Veles, 17 April 2025 (MIA) — Petre Comedy Festival organizers awarded the 5RE prizes for best play, best director, and best performers at the closing of the festival held at Jordan Hadzhi Konstantinov Dzhinot theater Wednesday evening, MIA's Veles correspondent reports.

The Montenegrin National Theater's play "The Decedent" was given the audience award for best play. The jury prize for best play went to the Macedonian National Theater's "12" and its director, Sinisha Eftimov, was given the 5RE directing award.

For playing the leads in "Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Mrs. Minister," Aleksandar Krstikj and Zorica Panchikj, respectively, won the awards for best performances by an actor in a leading role and an actress in a leading role. 

Marija Novak received the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for the play "Sex, Lies and Jealousy." Sasho Tasevski received the award for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for the play "The Addams Family."

The jury deciding the winners was made up of Aleksandar Gjorgiev, Aleksandar Ivanovski and Mile Vrateovski.

The comedy festival programming also included a screening of a digitally restored copy of "Miss Stone" (1958) by director Žika Mitrović. For his performance in the film, renowned Macedonian actor Petre Prlichko in 1959 won a Golden Arena, the Yugoslav national film award presented at the Pula Film Festival.

In its fourth year, 5RE was organized by the Plus Public citizens association with the support of the Municipality of Veles. It ran from March 27 through April 16 and included a dozen plays by theaters from the country, Montenegro and Serbia. mr/