Performance from National Theater of Mannheim, Germany

In 1996 16-year old Oliver Frljić escaped from Bosnia to Croatia, fleeing war and becoming part of the nation of refugees. Being a refugee involves persecution and remaining at the mercy of state institutions due to circumstances entirely beyond your control such as place of birth or your parents’ nationality. In 2017, Frljić went into exile again. As director of the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka, he focused his work on the exploration of war crimes and trauma- in response, he met with death threats and public enemy status.

In this “second exile” Frljić can look back 20 years, when in 1995 he first came to Germany as an asylum seeker. The director, along with actors from Germany and former Yugoslavia portrays individual stories that illustrate the global refugee crisis. In an age of rising nationalism, intolerance towards minorities and threats to freedom of expression, we stand before the question: whence are you headed, Europe?

Oliver Frljić, born in Bosnia in 1976, studied philosophy and directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Zagreb. In his diploma project, he deals with themes such as Europe’s wartime past and future in the age of globalization, symbolic violence, the power of religion and tolerance for diversity. He is known to the Polish public from productions at the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw such as Trilogy on Croatian fascism: part III Croatian theatre, Curse or Cursed be the traitor of the fatherland as well as Our violence, your violence presented during the First Performances Festival in Bydgoszcz.


partner: Goethe Institut and German Ministry of Foreign Affairs