1981

1981 SPENS was opened. It is the year of the World Table Tennis Championships. One wedding. And one car submerged in the river. Smuggled goods and soup. Bridges, stories, small tragedies. Life in Novi Sad on a day long ago, back in 1981.

     1981, directed by Tomi Janežič, is a transgenerational documentary fiction about a Hungarian-Serbian family from Novi Sad, based on the family stories of the creative team. The events of 1981 serve as a gateway into a network of human destinies spanning the entire twentieth century, unexpectedly connecting Novi Sad with Nova Gorica (in present-day Slovenia, formerly Yugoslavia, where the director grew up) and Gorizia (now in Italy, once – like Novi Sad – part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). It is the year of the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, the assassination attempts on Pope John Paul II and U. S. President Ronald Reagan, the launch of IBM’s first personal computer, and the debut of MTV. Television audiences are watching Dynasty and The Smurfs, while Olivia Newton-John’s hit Physical heralds the era of aerobics.

     In Novi Sad, 1981 marks the opening of the SPENS sports and business centre, the Liberty Bridge, Hotel Novi Sad, and the new building of the Serbian National Theatre. It is also the era of fuel ration coupons and the so-called Long-Term Programme for Economic Stabilization in what was then one of the world’s most indebted countries. The soundtrack of the year includes Haustor’s Moja Prva Ljubav and the landmark album Paket Aranžman. Protests continue in Kosovo, the Marian apparitions begin in Međugorje, and at the Novi Sad Theatre rehearsals are underway for Bayer Aszpirin, foreshadowing the beginning of the disintegration of a country.

    In this production, the ensemble of the Novi Sad Theatre – Crnkovity Gabriella, Elor Emina, Ferenc Ágota, Figura Terézia, Gombos Dániel, Huszta Dániel, Krizsán Szilvia, Mészáros Árpád, Pongó Gábor, Szalai Bence – is joined by the internationally acclaimed, award-winning actors Jasna Đuričić, Boris Isaković, and Balázs Áron. Altogether, thirteen performers gather around that memorable festive table, inhabiting a space stylized as the 1980s  – a place that only a few months ago was 2024, and is now 1981.

    1981 is the tenth instalment of Tomi Janežič’s theatre dodecalogy 1972-1981, created within the Destin(y)ation project of the GO! 2025 European Capital of Culture, which brings together theatres from several countries. The dodecalogy emerges from the landscapes of childhood and explores life stories, transgenerational themes, memory, and the socio-political transformations of the twentieth century.