In its rationale, the 31st PUF Professional Jury (Mehdi, Paola Orlić, Svetlana Spaić) highlights the production’s fully integrated directorial concept, outstanding acting, and striking visual and scenic coherence, as well as its deep, nuanced reflection on the relationship between human and machine, consciousness and control, freedom and submission.
The jury also points to an exceptionally elaborate text that develops the theme of artificial intelligence in fascinating detail—without didacticism or banality. Rather than serving up answers, the performance opens questions that linger long after the final scene.
We publish the full statement of the “Oblak / Cloud” Award below:
The “Cloud” Award is presented to performances that elevate — those which, through their complexity, symbolism, and performative integrity, open a space above the everyday, a space of reflection, imagination, and intellectual ascent. The jury of the 31st PUF Festival awards this prize to THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND by Montažstroj/Gavella, as it is precisely such a theatrical creation: intellectually powerful, directorially precise, and thematically exceptionally challenging and compelling.
A fully coherent directorial concept, excellent acting performances, and an impressive visual and scenic coherence make this production a remarkably complete theatrical achievement. At a time when artificial intelligence is often reduced to, and treated as, technological spectacle or superficial provocation, THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND by Montažstroj/Gavella offers a profound and nuanced philosophical reflection on the relationship between human and machine, consciousness and control, freedom and submission.
We particularly emphasize the exceptionally elaborated text, which develops the theme of artificial intelligence to fascinating detail, without falling into either didacticism or banality. Instead of providing ready-made answers, the performance poses many questions—questions that remain with each individual spectator long after the performance ends.
The choice of Bruegel’s painting The Blind Leading the Blind as a source and leitmotif is not only aesthetically striking but also an exceptionally intelligent sign in terms of content. The painting, which symbolically points to human blindness and a collective loss of orientation, becomes an excellent reference and a point of departure for examining “blindness” and contemporary positions and roles: who leads whom, who sees, and who chooses not to see — human or technology, consciousness or algorithm?
For the exceptional integrity of its artistic realization; for a powerful, thought-provoking treatment of artificial intelligence; for directorial clarity and precision; for persuasive acting; and for an inspiring connection between visual art and contemporary theatre, the PUF Festival “Oblak / Cloud” Award is presented to THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND by Montažstroj/Gavella — as a work of theatre that “floats” above all that was seen and expected, remaining high in the sphere of thought and feeling, and which — finally and aptly, in keeping with the title of the award—will remain permanently stored in the literal memory “cloud” of the PUF Festival.
Montažstroj thanks the Professional Jury and the PUF Festival for this recognition, as well as the audience in Pula and its partners at Gavella Drama Theatre.
