ZAGREB, 10 July 2021 - Culture and Media Minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek said on Saturday that the organisation of the challenging programme of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival during the present health crisis and great uncertainty deserved all the praise as it continued the most beautiful festival tradition.

Speaking at a formal session of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival Council, Obuljen Koržinek recalled the exceptional circumstances of the organisation of the festival.

"I hope the audience will see how much effort and expertise it has taken to have such a programme," the minister said.

She added it was not easy to keep cultural institutions in Croatia open during the pandemic, unlike in other European countries.

"It was not easy for us who tried to ensure financial support. But also for artists who often demonstrated in situations that posed a risk to their health that art was their life, and for us art is a vital need. That is the message we sent to Europe and the world. I am proud of the artists but also of the audiences who attended cultural events," said Obuljen Koržinek.

She said there was no artistic life without interaction with the audience and called on people to get vaccinated.

"Amazing things took place online, but we were all touched when we could come to theatres and cinemas. The more citizens get vaccinate, the more cultural events will be able to be organised as before," Obuljen Koržinek said.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival director Dora Ruždjak Podolski said the greatest value of the programme was the insistence on their own theatrical performances, noting that this is what makes the festival stand out.

She added that the Dubrovnik Summer Festival is the first in Croatia to get the opportunity to open to the audience with performances of international stars.

Director of Dubrovnik Summer Festival public institution Ivana Medo Bogdanović said the institution was ready to support this year's rich programme in the technical, organisational and logistical way.

"We are also prepared in the epidemiological sense because last year we proved that we can cope with those challenges and I hope everything will go well," said Medo Bogdanović.

The 72nd edition of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival starts on Saturday evening with an opening ceremony in front of the Church of St Blaise. Nearly 70 drama, music, dance, folklore and other events will take place at 15 locations in 47 days of the festival by 25 August.

The budget of this year's festival is nearly HRK 8 million, which is HRK 1.5 million more than last year.

The audience will have to wear face masks and maintain physical distance of one seating space.

To know more about summer festivals in Croatia at this season, read our guide. 

For more, follow our lifestyle section.

The central event for the museums in Dubrovnik this year, the exhibition ''Orlando - A Symbol of Freedom'' (Orlando - simbol slobode) was opened yesterday at Knežev dvor (The Rector's Palace).

The exhibition is a part of an entire series of events organised throughout this year in Dubrovnik to commemorate the 600th anniversary of when the Orlando Column was erected. 2019 was therefore dubbed "The Year of Orlando" in Dubrovnik.

The exhibition consists of several thematic units, and more than 70 objects, copies and originals from the museums and archives are being presented at one of the most amazing settings for an exhibition. Most of the exhibits for the purposes of this exhibition have been borrowed from the archives in Dubrovnik, the scientific library in Dubrovnik, the archives of the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts and the Franciscan monastery Male braće in Dubrovnik. Some of the exhibits have also been borrowed from various private owners.

The exhibition also includes interesting multimedia displays, and a rich catalogue of over 300 pages, as well as a comic-book titled "An Interview with Orlando" which was also published.

The manager of the Dubrovnik Museums and the project's leader, Pavica Vilać, said that this exhibition completes the seven central exhibition and publishing projects. Those projects are an attempt by the Dubrovnik Museums to brand Dubrovnik as a location of great cultural and historic significance.

Vilać added that the exhibition brings forth the historic framework around Orlando's Column, talks about the artistry of the column itself in terms of the sculptures in Dubrovnik in the 12th through to the 16th century, as well as the motif of Orlando in fine arts, music and literary heritage.

The exhibition will be open for public until early January 2020, it was designed by Studio Rašić+Vrabec, and the multimedia was created by the Novena company. The City of Dubrovnik and the Ministry of Culture supported both the exhibition and the catalogue.