The festival will feature more than 60 productions and events hosting 20 well-established puppet companies from over a dozen countries.

The productions to be showcased at the Lutke 2016 festival combine traditional and contemporary puppetry art and bold research enabled by modern technologies and new materials, the puppet theatre has told the STA.

It added that the productions offered various visual expressions at the same time questioning established practices and confirming that puppetry offers infinite possibilities of expression.

The companies from the US, Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel, Finland, Norway, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Estonia, and Slovenia will perform not only at the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, but also at the Old Power Station, Ljubljana Castle, and the Kresija Gallery.

The festival will open on 9 September at the Old Power Station with the production by Finnish visual artist and magician Kale Nio Depart, followed by a touching production Ashes by a promising Norwegian artist Yngvild Aspeli and French company Plexus Polaire.

Dutch company Hotel Modern, which often tackles socio-historical themes, will present their show Camp and their large model of Auschwitz with puppets of prisoners and their executioners. Contemporary political satire Adventures of A White-Man will be played by Paul Zaloom, a former member of the avant-garde Bread and Puppet Theatre.

Israeli puppeteer Ariel Doron will give satirical commentary on the present socio-political issues in Plastic Heroes. French artists Charlotte Blin and Julien Mellano will star in a short production without words Ma biche et mon lapin, produced by French company AIE AIE AIE.

Most of the productions are intended for adults, but there are also several for children.