The programme of the 24th International Festival of Puppetry Art showed the most important trends in the world of puppetry. The multitude of techniques, trends and a diverse approach to understanding the essence of animation and scenic imaging, combined with a compilation of performances so culturally, aesthetically and worldviewed, made the proposed performances fully familiarize the festival audience with the richness and diversity of puppetry art. Viewers had the opportunity to see great masters of animation (including Wong Fai, Claire Heggen, Karin Schäffer, Duda Paiva), renowned theaters (including Figurentheater Vilde & Wogel, Staré Divadlo by Karol Spišák v Nítre, Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté) as well as culturally distant performances presenting the best puppet traditions (Hong Kong Puppet and Shadow Art Centre).

The artists present at the Festival, the great individualities of the theater, combine the search and discovery of new ways and techniques of using the puppet as a means of communication with the audience. The doll as a medium, a silent medium of content and meanings, which referred us to the images, memories and experiences we had already seen, was not only an element that gave a common denominator to the presented shows, but also a topic of discussions around the festival.

The presented shows proved that their creators, strong stage individualities, present their own, expressive vision of the world - they show their time with its problems. They express themselves through performances that interpret reality, while looking for a separate language of expression. Theater is a place of creation for them: they create intriguing performances, fascinating with their mystery and magic, suspenseful, touching and funny. Diverse in terms of conventions and styles, surprising with ideas and staging solutions. Performances that are not meaningless.

Competition performances were assessed by:

PROFESSIONAL JURY

Ida Hledíková - theater historian and critic

Andrzej Łabiniec - director and set designer

Janusz Ryl-Krystianowski - director, chairman of the Jury

Tadeusz Kornaś - theater critic

JURY OF YOUNG CRITICIANS

works under the supervision of Paweł Sztarbowski - a theater critic

Marta Feluś - theatre studies of the A. Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw

Anna Bocheńska - Jagiellonian University

Joanna Gdowska - University of Wrocław

Olga Ząbroń - Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow

CHILDREN'S JURY

Children from the Grodzki Theater Association working under the supervision of Justyna Kostuchowska

Dominika Janura

Karolina Hochałus

Bartek Herma

Dawid Hochałus
 
 The Grand Prix of the festival was awarded by the main jury to the play From the Jungle Book - Divadlo Minor (Prague, Czech Republic). Special prizes were awarded to the performances Iwona, Princess of Burgundy of the Opole Puppet and Actor Theatre (Opole, Poland) and Kefar Nahum - Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté (Brussels, Belgium (Wallonia-Brussels)). The Young Critics Jury awarded The Curse of the DudaPaiva Company (Amersfoort, The Netherlands). The Children's Jury awarded the Kino Palace performed by Lalka Theatre (Warsaw, Poland). The POLUNIMA's Honorary Diploma went to Nicole Mossoux from Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté for the perfect implementation of puppet theatre in Kefar Nahum.