Zlatko Paković

Zlatko Paković is a Serbian theatre director and writer, best known for his politically engaged theatre and his interpretations of Bertolt Brecht's Lehrstücke. His work is characterized by a pronounced sense of playful expression. Throughout his career, Paković has directed theatre productions in various countries, including Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Norway, and the Netherlands. His notable productions include Srebrenica, When We the Murdered Rise, To Kill Zoran Đinđić, Pope Francis Wrestles with His Angel, Pier Paolo Pasolini Directs the Last Judgment, Altar Boys, Wittgenstein's Pupils, Capitalism: demonstrated in geometrical order, Othello: the Illegitimate Liturgy, Encyclopedia of the Living, and Katalin Ladik Experiences a Nervous Breakdown, Quits Her Job as a Bank Clerk and Becomes a Conceptual Artist.
Paković has received several awards for his work, including the Sterija Award and the Sterija's "Dejan Penčić Poljanski" Award from the Critics' Round Table for Best Play. For the production If You Stare into the Abyss for Too Long, based on the novel by Enes Halilović, he was awarded two additional Sterija Awards. He has also received the Ahmed Vali Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, he was awarded the International Ibsen Scholarship for his project Ibsen's Enemy of the People as Brecht's Learning Play.

Education and career

Paković was born in 1968 in Valjevo, Serbia. He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where he earned a degree in theatre and radio directing. Since 1996, he has primarily staged his own plays in various countries, including Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, the Netherlands, Norway, Bulgaria, and Cyprus. He currently lives and works in Norway and Croatia as a playwright and theatre director.

Theatrical style

Paković is an activist theatre-maker. He refers to theatre as "a matter of radical imagination", and sees it as a tool for dissecting and exposing complex structures and ethical dilemmas that shape societies, with the aim of raising awareness and motivating audiences to take action.
Paković describes his productions as provocatio —provocations designed to awaken vocatio, a "call to responsible citizenship". His plays are known to inspire admiration, excitement, and responsibility in audiences, but have also provoked backlash from repressive institutions. A striking example is his production Srebrenica. When We the Murdered Rise in Serbia, which led to nationalist groups publicly threatening him with violence or even liquidation.
Another controversial piece, Pier Paolo Pasolini Directs The Last Judgment, was banned by municipal authorities in Podgorica, Montenegro; its premiere eventually shifted underground to a private basement and was streamed online.
Religion and clerical power recur as central themes in his work. In Croatia, Pope Francis Wrestles with His Angel imagines the Pope dismantling the Vatican Bank, ordaining women as priests, and abolishing clerical celibacy—decisions taken as remedies to endemic church scandals. In Bosnia, Church of Bosnia asserts that truthfulness transcends religious divisions, dramatizing a scenario in which two women are married in a mosque under Sharia law, as an illustration of religious equality.

''Srebrenica, When We the Murdered Rise''

In 2020 the play Srebrenica. When We the Murdered Rise premiered in the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade under police protection, following reported death threats by Serbian ultranationalist groups who deny the genocide in Srebrenica. The play was produced by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. This work marked the first theatrical production in Serbia to place the moral imperative of recognizing the Srebrenica genocide at the centre of its narrative. Researchers Željana Tunić and Snežana Stanković discuss the play in an essay published in Performace Research exploring the mechanisms of denial of the Srebrenica genocide in present day Serbia.
The play was later performed in Brussels on 16 November 2022, followed by a public discussion moderated by Simon Papuashvili, programme director of the International Partnership for Human Rights.

''Ibsen's an Enemy of the People as Brecht's Teaching Play''

In 2014 Paković received the International Ibsen Scholarship for the project Ibsen's An Enemy of the People as Brecht's teaching play. The piece, adapted from Ibsen's The Pillars of Society and An Enemy of the People premiered on 20 December 2015 at the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade.
Directed by Paković, the production merges Ibsen's moral dramas with Brechtian epic theatre and learning-play techniques. Its stated aim is to "generate critical reflection and action against the hypocrisy of the new, morally unsound political and social classes which have emerged from wars and besmirched transitions", while influencing the values of a younger generation raised amid social fragmentation, corruption, and the erosion of public assets.
Theatre critic Andrew Haydon, in his BITEF 2015 review for The Stage, named the play as ''"perhaps one of the most direct, confrontational pieces of theatre I have ever seen, deconstructing the Ibsen play via Brecht to end up in present day Serbia confronting its modern day problems."''

Works

Theater

2025: Altar Boys
2025: Citizen Matijanić
2025: To Serbian Youth, Dimitrije Tucović
2024: Socrat is not afraid of being laughed at
2024: Wittgenstein's Pupils
2023: Katalin Ladik has a nervous breakdown, quits her job as a bank employee and becomes a conceptual artist
2023: What's Erasmus to Us, or We to Erasmus
2023: A Tomb for Boris Davidovich and How We Build It Today
2022: Pier Paolo Pasolini directs the Last Judgment
2022: Poetics of Resistance by Branko Ćopić
2021: Hamlet A.D. MMXXII
2021: Pope Francis wrestles with his angel
2021: Subotica Secession
2020: If you stare into the abyss for too long
2020: Srebrenica. When We the Murdered Rise
2020: Church of Bosnia
2019: Vox dei - Civil Disobedience
2018: Julius Caesar: res publica or cosa nostra
2018: Krleža or what are the flags to us or we to the flags and why we cry for them so much
2017: Fear Allah! Life and death of Ćamil Sijarić
2017: Don Quixote or what the windmills are today and where the wind blows from
2016: Capitalism: demonstrated in geometrical order
2016: Othello – the illegitimate liturgy
2016: Philosophy of Parochialism – Christmas Oratorio for Radomir Konstantinović
2015: Encyclopedia of the Living – an artistic intervention in Serbian and Kosovar reality
2014: Ibsen's An Enemy of the People as Brecht's Teaching-Play
2014: What do the women on the right want?
2012: To Kill Zoran Đinđić
2012: Anatomy of Nationalist Morality
2010: Madame Olga: in search of the Final Version of Civic drama
2009: Prison of the Danube Region
2009: Six Characters in Search of an Author
2002: Tonight we are listening
2001: A suit makes a corpse
1999: I can't remember anything
1999: Second Wednesday
1998: Mein Kampf
1997: Easy piece
1997: Professional
1996: ''The Bald Soprano''

Books

2024: Bloody Poems
2024: Dodecalogue - twelve dramatic pieces
2022: Pope Francis wrestles with his angel
2021: Heretical Liturgy - Ten Plays
2016: Encyclopedia of the Living
2015: On Authoritarian Conscience
2013: Die Gemeinsame Asche
2012: Anatomy of Nationalist Morality and other columns
2008: The Common Ashes
2002: A Room for one Bed
1995: ''Singing diary''

Essays

2023: "On Theatre's Responsibility in the Spectacle of Climate Change"

Film and television

2009: Not in Our Name
2006: Look into the Past
1994 – 2006 VIN – Video Weekly: the first independent television political magazine in Serbia.

Awards

2025 "Joakim Vujić Award" for best play and best directing, Serbia
2024 Sterija Award „Dejan Penčić Poljanski" from the Round table of critics, Novi Sad, Srbija
2023 "Amra Prutina", Award for artistic courage, Mostar. Bosnia and Herzegovina
2021 "Ahmed Vali" Lifetime Achievement Award, Novi Pazar, Serbia
2021 "Special Sterija Prize" for directing, Novi Sad, Srbija
2021 "Sterija Prize" for the best theatre performance, Novi Sad, Serbia
2021 "Joakim Vujić Award" for best play and best directing, Serbia
2016 Literary scholarship from the Lazareti Art Workshop, Dubrovnik, Croatia
2015 Literature Scholarship MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria
2014 The International Ibsen Scholarship, Skien, Norway
2010 "Desimir Tošić" Prize for Journalism, Belgrade, Serbia
1999 Belgrade City Parliament Prize for the best short story, Serbia