146 KM from the Siret customs post, the Piatra Neamț Theater Festival explores a complicated present

The Piatra-Neamt Youth Theater Festival will take place September 5-18, featuring the participation of eight different countries: Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, France, and Germany. The theme of this year's edition is 146 kilometers, representing the distance between the Youth Theater in Piatra-Neamț and the Siret Customs on the border between Romania and Ukraine.

"146 km is a distance that separates two realities: that of troubled normality and that of a war marked by unacceptable violence. 146 km can mean a comfortable distance or a disturbing one, a closeness that generates anxiety or solidarity. Ultimately, the sense of closeness depends on how you choose to mentally relate to an ongoing situation that is out of your control,” says festival curator Gianina Cărbunariu.

“The Piatra Neamt Theater Festival will bring to the 33rd edition a variety of artistic visions whose common denominator is the critical spirit and the desire to find meaning together in a world that seems increasingly incomprehensible. We would like this moment to be one of reflection on the global context we are going through, of dialogue between artists and local audiences,” she adds.

This year the festival continues its curatorial direction, reflected in the selection of performances and events that make up the national section, the international section called Something to Declare, the TT in Festival section, and the Festival+ section, containing concerts, exhibitions, book launches, or workshops.

According to Agerpres, the national section includes aesthetically bold performances with a contemporary concept, which present a critical vision of the challenges facing us in today's world.

The international section brings together productions by artists from Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Germany, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, and France, who propose themes to reflect on the realities of a present-day Europe facing multiple challenges, the most complicated of which is the war.

The TT in festival section presents the most recent productions of the Youth Theater. The Festival+ section features six exhibitions, four book launches, two concerts, three film screenings, two workshops, and a video mapping circuit.

At the end of the festival, the Cătălina Buzoianu Prize will be awarded to one of the performances, in celebration of a former director “whose activity in the 70s and 80s marked the aesthetic path of the Youth Theatre", as the source states.