Opening at the Prešeren theatre house in Kranj tonight, the 12-day festival will see eight productions in the running for awards, as well as three in the accompanying and five in the international programme.

The home ensemble will lift the curtain with Evald Flisar's "Comedy About the End of the World", a play that will also be performed by theatre companies from Austria and India during the festival.

The text won Flisar the Grum Award for best new play at the festival two years ago and has been translated into 12 languages.

"The comedy holds up a mirror to society... It is a very intelligent play that discusses deadly serious matters in a humorous way," artistic director of the Prešeren theatre Marinka Poštrak has told reporters.

Aside from two Indian and an Austrian production of Fisar's works, the international programme will also feature a Macedonian take on Žanina Mirčevska and an Israeli production of Matjaž Zupančič's "Vladimir".

Selector Gregor Butala, who has picked among 48 productions put on stage in Slovenia in the past year, says the competition programme reflects a great variety of themes and production approaches.

Productions based on Slovenian plays represent almost half of all theatre shows staged in Slovenia. Of those selected, the bulk are by established theatres although many in co-production with indie producers.

The SNG Drama Ljubljana will compete with two own productions, including "Angel pozabe" (Angel of Oblivion), based on the award-winning novel by Maja Haderlap, a member of the Slovenian minority in Austria.

Another contribution by Drama Ljubljana is "Marie Curie - Hysterie", an experimental show inspired by Per Olov Enquist's novel about an imaginary friendship between the Nobel Prize winning scientist and a hysteria patient.

In co-production with its Maribor counterpart, the Ljubljana theatre company will perform "Kralj na Betajnovi" (The King of Betajnova), a classic by Ivan Cankar (1876-1918), and another play in co-production with the Ptuj theatre.

The SNG Nova Gorica theatre will stage a concert of poetry by avant-garde poet Srečko Kosovel (1904-1926) and the Prešeren theatre from Kranj will compete with a production of Svetlana Makarovič's "Mrtvec pride po ljubico" (Deadman and Lover).

The accompanying programme focuses on new theatre practices and solutions that depart form mainstream trends.

Director of the Prešeren theatre Mirjam Drnovšček would like for the foreign shows to be included in the competition programme, but she says that would entail higher costs as now part of the costs are covered by the visiting theatres.