The Two of Us, the Puppeteers

Tjaša Juhart, Martina Maurič Lazar / Slovenia / 2026 / 37 min
+ Conversation with the film’s protagonist, Breda Varl

The film evening is organized in collaboration with the DOKUDOC International Documentary Film Festival and the Maribor Puppet Museum.

The documentary portrait The Two of Us, the Puppeteers: Breda and Tine Varl was created as part of the museum series Puppet Memories, which documents, preserves, and evaluates the heritage of Slovenia’s most important puppetry artists. It is a production of the Puppet Museum, the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, and UNIMA Slovenia.

The film is dedicated to the recently deceased Tine Varl and Mojca Kreft, who, together with puppeteer Martina Maurič Lazar and the film’s author and curator, Tjaša Juhart, participated in one of the interviews.

Breda and Tine Varl are a puppetry couple without whom it is difficult to imagine puppetry in Maribor, Styria, and among the Slovene minority in Austrian Carinthia. They devoted their entire lives to puppetry: Tine as a puppet theatre director, organiser, producer, and mentor; Breda as a creator of visual designs, puppet technologist, costume designer, set designer, and educator.

Together, they created more than 150 puppet productions and, through their work, became part of the canon of Slovenian puppet theatre—its cultural context, history, and heritage. In 2013, they received the Klemenčič Award, Slovenia’s highest recognition for lifetime achievement in the field of puppetry.

Concept: Tjaša Juhart • Editing: Gregor Gobec and Tjaša Juhart • Text: Tjaša Juhart and Martina Maurič Lazar • Voice recordings: Martina Maurič Lazar • Graphic design: Maja Rebov • Proofreading: Irena Androjna Mencinger • Illustration: Matija Medved • Archival material: Varl Family Archive, RTV Slovenia, Christian Cultural Association Klagenfurt, Archive of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, Regional Archives Maribor, Museum of National Liberation Maribor • Production: Puppet Museum of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre and UNIMA Slovenia