Art is a primal need - even under siege, especially under siege.
Haris Pasovic
Many have asked me, 'Why have a film festival in the middle of a war?' But they have it backwards. The question is, 'Why have a war in the middle of a film festival?'
Football is probably the most democratic human activity. It belongs to everyone... to poor and rich, illiterate and educated, to all races, cultures, and nations.
There's no real theatre without taking risks.
Theatre, for me, is about providing to the audience a new and exciting experience.
The U.S. Declaration of Independence enshrines the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Alas, that is not the case everywhere in the world.
'Hamlet' is a universal story that concerns us all. These issues do not concern only Muslims, but all people equally, showing that we all share the same problems regardless of religion, nation and culture.
Yes, I am mad - like the Marquis de Sade was mad, like Giordano Bruno was mad, like Antonin Artaud was mad.
The 21st century is significantly different from the 20th century. The old models will not hold anymore. More and more, we are one people on Earth. We need to share our problems.
Art is freedom. If we don't have that element, we don't feel human anymore. Art is not decoration or a function. Before all that, art is art. This connection to meaning - our inner, intuitive knowledge - is something.
Europe is a much more complex historical, cultural, and geographical concept than is envisaged in the reduced approach by the European Union.
War and peace-making, human rights, humanitarian issues have become industries, but nobody looks closely at human greed, at the arms industry and the manufacture of landmines. Art has to take a wider view. The problems of Ireland are my problems, too.
In war, everything changes. You are very selective of what you do because everything you do can be the last thing you do in your life.
I work in theater, so I am always working in front of empty chairs. They represent a future presence. They are never just chairs.
The more film festivals, theatrical shows, and music performances and visual arts we have, the less chances there are for war. Art is hope, and it is found in hope, and that's why we need to share our experiences and cherish art.
The meaning of art in a time of suffering, a time of war, is much more intense. People are more focused.
Art can articulate new ideas.
I grew up in adoration of writers like Hemingway, George Orwell, Anna Akhmatova, and that has always been my idea about the artist - that you have to be a brave and freedom-loving person.
To come to the theatre, people have to make arrangements, change their clothes, find a babysitter, find a parking space - and they don't come after hard work to hear a lecture.
My theatre is not a conventional one. It is bold, serious, funny, confronting. It is anything but boring.
We need the daring visions. To go to theatre must be different than to go to shopping. We adventure together, we journey through the mindful and emotional landscapes, we create together an event, unique and unrepeatable.
The industry of political conflict is the biggest industry in Bosnia, and it is still not exhausted. What is needed is to replace these two industries - the industry of political conflict, the industry of human rights - with normal, creative walks of life.
Culture is a part of basic human nature, of deep humanity.
Life is not just food, it's something spiritual.
People have to have food for their souls.
My company is called East-West Theatre precisely because Sarajevo is this city on the border between East and West, the place where the Great Mosque and the Catholic Cathedral and the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral stand almost within touching distance of each other.
People come to the theatre in search of a real encounter with other human beings, and we must give them what they come for. Our capacity to do that is the measure of being human. And if the price is that we sometimes say something not very pleasant - well, that's precisely why people want us, in the end: because we speak the truth.
I think we are slowly killing liberty, creativity, intelligent thinking; it's as if we are being led into a world that is like a huge shopping centre, with a sort of anaesthesia about everything except the choice of goods in front of us.
Art has to be able to match life, to respond to the ever-changing forms of the world, to electrify the audience.
My company, East West, was founded on the premise that people need to group together and not be xenophobic, parochial, or provincial.
We realised that art, theatre, and music in Sarajevo were resistance at the deepest level.
I learned a lot about Ottoman court, and it was very Shakespearian in essence. Stories like the one in 'Hamlet' did happen several times in the 500 years of Ottoman history.
Every time has its own 'Hamlet.'
Individual acts have made Europe a civilized place and are key to its development. We must not forget it.
