The International Playwrights' Forum / IFP, is an open committee of the International Theatre Institute /ITI/UNESCO which encourages the writing of plays with its biennial competitions.

For this competition, the International Playwrights' Forum will be looking at one of the painful issues of the contemporary world: the problem of exile and refugees, migration and identity in the world that is not ours.

The theme of the competition is Refugees/Exile/Identity/Migration.

Playwrights are invited to submit plays that deal with this issue in the contemporary world where hundreds of millions of people are displaced for political or economic reasons or through more serious violence between communities.
How do they communicate with their new society? Are they second rate citizens? What do they bring to their new world? What does their new world offer them? What kind of identity do they look for and experience?

The submission deadline is 30th June 2010
The three winning plays will be announced at the next Congress of the International Theatre Institute held between November 2010 and March 2011.
The IFP intend to publish and help promote the winning plays.

For full rules and how to apply, visit the website:
http://www.playwrightsforum.com/english.html

Contact
International Playwrights' Forum
c/o SuisseTHEATRE ITI
Ursula Werdenberg
General Guisan -Str. 174
CH-4054 Basel
Swizerland
Email: info@iti-swiss.ch

• Articles of the 1980 Recommendation related to this issue:

VII. (…) To this end, Member States are invited to make the necessary arrangements for artists and their organizations to participate in discussions, decision-making processes and the subsequent implementation of measures aimed, inter alia, at: (…)
(c) the encouragement of international cultural co-operation, for example measures relating to the dissemination and translation of works, to the exchange of works and of persons, and to the organization of regional or international cultural events.

• Points of the 1997 Declaration related to this subject:

- Parag. 18: (...) New means of private funding, from major foundations to small companies, must be encouraged as supplementary sources of funds, particularly with a view to supporting the creation, the expression and the dissemination of contemporary works.
- Parag. 19: Public and private funding sources are invited to respond favourably to requests made by artists in developing countries or countries in transition. UNESCO’s intervention is particularly necessary in order to identify and publicize existing opportunities for private funding of the arts worldwide.

• 27-05-2010