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Welcome to the 10th anniversary edition of the Nosi se Festival.

Nosi se began in Zadar in 2016 as a showcase of our own work under the title Nosi se – Teatro VeRRdi Collection 2015/2016. The very next year, the showcase expanded its multi-day programme of performances to include guest Croatian and international partner organisations, while in its fourth year a discursive, research-based format entitled Diskurzivni relej (Discursive Relay) emerged within the programme. This rounded off the programme’s dialectical and festival character, both in content and form. This process of development enabled the performing arts to be contextualised through reflective discourse open to the audience — directly, without barriers, in a Mediterranean square or street.

“It could also be said that the festival has always functioned as a kind of open banquet, but no less as a place where culture opens up its most provocative, most painful points to further discussion — within the shelter and safety of a celebration open to all.” N. Govedić, NL, 2023.

Over a decade of intense encounters, around a hundred experts from the fields of art and science have engaged, convivially, with one another and with audiences, addressing the festival’s chosen themes — themes of importance to the exercise of understanding. We had the privilege of listening to some of these people towards the end of their lives. Sadly, some of them we will no longer have the opportunity to encounter among the living. We are grateful that they were with us.

In an agora-style setting, under the open sky, we pledged ourselves against war; against the alienation of a Mediterranean that resists through its audacity; we celebrated the language of dissent and rock’n’roll; questioned the ethics and aesthetics of secular spirituality; inaugurated the concept of the collective protagonist; built new beginnings out of nothing; imagined and invoked revolutions — personal and intellectual, at least, if not capable of setting society itself in motion. Always with a focus on the work we do and its relationship to dominant narratives and models of public action.

And yes: we have always been provocative and political, in the interest of truth and freedom.

Since 2023, Teatro VeRRdi has withdrawn all of its programmes from Zadar because of its disagreement with the city’s cultural policy.

“Why should Jure Aras pretend that it is perfectly normal for Zadar to fund pseudo-touristic events, but not independent culture?” N. Govedić, NL, 2023.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, this act left Zadar’s cultural policy indifferent, while our audience and Zadar’s cultural scene became collateral damage of this radical and risky move.

Useless.

Under these new circumstances, the Nosi se Festival continued its programme in Benkovac, a small town that inspires us with its Mediterranean defiance and its powerful contrasts between urban and rural environments — and promises something particularly dear to us:

confrontation.

The promise was fulfilled with merciless intensity.

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The risk inherent in our provocative character… well, did it pay off?

In 2025, it triggered an eruption of social hysteria in Benkovac directed against the festival itself and against everything and everyone it seeks to represent. As a result, the festival has now been severely cut down, both financially and energetically. Yet it is important that the festival survive such a blow — both in its own interest and in the interest of the democratic order. It must not allow itself to be thrown off balance. On the contrary: it must establish balance.

Instead of celebratory splendour, this year we have quantitatively the most modest programme in our history. But we are going straight to the heart of the matter, with progressive voices.

We are carried away by the idea of humanism — the Human Being stands at the centre: a resilient machine of desires and beliefs who no longer needs to conjure imaginative visions of the end of the world, because they already stand naked before his eyes. (Take only the contamination of drinking water as an example.)

By humanism we do not mean strictly the scholarly definition of a philosophical movement. Rather, we look to theory for signposts towards humanity, compassion, equality and sustainability — all the way down to sheer survival.

The whole world is a dynamic dialectic of social constructions and forces. In that sense, we should not seek unity between opposing sides, but precisely confrontation, as we have done until now. A democratic order does not mean merely the right to vote and elect representatives, nor — God forbid — the smug and selfish rule of an unaccountable majority. It also means that every individual actively reflects upon social relations, with a responsible sense of equality within the community and with care for nature and the resources upon which our lives depend.

We should not expect opposing sides necessarily to move closer together. We should instead hope for a dialectic that directs progress towards a sustainable relationship within society as a whole.

The first condition is non-violent communication and freedom of speech.

The second: resistance to capitalism.

Capitalism is the opium of the people — only much better monetised.

Capitalism today may be showing its ugliest face yet, precisely because things are not going particularly well for it. Walking hand in hand with it is nationalism, masking reality with myths and conducting a cacophony of identity meanings.

This is what we must resist.

The key lies in clear humanistic relations of solidarity and economic responsibility — principles that, as societies, we have agreed upon repeatedly throughout history, predominantly in the aftermath of tragic global events, only to forget and violate them again. Those agreements need to be renewed and advanced: through socialism, communism, Zen Buddhism or, why not, Christianity — just never, under any circumstances, through fascism.

Let us abandon conflicts whose outcomes have been agreed upon in advance. These times favour no one except the demon of capital, which has a tendency to accumulate into ever greater concentrations controlled by ever smaller groups — so that even those who swear allegiance to it ultimately suffer at its hands.

(Consider the contamination of soil, where nationality and belonging to a particular social community play no role whatsoever. Belonging is measured solely according to the logic of capital, which unscrupulously makes use of criminal practices within criminal milieus.)

Let us question our own identities and try to find harmony in a faith in the solidarity of human beings, conscious of the limitations of our own existence.

Boundaries undoubtedly need to be drawn — the only question is according to which criteria, against whom, and in what manner.

Throughout the history of human societies, nationalism has also played a positive role in processes of communal emancipation. Today, however, it is predominantly an aggressive illusion serving capital and crime. We are nationally emancipated enough that we should now return the social thought displaced from the twentieth century to the historical stage of the twenty-first — armed with new experience, for the benefit of humanity.

And this is not merely utopian. Examples at both European and global levels demonstrate this, including major cities such as Graz and New York, led by people from the political left. There is no question of socialism having left the world stage forever. As anticipated in the very theory of its emergence, it is painfully transforming itself, questioning itself and returning to its beginnings in search of a new path.

Capitalism, at its core, possesses no such capacity for self-questioning — and that is what makes it so ruthlessly destructive.

Although it always comes down to human beings, because ultimately it is the human being who is the protagonist of change, we should not confuse this fact with the idea that capitalism will become better if only people become better.

No. The problem is in the system!

And human beings must become conscious of that. Because of course there are good capitalists, just as there are good nationalists. What matters is understanding what these systems and beliefs bring to — and take away from — our social relations.

We do not renounce provocation. Provocation surprises and produces a spontaneous response: laughter, anger, sadness, joy…

We avoid predetermined, conformist relations without progression; they pass judgement in advance. The laughter we surrender to when arriving at an announced comedy is different from the laughter that unexpectedly catches us by surprise. The first is a prearranged mechanics of expectation, confirming what we already know — a path towards the rejection of the new.

What we do not know, or only vaguely sense, is released through surprise, which becomes a springboard towards understanding and exhilaration.

That is our mission, and we remain faithful to it — as we remain faithful to our homeland.

In solidarity, locally and globally.

We invite everyone to participate — to a celebration of reflection, knowledge and humour; to cross our positions, whether opposed or united, whichever they may be, and, God willing, to surprise ourselves and have some fun.

(Perhaps something may yet come of all of us, different as we are.)

For Nosi se.

For Benkovac.

Be carried away by the idea of humanism!

Juraj Aras
Artistic Director, Nosi se Festival
13 August 2026