Haris Pasovic

Theatre, for me, is about providing to the audience a new and exciting experience.

— Haris Pasovic

Life is not just food, it's something spiritual.

— Haris Pasovic

Many have asked me, 'Why have a film festival in the middle of a war?' But they have it backwards. The question…

— Haris Pasovic

I work in theater, so I am always working in front of empty chairs. They represent a future presence. They are never…

— Haris Pasovic

The meaning of art in a time of suffering, a time of war, is much more intense. People are more focused.

— Haris Pasovic

The U.S. Declaration of Independence enshrines the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Alas, that is not the case…

— Haris Pasovic

Yes, I am mad - like the Marquis de Sade was mad, like Giordano Bruno was mad, like Antonin Artaud was mad.

— Haris Pasovic

Art has to be able to match life, to respond to the ever-changing forms of the world, to electrify the audience.

— Haris Pasovic

In war, everything changes. You are very selective of what you do because everything you do can be the last thing you…

— Haris Pasovic

Europe is a much more complex historical, cultural, and geographical concept than is envisaged in the reduced approach by the European Union.

— Haris Pasovic

Art is freedom. If we don't have that element, we don't feel human anymore. Art is not decoration or a function. Before…

— Haris Pasovic

The more film festivals, theatrical shows, and music performances and visual arts we have, the less chances there are for war. Art…

— Haris Pasovic

War and peace-making, human rights, humanitarian issues have become industries, but nobody looks closely at human greed, at the arms industry and…

— Haris Pasovic

I think we are slowly killing liberty, creativity, intelligent thinking; it's as if we are being led into a world that is…

— Haris Pasovic

The industry of political conflict is the biggest industry in Bosnia, and it is still not exhausted. What is needed is to…

— Haris Pasovic

Art can articulate new ideas.

— Haris Pasovic

There's no real theatre without taking risks.

— Haris Pasovic

People have to have food for their souls.

— Haris Pasovic

Every time has its own 'Hamlet.'

— Haris Pasovic

My theatre is not a conventional one. It is bold, serious, funny, confronting. It is anything but boring.

— Haris Pasovic

Individual acts have made Europe a civilized place and are key to its development. We must not forget it.

— Haris Pasovic

We realised that art, theatre, and music in Sarajevo were resistance at the deepest level.

— Haris Pasovic

Art is a primal need - even under siege, especially under siege.

— Haris Pasovic

Culture is a part of basic human nature, of deep humanity.

— Haris Pasovic

We need the daring visions. To go to theatre must be different than to go to shopping. We adventure together, we journey…

— Haris Pasovic

'Hamlet' is a universal story that concerns us all. These issues do not concern only Muslims, but all people equally, showing that…

— Haris Pasovic

I grew up in adoration of writers like Hemingway, George Orwell, Anna Akhmatova, and that has always been my idea about the…

— Haris Pasovic

The 21st century is significantly different from the 20th century. The old models will not hold anymore. More and more, we are…

— Haris Pasovic

I learned a lot about Ottoman court, and it was very Shakespearian in essence. Stories like the one in 'Hamlet' did happen…

— Haris Pasovic

To come to the theatre, people have to make arrangements, change their clothes, find a babysitter, find a parking space - and…

— Haris Pasovic

Football is probably the most democratic human activity. It belongs to everyone... to poor and rich, illiterate and educated, to all races,…

— Haris Pasovic

My company, East West, was founded on the premise that people need to group together and not be xenophobic, parochial, or provincial.

— Haris Pasovic

My company is called East-West Theatre precisely because Sarajevo is this city on the border between East and West, the place where…

— Haris Pasovic

People come to the theatre in search of a real encounter with other human beings, and we must give them what they…

— Haris Pasovic