The 9th edition of the Interferences International Theatre Festival organised by the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj will take place between November 3-17. The theme of this year's edition is 35 years since the regime change, which marks the 35th anniversary of the 1989 regime change in Romania.

This historic event marked a turning point for Romania and our community, opening a new era in both political and social terms. The regime change had a profound impact on the arts as well, including the world of theatre. The 15-day festival will be an excellent opportunity to reflect on our common past through the showcased performances, to assess our achievements and failures, and to chart the way forward.
 

The festival will feature such acclaimed artists as Oana Pellea, Géza Hegedűs D. and Ofelia Popii, as well as works by such distinguished directors as Nona Ciobanu, Attila Vidnyánszky Jr., Mihai Măniuțiu, Josef Nadj, Gábor Rusznyák, Gábor Tompa and Sardar Tagirovsky.

Although tickets have already sold out for several studio performances, some are still available, and there are also a number of main stage performances to choose from. Oana Pellea, the internationally acclaimed and award-winning Romanian actress, will be performing at Interferences again this year. She was most recently seen by Cluj audiences in The Chairs, directed by Gábor Tompa in Luxembourg, at Interferences 2022. This time she will be part of the festival programme with her one-woman show The Silent Escape, a production of the Bucharest National Theatre.

Dance and movement theatre lovers can also look forward to an exciting programme, with the first festival performance of the Székesfehérvár Ballet as well as the latest movement theatre production by Josef Nadj, Full Moon, whose production of Omma was a great success at Interferences 2022.
The production of the German State Theatre of Timișoara, Romanian Diary. Timișoara is a project that combines the art forms of film, photography and theatre. Its aim is to reflect the depth of relationships between people through uncensored, honest testimonies, while also taking into account the impact of the urban environment. The stories, based on the life experiences of the actresses, recall moments of happiness and pain, success and failure, trauma and depression, alienation and self-discovery, reflecting on the events of the last 30 years in Romania.

Géza Szőcs's dramatic play Rasputin is performed by the Harag György Company from Satu Mare. The production, directed by Sardar Tagirovsky, has made its debut at several festivals and won two awards at the Kisvárda Festival of Hungarian Theatres in 2020: the actor portraing the title character, Gábor Rappert-Vencz, won the Best Male Actor Award, while the Harag György Company received the Ministry of Human Resources Award for Outstanding Company Work.

The Budapest based company of Vígszínház will participate in this year's festival with a production about János Arany, entitled The One Who Has Nobody under the Blue Skies, directed by Attila Vidnyánszky Jr., whose name is already well known as his stagings of Romeo and Juliet, Young Barbarians and Janovics have been highly favored by Cluj audiences.

The 9th edition of the Interferences International Theatre Festival will also include works by several classical authors. Eugène Ionesco's absurdist drama A Stroll in the Air will be performed twice by the Lucian Blaga National Theatre in Cluj, while William Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It will be performed by the Stoyan Bachvarov State Theatre of Varna. Both productions are directed by Gábor Tompa. On the final day of the festival, audiences will be able to see the staging of one of Mikhail Bulgakov's most important works, The Master and Margarita, directed by Nona Ciobanu, a prominent figure in contemporary Romanian theatre, as performed by the Slovenian National Theatre of Nova Gorica.

The festival will also offer a special musical experience, with European violinists Annelie Gahl and Sascha Bota performing Béla Bartók's 44 duets for two violins.

In addition to the performances, there will be professional roundtables, audience meetings and book launches.

The festival is co-organised by the Corvineum Foundation, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Government of Hungary and the Bethlen Gábor Fund, as well as the Cluj-Napoca Mayoral Office and City Council.

The event is supported by the Union of European Theatres, Energobit, Communitas Foundation, UNITER and Cluj County Council.

Tickets for the performances included in the festival programme can be purchased online at huntheater.biletmaster.ro and at the theatre's box office. Tickets for the production A Stroll in the Air can be purchased at bilete.ro or at the box office of the National Theatre of Cluj-Napoca.

The theatre reserves the right to make changes to the programme!