“Really? Balaclavas at the programme conference, skating nuns, Pussy Riot and the proclamation of a republic”, wrote Austria’s largest daily newspaper, the Kronenzeitung. And indeed: it was certainly the craziest press conference that the Wiener Festwochen, Europe’s largest crossover festival, has ever experienced. Followed by the fastest ticket sales in the history of the festival: a third of all places is sold in just 10 days after the programme conference!

“The cultural event of this spring” was how the French culture blog Mediapart summarised it, while the Belgian Standaard wrote: “Milo Rau is tackling it big at his first edition at the head of the Wiener Festwochen.” A total of more than 45 projects are planned – from Mateja Meded’s Cunt slime power to Peter Brook’s Tempest Project, from the creation of the Academy Second Modernism to the Vienna Trials, from the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra’s Kaddish Requiem to Rau’s newest play Medea’s Children.

Meanwhile, the Council of the Republic is growing. New members are joining every day: Elfriede Jelinek, Annie Ernaux, Yannis Varoufakis, Kirill Serebrennikov, Kim de l’Horizon, Carola Rackete, David Van Rreybrouck – and dozens more!

Be with us when the Free Republic of Vienna is proclaimed on 17 May in front of 50,000 spectators in the center of Vienna and live on television. Because we owe the world a revolution!

• “Is Putin happy?” – Milo Rau on Navalny, the Vienna Trials and the need for a civil society uprising

• “I can’t think alone” – Rau on his late friend, playwright and director René Pollesch

• “Draw for change” – ARTE documentary about Victoria Lomasko, official draughtswoman of the Free Republic of Vienna

• “Pure and simple” – Belgium tour of The Interrogation, Milo Rau’s collaboration with the writer Édouard Louis, launched

• “Antigone in Australia” – after Europe, Antigone in the Amazon tour continues in Australia