Other laureates include German director Susanne Kennedy, Austrian-Israeli director Yael Ronen, Italian choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni, imprisoned Russian director Kirill Serebrenikov, and Estonian theatre NO99.

They received the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities, whose past recipients include theatre greats such as Peter Brook, Heiner Müller, Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, Harold Pinter and Peter Stein.

The main prize has been conferred on French actress Isabelle Huppert and British actor Jeremy Irons.

The award ceremony will be in Rome between 12 and 17 December.

Lorenci is one of the most prolific theatre directors in Slovenia. His latest show, which premiered at the Ljubljana City Theatre on Friday, is a radical re-interpretation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.