But a year later he received the prestigious Venice Biennale award – the Silver Lion, and just a few months after this recognition, director Mario Banushi will visit Vilnius at the international theater festival “Sirenos,” where he will present his latest work “Mami.”
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The career of director Mario Banushi, born in Albania, sounds impressive – having created only four performances, he already has a loyal fan base not only in Europe but worldwide, and with his works, he has visited prestigious international festivals and theaters, including the Amsterdam International Theater, the Adelaide Festival in Australia, and BITEF in Belgrade. At the BITEF festival, Banushi received both the special “Jovan Ćirilov” award and the “Politika” award for best directing.
The premiere of Banushi’s latest work “Mami” took place in Athens in February 2025, continuing the visual and poetic language of his previous works – the piece is praised for its visual mastery “with a touch of magic.” After the premiere at the Avignon Festival in 2025, “Mami” received wide recognition in France, with newspapers “Le Monde” and “Libération” praising the emotional depth and unique theatrical vision of the work.
On October 2 and 3, this performance will be presented at the “Sirenos” theater festival and shown in the Great Hall of the Lithuanian National Drama Theater. Based on personal memories, dreams, and folklore imagery, the director creates a unique world where words are replaced by images, sounds, and emotions.
So what is “Mami” about?
“My mother brought not only me into this world but also accompanied thousands of other children. She was a midwife. This performance is a hymn to all the women who raised us,” says the director.
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The performance “Mami” is an ode to beauty, motherhood, and love. With this performance, Banushi seems to build a temple to honor the imperfect bond between mother and child. It is important for him to celebrate, sanctify this bond, fill it with vows and curses, experience and love it anew. According to the creator, he sees birth as “love in reverse.”
On stage, Mario Banushi paints inner landscapes that transport to a world full of primordial life, dreamlike beings, mysticism, images, sounds, and often reminiscent of Balkan folklore. Banushi’s creative inspiration sources are personal memories, nostalgia, dreams, and emotions, visions with which he seems to embroider the dramaturgy of the performance. An interesting fact is that Banushi has traveled to all his performances’ foreign tours, and sometimes he even appears on stage himself.
“When I was one year old, my mother had to leave and left me with my grandmother in Albania. Until I was thirteen, I called my grandmother ‘mami.’ When my mother took me to Athens, we lived in an apartment above the bakery where she worked, and it always smelled of fresh bread there. I grew up surrounded by many women, young and old. I had more than one mother. I dedicate this performance to all of them – as a wish and thanks for the weight that the word ‘mama’ carries both for the speaker and the one to whom it is said. I never understood this complicated relationship – who takes care of whom? And I never will. But I try to unravel it like an umbilical cord, like ligaments that connect life to its roots,” says Mario Banushi.
At the international theater festival “Sirenos,” Mario Banushi’s performance “Mami” will be shown on October 3 and 4 in the Great Hall of the Lithuanian National Drama Theater.
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