PROFESSIONAL JURY

SOFIJA MIJATOVIĆ LAZAROV

Sofija Mijatović Lazarov was born in 1994 in Kragujevac and grew up in Gruža, a small village in the Šumadija region that, as she says, shaped her more than any biography could capture. She spent her childhood in the hills, among forests, fields, and groves, with karate, folklore, books, long walks, and summers by the sea. Growing up in nature, a love of reading, and long talks about books marked her long before she took up acting. That landscape, that nature, and those people became the world she still often returns to in her mind.

She earned her degree in acting and went on to complete her master's studies at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, where she received the “Peđa Tomanović” Award for best master's student. She has performed theatre roles at the National Theatre in Sombor, the Children's Theatre in Subotica, and other theatres, and today she is a member of the ensemble of the National Theatre in Subotica. She has won several acting awards, and the role of Akiko in the performance "I Am Akiko," created in co-production between the Cultural Center of Pančevo and the Festival of Ecological Theatre for Children and Youth (FEP), brought her several honors. The performance toured throughout the region, from large cities to the smallest villages, reaching thousands of children and young people.

She believes that every performance has its own scent, that silence on stage can say more than words, and that people really can change, even if it is sometimes painful. She also believes that small details like these often say more about a person than any biography, numbers, or awards.

NENAD KOJIĆ

Nenad Kojić is a composer, sound engineer, musician, and professor. He was born in Novi Sad on January 19, 1985. He attended elementary school, high school, and music school in Bačka Palanka. After finishing elementary music school for piano, he began exploring music, drums, and percussion. A few years later, he met the eminent percussion professor Miroslav Karlović, whose guidance introduced him to the roots of percussion instruments. He began his musical career at not quite 18 years of age. In 2005, the Berklee Summer School named him the best drummer of its summer program in Perugia. After completing his studies of sound design at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, he conceived and patented his own hybrid instrument, the “Neštofon,” which he uses and presents as part of the group “Mr. Balloon”. Every moment of inspiration, he captures by composing. He has performed with prominent musicians, plays in several productions, and also composes for film and theatre, work for which he has received awards in Serbia and the region. He has been a full professor of drums and percussion at KC Sklonište since 2013, and since 2020 he has been a member of the Artistic Council of the Novi Sad Jazz Festival.

KATHARINA LANDSBERG

Katharina Landsberg (1997) studied cultural and media education at Merseburg University of Applied Sciences from 2016, for which she received the Germany Scholarship (Deutschlandstipendium), awarded by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce Halle/Dessau. During her studies, she regularly carried out theatre projects with children and young people. In her bachelor's thesis at Merseburg University of Applied Sciences, she explored gender (in)equalities in the theatres of the German-speaking world.

Since 2020, Landsberg has been studying Theatre Studies at Ruhr University Bochum and works as a freelance theatre educator and dramaturge. Since the 2022/2023 theatre season, she has headed the youth section at the Central Saxony Theatre in Freiberg/Döbeln.