The Interview with the Festival Director Michal Zetel

In 2019, Michal Zetel took over the position of festival director after prof. Peter Oslzlý. He is a graduate, lecturer, and vice-dean for artistic communication programs at JAMU. How does he view his position after directing three years of festival SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER, each of which turned out to be completely different? And what made him happy this year?

• Do you think that this year’s festival meets the saying “every cloud has a silver lining”? Can an online version of an international theater festival be beneficial in any way?

I would also like to use a saying: “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush”. There are definitely some examples of an online festival being quite beneficial, in terms of acquiring new skills, experience, technology, and all-around know-how of organizing a festival in the online environment which will still likely come in handy. I also think that it’s good training for overcoming obstacles and getting used to the fact that things are changing, I would say that in the near future, today’s world will have to go through many changes. I don’t think we can fully define the nature of those changes yet, but it will come and it will be crucial. And I believe that even after those changes, the world will still need theater and festivals, maybe even more than before

• Do you feel like these unfavorable times are an incentive for students and creators in the art department to create new and different forms, uncommon until now? Or is it more of an obstacle?

I wouldn’t evaluate it in any way. It simply is. The obligation of an artist, his very essence, is to react to the present time, To be the defender, the prosecutor, and the creator at the same time.

• How do you perceive your position as a festival director? Especially since the first year under your leadership took place under standard terms, the second year didn´t happen at all, and the third has now a completely different form from the previous ones.

You see, I haven’t really thought about that. Being a festival director for over three years now doesn’t really give you all that much experience, more so it focuses on relaying your experience to the student organizers. And then there are also various representative functions, speeches, communication with the jury, and so on. So I would call that function as a kind of guide.

• I was fascinated by the variety of foreign productions featured in this year’s main program. How do you perceive the differences between the creative process of foreign ensembles and ours today? And what do you value more, the topicality of the themes presented in the play, or their staging and presentation?

Nice question. Enough for an average-length dissertation. How to put it simply? I would say that the staging traditions and themes are common to individual areas, like for example, Central Europe. The Russian circle is again specific, which also applies to the former republics of the Soviet Union, whether they continue the tradition or try to deny it. Asian countries are another distinctive circle.

But even within these individual regions, there are many intricate differences and shifts, especially thematic ones, which may be visible during the discussions after the performances. For example, yesterday’s discussion with the creators of the Swiss production clearly showed us how advanced is the public discourse on environmental, gender, and political issues.

• What was the main impulse behind this year’s festival SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER having an online form? Was the option of the festival not happening at all ever discussed?

After the bittersweet experience of the completely canceled last year’s festival, not to mention during its thirtieth anniversary, we have agreed that this option is out of the question. 

The preparations that we go through each year cost us a huge amount of work, and we don’t want it to go to waste, even if the state administration and government of this country operated only at 30%. The consensus was pretty clear, though, at that point, such a festival would probably not make much sense in a pan-European context… 

• The motto of this year’s festival is JUMP, if I say the word, what is the first thing that comes to mind in correlation with theater.

To be honest, the first thing that comes to mind is Mr. docent Šmolík, legendary lector of acrobatics here at our theatre faculty, screaming at me to jump and roll down from the top of the stairs – I listened.

But when I take time to reflect, it’s basically every time I agreed with someone and committed to working on a particular project. That always poses some kind of a jump into the unknown during which you finally see where you´re falling and sometimes you catch on and sometimes it really is about the jump itself.

• Which part of this year’s festival program captivated you the most?

I would have to say I enjoyed the discussions the most this year. Since there is only a limited number of participants, when the moderator asks the creators a question, it’s always straight to the point. Everyone tends to delve much deeper into the problem than in a public discussion.

• This will be a bit more personal question but I would like to know what would be your dream encounter?

That is a very personal question. And my answer is quite personal, as well, because if I look past all the encounters with celebrities and other famous people, be it alive, or sadly departed (for instance Josef Karlík who I would still very much like to ask a ton of questions), the thing that I crave the most is to finally have an encounter with myself, in an existential sort of way. so far, though it’s not going very well.

Thank you for the interview

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