What happens when, during a festival, you start stepping not only into venues but also into places you pass every day? Malta has long spread across the city – into squares, streets and theatres – but this year it invites you even more strongly to discover Poznań from different perspectives.

First, the city itself. Because during Malta, sometimes all it takes is turning a corner to suddenly find yourself in the middle of something unexpected.

On Półwiejska Street, Special Effects will transform the city centre into a live action film set. In Lyrical Minutes in the City, a voice may suddenly appear where you least expect it, and an ordinary walk through the city can unexpectedly turn into an opera scene. In Épiphytes, aerial performers will suspend themselves several metres above the ground, building a choreography based on mutual support, while The Air Between Us explores how much can be expressed through movement, weight and trust. There will also be BARK – a performance created in close dialogue with trees and nature – and DOWN, where rhythm and movement begin to work directly on the body. And, of course, Bandakadabra returns: the Italian brass band that can turn the city into a moving fiesta.

Festival routes also lead into theatres. 

Malta’s main programme will feature productions from the Polish Theatre in Poznań. Dolls House returns to Nora’s story, but this time shifts its focus towards those left behind by her decisions – children trying to rebuild a family from fragments of memories and unfinished conversations.

Very Very Hamlet, meanwhile, approaches Shakespeare from a completely different angle. Instead of reconstructing the story, it pulls Hamlet out of the cold storage room and asks what remains of a character carried by thousands of actors over centuries. Here, pathos meets absurdity, and laughter drifts dangerously close to death.

The programme also includes Pulverkopf – a story about assembling identity from archives, memories and missing pieces – as well as The Un-Divine Comedy.

Malta will also invite audiences to discover accompanying events created together with Poznań’s theatres and cultural spaces. In Forefathers’ Eve II by Polish Dance Theatre, Mickiewicz’s ritual becomes an encounter with our own shadows and questions about community. Poznań Musical Theatre presents Rebellion – a story set against the events of the Poznań June uprising, driven by the energy of songs by Maanam.

There will also be more intimate and experimental experiences. My First Immortality at Scena Robocza becomes a séance-like journey through memory, transience, and images. At the Galeria Czas Kobiet, Ewa Kulesza’s Protected Frequencies invites visitors to leave their own trace. At CK Zamek, Karolina Wyrwał’s More Units Than Meaning offers an experience built from tensions, pauses and errors, while Limen brings together three different languages of dance within a single stage experience.

Because Malta is not only a festival that brings artists into the city. It is also a moment when Poznań itself begins to reveal new places and stories – sometimes on stage, sometimes in the street, and sometimes in places you would normally just walk past.

To Love!