Montblanc Sponsors Young Directors in Salzburg Festival Competition

Tick Tock Productions of South Africa performs in the production of Trapped.

For the 11th consecutive year, Montblanc is involved in a theater competition for up-and-coming international directors and their ensembles, held during the annual Salzburg Festival.

Known as the “Young Directors Project,” it promotes “young, emerging theatre directors with innovative ideas who offer an unconventional approach to the questions of modern society.” Montblanc and Sven-Eric Bechtolf, director of Drama of the Salzburg Festival, invited a selection of theater ensembles from around the world, selected by a jury, to present their productions at the annual festival in Salzburg, Austria. 

The limited edition Hommage à Max Reinhardt fountain pen.

Montblanc covers all costs of bringing the groups to Salzburg as well as the awards and prize money. The ensemble and director with the most convincing performance will receive the Montblanc Young Directors Award, 10,000 euros ($12,180) in prize money and the Montblanc limited edition Hommage à Max Reinhardt fountain pen that is exclusively available during the Salzburg Summer Festival.

The crowd outside the theater during the opening night performance.

The project opened July 31 with the premiere of Trapped by Tick Tock Productions of South Africa. The project will run till August 26 and will feature four other performances:

* Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz by Theater Montagnes Russes of Austria

* Éternelle Idole, and This is how you will disappear by Gisèle Vienne of France

* Hamlet Cantabile Performance Group by Tuida of South Korea 

Teri Hatcher, who attended the performance and the Montblanc premiere party, signs autographs.

Following the July 21 performance, Montblanc held a reception, followed by a premiere party in Salzburg. Guests came from all over the world and included actresses Teri Hatcher, Rosario Dawson and Sarah Marshall, designer Jean Claude Jitrois and actor Clemens Schick. 

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Montblanc Awards Winner of Young Directors Project at Salzburg Festival

Ingrid Roosen-Trinks, Montblanc Cultural Foundation director, Peter Kuemmel, culture critic, Jury, Gis le Vienne, Young Director, Winner 2012, Norbert Platt, chairman of the Board of Directors Montblanc Simplo GmbH, Helga Rabl-Stadler, president of Salzburg Festival, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, director of Drama Salzburg Festival, Montblanc, Young Directors Award 2012 ©wildbild

You may have remember earlier this month I wrote about the Montblanc Young Directors Project, where the luxury brand sponsors a competition for up-and-coming directors and their ensembles, held during the Salzburg Festival. The project recently has announced a winner,  Gisèle Vienne, who created two pieces for the festival: Eternelle Idole and This Is How You Will Disappear.

Montblanc and Sven-Eric Bechtolf, director of Drama of the Salzburg Festival, invited three directors and their ensembles from around the world, selected by a jury, to present their productions at the annual festival in Salzburg, Austria. Montblanc covered all costs of bringing the groups to Salzburg as well as the awards and prize money.

As winner of the Young Director winner, the French artist receives 10,000 euros ($12,180) in prize money and the Montblanc limited edition Hommage à Max Reinhardt fountain pen, designed exclusively for the event. The sale of the writing instrument provided additional funds that were used to present a fifth production, the guest appearance of Hamlet Cantabile by the South Korean performance group TUIDA.

The statement from the jury about Vienne’s winning performances, reads:

In her pieces Eternelle Idole and even more so in This Is How You Will Disappear, Gisèle Vienne does not evoke a time that we once knew, nor one that will ever exist. This director travels through her own universe, and it is very clearly a world of posterity: the dammed, the exiled, the undead of our popular culture tread their paths there; it is impossible to make contact because language has reached the end of its tether. In Vienne’s theatre, man is devoured by the spaces he thought he controlled. However, the manner in which he struggles and ultimately disappears is marked by great beauty. This beauty has convinced the jury to award this year’s Montblanc Young Directors Award to Gisèle Vienne.

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