Success of Skomrahi 2007: linking creativity The traditional Skomrahi meeting of students from film and drama academies was successfully held in Skopje / Macedonia.
The meeting as always started on the International Day of Theatre, March 27th and ended a week later, on April 3rd. This year, Skomrahi celebrated its 16th anniversary.
During the Skomrahi week, the international and Macedonian audience as well as around 200 participants from 12 countries and two continents had the occasion to see 12 theatre plays, 25 hours of film projections and visit five interesting workshops and one international scientific conference which dealt with the topic “Theatre and Memory”.
Film and drama schools from Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Macedonia, Romania, Wales, Slovenia, Uganda Serbia and Kosovo, and used the opportunity to exchange experiences and knowledge, meet their colleagues and show their own work. The meeting was founded in 1989 as a meeting of the film and drama schools from former Yugoslavia. Nowadays, it kept its South – East European focus but also welcomes guests from other countries. This year attraction was the guest performance of the artists from Uganda – the NDERE troupe (see photo).
The project is not only aimed at strengthening European cooperation of drama academies in order to encourage knowledge transfer and mobility among young artists and academics, but also seeks to create a positive attitude towards regional identity and cooperation among the future elite of actors and their audience in South East Europe, encourages arts production as a means of social critique and promotes civil society and a democratic Europe.
In Summer 2007, an international co-production workshop is going to be held at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts Graz/Austria with a mixed group of Austrian and Macedonian students. The “product of the workshop” is going to be a theatre performance which is going to be shown in Austria and at the Skomrahi 2008 opening.
Within the festival, also a donors conference was held to assure the sustainability of the project.
The Faculty of Dramatic Arts as the main organiser once again delighted the participants and the audience with perfect organisation and offering excellent conditions for the participants to show their performances, films and hold their workshops.
The project is financed by the Austrian Development Agency through World University Service Austria.
More information about the meeting and co donors available at www.skomrahi.ukim.edu.mk
