtheater

The award ceremony will take place during the Nestroy Gala 2025 on November 23, 2025 at 7:00 p.m. at the Volkstheater Wien.

On 25 October, Ran Chai Bar-zvi received the Kurt Hübner Directing Award at the Eysoldt Prize ceremony in Bensheim.

He received the award for his production of BLUTBUCH, based on the novel by Kim de l’Horizon, at the Staatstheater Hannover (premiere in December 2023). The decision was made by Almut Wagner, head dramaturge at the Residenztheater and sole juror for the Kurt Hübner Directing Prize.
“Ran Chai Bar-zvi always handles even large, existential material with lightness and an incredible instinct for entertainment, […] yet he never runs the risk of trivializing the serious core of the plays,” emphasizes Almut Wagner – as in ‘Blutbuch’, the work for which Ran Chai Bar-zvi receives the prize.

The award has been presented to young directors by the German Academy of Performing Arts since 1991 as part of the Eysoldt Prize ceremony in Bensheim. The prize is endowed with 5000 euros.

BLUTBUCH by Kim de l’Horizon (stage adaptation by Ran Chai Bar-zvi and Michael Letmathe) will be performed again at the Staatstheater Hannover on November 15, 2025.
Tickets are available here.