Bitef’s sponsor

The last four years, the donator and general sponsor of Bitef, is Jat Airways. Cooperation between Jat Airways and Bitef contributes to a modern perception of marketing in the spheres of cultural policy, as was said at the meeting held between Jat’s commercial director Zoran Hudak and the president of Bitef board, Vida Ognjenović, and festival’s directors.

By Vesna Knežević Baletić

Belgrade International Theater Festival, BITEF, has been for 40 years presenting and affirming new theatrical tendencies in the world, supporting intellectual influences on the theater and communicating with the representatives of the theaters from the whole world. It is one of four leading and the most distinguished theatrical festivals on the planet and the first international festival that has been awarded "Premio Europa Per Il Theatro" for its special contribution and its key role in the world of theatrical art.

Every September, during festival’s days, the whole world is in Belgrade: actors, directors, theater workers, critics, journalists, theaterologists, culturologists, directors of international festivals, the audience aware that only here, in one city, it is possible to see the most representative performances by the international theatrical avant-garde… And all of them arrive to Belgrade flying by Jat Airways and thanks to it.

Jat Airways has been, actually, a donator and the general sponsor of Bitef since 2002, when a five-year contract on cooperation was signed. By it, Jat Airways has been participating up to nearly one tenth in festival’s budget. At the end of March, on the occasion of years long successful cooperation and further extension of the contract, Jat Airways’ commercial director, Zoran Hudak, and the president of Bitef Board, Vida Ognjenović, the selector Jovan Ćirilov, the art director Nikita Milivojević, and the festival art manager, Vesna Bogunović, held a meeting in Jat’s Head Office.

Cooperation between Jat Airways and Bitef is undoubtedly a contribution to modern international perception of marketing in the spheres of cultural policy. Bitef’s management is aware that the festival wouldn’t be able to endure and maintain its international fame without support of sponsor that understands the significance of this international cultural event and finds its interest in investing in culture. This is even more important because Bitef today, more than ever before, represents a paradigm of the European way of our country, an outstanding promoter of the best we have and can, which fully corresponds with efforts that our whole country invests into the process of joining the European Union. Jat Airways was able to recognize its role as the commercial promoter of Bitef, which has been for decades an unavoidable spot on the cultural map of Europe, a histrionic feast of high reputation and importance, part of the European cultural heritage that we can be proud of, as was said at the meeting.

Our time, within the international context, demands the high-developed processes of integration, networking and partnership between various segments of society. In Serbia, for now, only the biggest and the most successful know that investment into other segments means investment into own development and future. Jat Airways as Bitef’s sponsor is aware not only of general but also of its own interest, which, among other things, it also sees in the mutual participation in Belgrade’s and Serbia’s tourist and cultural offer, in improving publicity and promotion of the company in the world, expanding the basis of its possible strategic partners and associations, an active promotion of various objectives into projects of mutual interests and exclusivity in marketing campaigns by Jat and Bitef that, in many segments, meet and partly cover.