(ANSA) - TRIESTE, JUL 27 - Agata Tomšič will serve as artistic director of Mittelfest for the 2027-2029 term, becoming the first woman to hold this position after 35 editions led by men. The announcement came at the end of the press conference summarizing the 2026 edition of the international theater, music, dance, and circus festival dedicated to the theme of Fear. Born in Isola, Slovenia, in 1986, Tomšič is a director, actress, dramaturg, project manager, and theater theorist active in avant-garde theater; she was selected as the winner of the call for applications that closed on December 31, which received 43 Italian and international submissions. "In the coming years," said Tomšič, "I hope to draw on the knowledge I've acquired over nearly 20 years of theater work in Italy and abroad to continue making Mittelfest that special meeting place from which we can observe and understand our present. I want to harness the power of the many contemporary performative languages to continue nurturing that European dream of coexistence among different peoples and cultures, where opposites meet and merge through dialogue." "Fear" raised the curtain on Mittelfest, featuring 32 artistic projects involving 16 countries, including 20 world or national premieres. For 11 days, the festival, under the direction of Giacomo Pedini, transformed Cividale del Friuli (Udine) into a widespread stage to rediscover how fear is an emotion that affects everyone—one that unsettles but also saves. "Evil is not fear itself, but the situations that generate it. And talking about it, playing with it, and staging it—as Mittelfest has done—is the cure," emphasized President Toni Capuozzo. Among the productions on stage was *Una traviata da cortile*, written and performed by Alessandro Baricco, who transformed Verdi's masterpiece into a folk festival, bringing "to fruition the vision of a festival that I have pursued over the years ," said Pedini, "a performance in a specially designed venue, outside of theaters—both cultured and popular—that could bring everyone together within the logic of the festival as a time of discovery and ritual." (ANSA).