Haris Pašović

Haris Pašović (Sarajevo, 1961) is a Bosnian theatre director. Over the course of his career, he has also worked as a playwright, producer, choreographer, performer, and designer. He is best known for his productions of Wedekind's “Spring Awakening”. He is the artistic leader of the East West Theatre Company in Sarajevo and tenured Professor of Directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo.

Pašović was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1961. His education includes the Academy of Performing Arts in Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia; the Fulbright Scholarship in the USA (University of Hawaii, Honolulu, New York University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison); the UNESCO High Levels for Directors, Festival d’Avignon, France, and other professional trainings.

He directed in some of the most significant theatres in the former Yugoslavia and participated in a number of festivals worldwide.During the siege of Sarajevo (1992–96) Pašović spent most of the time in Sarajevo managing the MES International Theatre Festival. He directed plays and produced several shows, among others Waiting for Godot, directed by Susan Sontag. In 1993, while Sarajevo was still under the siege, he also organized the first Sarajevo Film Festival “Beyond the End of the World”

Since then, Pašović has given a great number of workshops and master-classes for directors and actors, as well as public lectures. 

He is a co-founder of the Directing Department at the Performing Arts Academy in Sarajevo. Several of his students are today internationally acclaimed film directors. Haris Pašović is the main initiator of a large-scale event called Sarajevo Red Line which in April 2012 commemorated the Siege of Sarajevo's 20th anniversary.