BITEF, Belgrade International Theatre Festival, is one of the theatre festival that takes place in Belgrade, Serbia, each year.
Founded in 1967, BITEF has continually followed and supported the latest theater trends. It has become one of the most significant culture festivals of Serbia.
During the sixties, the founders of this festival (Mira Trailovic, Jovan Ćirilov and their associates) courageously followed tumultuous events in global theater teeming with avant-garde explorations. In the eighties, BITEF has shown Belgrade the highest reaches of the art of theater, thus becoming one of the few festivals comprising both experimental forms and significant classic achievements. In spite of political-economic crisis and embargo, in the final decade of the twentieth century, BITEF has, thanks to the generous help of international culture centers, government and non-government organizations, managed to keep up with the world, through promoting new theater trends and ultimate theater values. BITEF has thus preserved its place in the family of major international festivals, serving as a living proof that, in the society it had been created in, it represents an anti-traditional phenomenon and an epochal value of Serbian and Europe culture.
In 1999, BITEF has been awarded Special Prize PREMIO EUROPA PER IL TEATRO, Taormina arte. BITEF is the first international theatre festival awarded by Premio Europa.[1]