SKENA UP
Theater and Movie Festival
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Day three

The annual theater and film festival "Skena Up", was supposed to start on November 17, coinciding with the Election Day. So, it was postponed for a later day. There seem to be quite interesting plays and movies, and the organizers really worked hard to continue doing this festival on a yearly basis. In the beginning, I must admit that I kind of had this feeling that this won’t last for a year or so. But it did and I’m glad. People have new places to go, and for a little while forget the smoke filled cafes that have become so ordinary. This year’s theme is dedicated to Faruk Begolli, a great actor that passed away a few months back. I wanted to go see the plays and moves from the first day so bad, but could not, but finally tonight nita and me managed to go see two plays: One was from Serbia: “The Story of Tea” (played at the ODA theatre – insert link), and the other one was from Iran: “The Last Royal Smile of the Moon” (played at the National Theater).

We were gonna see two plays at ODA Theatre, and actually we wanted to see a play that was directed by a friend of ours, but were surprised to find out that he was rescheduled at a later date.

We enjoyed the story of tea a lot (an adaptation of “The Three Sisters”), particularly the way the four actors moved and danced around, and they had great costumes. I don’t know much about acting, but you could easily tell that the three middle-aged/super-vital ladies, and the bald/Yugoslav named actor were real professionals. One of the actresses had more biceps muscles than me, and was super thin. The only male part of the play was acting in a quite feminine way as well. The performance was fantastic, as they depicted the wars/tragedies during the war in Bosnia. My eyes were watery at one moment, during a beautifully choreographed scene where a woman laid clothes and the others wept. The actors briefly explained the history of tea, and I was glad that they mentioned that green tea is good, because I drink a lot. Fresh/hot tea was handed to the public, and in the end, actors put candles on those cups of tea, making an eerie yet “in memoriam” scene for all of those who died during the wars. It was so perfectly performed and the story was implicitly stated. One more thing that’s worth mentioning is the bilingual dialogue the actors used: Most lines were in English, but then there were lines where they spoke in Serbian, which was okay. Pictures courtesy of Nita.



We rushed to get nita a pill for her headache, and then went to the other play at the National Theater. Roozbeh Nasseri’s play disappointed. The theater itself was cold /I could feel my nose freezing/, and the play was dull. It did not help that the whole act was in Iranian, which me and nita cannot understand. The music was awful – they choose songs that were shit, shit, and shit. Then the actors (more than six), did not impress. I slept for a minute or two, and then we left. I really did not want to do that, but if we stayed there a little longer, we would have slept or died from the cold.
The festival is running until the 27^th of November. So there should be lots of great movies/plays to go and see.
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