It’s no coincidence that this year’s Mladi Levi (Young Lions) are truly young, strongly marked by the emerging generation of creators, with temporality and the future as the recurring themes of the performances. However, not in terms of reflecting on utopias or grand ideological truths and innovations, but rather in terms of feelings – anger, resentment, satire, and on the other hand, joy, happiness, hope… As if in this world, we (particularly the youth) no longer want to face the major issues or ultimate decisions and truths (because it seems unproductive?), but rather try to sense the spirit of the coming times, our inner impulses; a new kind of intimism, but one that is collective rather than individual – not my world, but rather our shared transcendence; not my story, but rather how we can be together.

In her novel What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt attributes the following statement to the main character who is passionate about art: “Inevitably, good works of art have what I call an ‘excess’ or ‘plethora’ that escapes the interpreter’s eye.” We like to believe that our festival and the works of art we are showcasing also embody some of this excess or elusiveness. The festival is more than the sum of its performances; with its invitation to a temporary community and shared experience, it eludes thematization or common ground, because it must be … enjoyed together. At the same time, tangible definitions are only possible for what has already been experienced and explained, while we are trying to arrive at something new, at the future. Even for performances at this year’s Mladi Levi, it seems that after a powerful period in which art sought to address political wounds or the wounds of the community through direct interventions and without euphemisms, this year’s artistic works are not marked by a lack of courage to name problems by their real names, nor by resignation, but rather by a shift towards cracks and feelings of something that is not yet articulable but is approaching, hanging in the air, full of promise. In some of the atmospheres created by the performances of the Mladi Levi 2025, there are also hints of “monsters” that lurk in the suspense of something new being born. The present time eludes interpretation, not only because we are immersed in it, but also because its growing complexity deprives us of the possibility of unambiguous answers, while at the same time the clarity of everything that is wrong and our inability to influence change paralyse our belief in the possibility of change. And if we once believed that theatre could lift the curtain and reveal the future, perhaps today’s art is more about confronting the impossibility, elusiveness and complexity, and the fact that we cannot just think about things, but must also experience them, feel them, and share them.

However, believing in the future does not mean abandoning the present. Although our production and curatorial team is determined to allow art to seek out cracks into the future and new experiences, intuitions, even promises – if we are committed to the autonomy of artistic creation and do not fill the programme with answers to our questions and preconceived ideas or topics, but rather by feeling our way through the spirit of the times, by opening up space for new voices and experiments, we must nevertheless look the current reality and the catastrophes we are witnessing in the eye. Without resignation, without cynicism, and with the hope that perhaps even gestures and micro-efforts still count for something.

Thus, this year’s Mladi Levi festival offers you the opportunity to join us in a gesture of support, raise your voice against genocide, and feel less alone in your frustration about not being able to effect change. It also brings vibrancy, harmony, anniversaries, and applause as a way of observing our surroundings… We are counting on a lot of “excess” and “plethora”. There has never been a year of the festival when there was peace in the world. Let’s hope we live to see it – and then experience it – in the future.

Mladi Levi festival team