INFORMATION PORTAL OF THE MARSHAL'S OFFICE OF THE KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE Region IN TORUŃ

The creators of the play Ophelia’s Got Talent received the main prize of the 29th Kontakt International Theatre Festival, funded by Marshal Piotr Całbecki, and the Youth Award, granted by theatre school students. The jury also awarded individual prizes to Karina Krzywicka from the Horzyca Theatre and Maciej Stuhr from the Komedia Theatre in Warsaw. The winners were congratulated by Elżbieta Piniewska, President of the Regional Parliament.

 

Twelve competition performances were presented during the festival. The jury, consisting of Lithuanian theatre expert Ramunė Marcinkevičiūtė, playwright at the National Theatre in Brno Barbara Gregorová and artistic director of the Culturescapes festival in Basel Jurriaan Cooiman, awarded:

 

• the main prize of Marshal Piotr Całbecki to the performance ‘Ophelia’s Got Talent’ directed by Florentina Holzinger from the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin,

 

• the Toruń Mayor Paweł Gulewski Award for the most interesting personality of the festival to Ivan Uryvsky from the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theatre in Kyiv for the performance ‘Caligula’,

 

• the award for best actress to Karina Krzywicka from the Wilam Horzyca Theatre in Toruń for her role in the performance ‘The Torment of Life’,

 

• the award for best actor to Maciej Stuhr from the Komedia Theatre in Warsaw for his role in the performance ‘Revenge’,

 

• the award for relevance and artistic expression in times of war to the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theatre in Kiev for the performance of ‘Caligula’,

 

• the award for the acting ensemble of the TR Warszawa theatre for the performance of ‘When the Snow Melts’,

 

• the Zdzisław Maklakiewicz Festival Award for the best supporting role (funded by SKE – Culture by the Drama Theatre Section) to Maciej Cymorek from the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn for his role in the play ‘Susan Sontag’.

 

The Kontakt Festival is not only about performances prepared by theatres from Poland and Europe, but also meetings with artists, film screenings and concerts. The star of this year’s festival was actor, director and film producer John Malkovich, who met with Marshal Piotr Całbecki. We saw the American actor in the highly acclaimed play ‘The Loneliness of Cotton Fields’ directed by Timofey Kulyabin, in which he starred alongside Lithuanian actress Ingeborge Dapkūnaitė.

 

Beata Krzemińska

Press Spokesperson for the Marshal’s Office

 

9 June 2025