Veselin Bojdev was born in 1974 in Sofia, Bulgaria. He graduated in Puppet-Theatre Directing from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts Krastyo Sarafov (NATFA), studying in the class of professor Slavcho Malenov, as well as in Film and Television Directing in the class of Academician Lyudmil Stoykov.

He is the author and director of numerous puppet-theatre productions that have been performed at national and international festivals in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, Turkey, Russia and China. He has directed productions in Russia, Serbia and Israel.

He has received the Icarus Award for Best Puppet Production for The Little Piece (2018), the Golden Dolphin Award for Best Direction for Jack and the Beanstalk (Varna, Bulgaria, 2022), and the Two’s a Company – Three’s a Crowd Award for directing Jack and the Beanstalk and Hug Me (Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 2022).

More than thirty of his theatre productions have been staged at various theatres across Bulgaria.

He is a member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists, UNIMA (International Union of Puppetry) and the Theater Author association.

Indira Kucuk-Sorguc was born in Sarajevo, where she completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in History at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo.

Throughout her extensive literary-historical and scholarly research career, she has written numerous essays and studies on history and culture, as well as theatre and literary criticism, reviews, commentaries and features. She is the author of several dramatic works and has worked as a producer and director of satirical plays, musical comedies and two-character dramas that use irony to explore contemporary petty-bourgeois attitudes and materialism. She is also the author of several historical and biographical monographs, as well as numerous exhibitions, artistic projects, cultural events and international programmes, and has participated in international conferences on theatre culture, contemporary history and anthropology.

She is President of the Association for the Affirmation of Cultural Values Filter, which operates the independent theatre of the same name. The productions I, Mahallusha, I, Bosnian and And Then Something Broke have been among the most widely attended productions in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina and have been invited to festivals and tours in Croatia, Montenegro, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and other countries. She has initiated numerous cultural, humanitarian and social initiatives aimed at strengthening and promoting the highest human and civilisational values.

She is the Artistic Director and Selector of the Festival of Children’s Art (FEDU), an international festival that promotes the exchange of new theatre productions for children and young people, bringing together music, theatre, visual art and literature within a unified creative framework. She is also Editor-in-Chief of all literary publications produced by FEDU. The festival’s official English-language materials describe FEDU as an international arts festival for children encompassing theatre, literature, music and visual arts.

Indira Kucuk-Sorguc has written screenplays for numerous documentary films and ceremonial events. She is the author of popular collection of columns and books, including I, Mahallusha 1, 2 and 3, Bekan in Midlife Crisis, Notes from Isolation, and Garter Defends Sarajevo (translated into English). I, Mahallusha was named a bestseller in 2011.

Her books Stories about People and People and Lilien received awards from the Foundation for Publishing of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as outstanding works by domestic authors. She is a member of professional organisations including the Writers’ Association and has received numerous honours, awards and commendations for her long-standing and dedicated intellectual work in the field of culture. She is also President of the Artistic Council of the National Theatre in Sarajevo.

She currently serves as Director of the Museum of Sarajevo, where she works as a museum adviser and anthropologist.

 

Ljubica Suturovic, born in Subotica, lives and works in Zagreb. She has been involved in the organisation and development of cultural programmes for many years.

Her most notable work was carried out between 2012 and 2026 in the development and production of programmes and editorial work for the festival publications of the International Puppet Theatre Festival (PIF) in Zagreb.

Since 2001, she has worked with her colleague Arsen Cosic on the creation and making of theatre puppets. The period from 2001 to 2017 was the most prolific phase of her creative work, during which she designed and made puppets for numerous productions by Puppet Theatre Nis, Theatre from a Suitcase, Novi Sad Youth Theatre, Krusevac Theatre, Children’s theatre Branko Mihaljević in Osijek and Children’s Theatre Subotica. At the 6^th Biennial of Stage Design in 2006, she and Arsen Cosic received a special commendation for the puppets they created for the production The Emperor’s Sacrificer by Puppet Theatre Nis.

She has devised and led numerous puppet-making workshops for children, preschool and primary-school teachers, and older people.

Alongside her theatre work, she is also active as a visual artist. She has provided illustrations for specialist literature on puppetry, including publications produced at the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek. As an illustrator, she has collaborated with well-known Croatian writers. Together with Arsen Cosic, she illustrated Miro Gavran’s book The Boy Who Saved the Sea.

Guided by the belief that puppetry is an art form rather than an age category, Ljubica promotes puppetry wherever an opportunity arises.