De voorstelling Romeo & Julia was op het festival te zien van 11 t/m 14 augustus. Het Young Directors Project wil werk presenteren van jonge makers en kende dit jaar zijn twaalfde editie. Het Salzburger festival sloeg daarvoor de handen in elkaar met Montblanc die het project genereus ondersteunt. Naast de projectsponsoring schenkt Montblanc de prijs van € 10.000 en een Montblanc Mozartpen -  exclusief ontworpen voor deze gelegenheid -  aan de beste regisseur. De uitreiking van de Montblanc YDP Award vond vanochtend in Salzburg plaats.

Uit het juryrapport:

“The fact that love and hatred not only coexist within a relationship, but can both be active within one movement, one glance, one word – that they even need each other, that the most powerful of all feelings are dependent on each other when two people want to survive in a world of horror – this is the insight the Iraqi-Belgian director Mokhallad Rasem tries to introduce us to. He calls his piece Romeo and Juliet. Not that we understood the title immediately – but then not everything that is “immediately apparent” is satisfying. The play tells that part of the story which Shakespeare avoided. We think that shows remarkable ambition!”

“Sometimes we read a book or listen to a piece of music, look at a painting or watch a play, and suddenly we feel the gaze of the author, the composer, the painter, the director fall directly upon us – and let me correct that: fall directly upon me. Not on the person next to me. On me. Those are magical moments. That is what only art can accomplish. Afterwards, we say: the work “touched” us. We are embarrassed and use this phrase to render the pain we have suffered harmless.

The piece the jury has chosen contains such moments. It hurts us to suddenly recognise that of all people, we love that person most whom we also hate the most. We want to cry and rejoice. And are – touched.”