STA, 31 March 2022 - Robert Waltl, the director of the Mini Teater theatre and the Jewish Cultural Centre in Ljubljana, has received the Order of the Arts and Letters of France (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) for "deepening ties between Slovenia and France and promoting mutual respect and combating all forms of discrimination."
The French Institute in Slovenia has announced that the knight grade of the order had been presented to Waltl on Wednesday by French Ambassador Florence Ferrari on behalf of the French minister of culture.
The institute said that Waltl had earned the accolade for his work in arts that deepens ties between Slovenia and France and for opening the repertoire of Mini Teater to French productions, also in his roles as an actor and director in the theatre.
The director of Mini Teater is also promoting mutual respect and combating all forms of discrimination, especially as the initiator of the House of Tolerance festival, it added.
Waltl has furthermore invested his efforts in establishing and developing the Jewish Cultural Centre, an "exceptionally important cultural institution in Ljubljana that preserves Jewish cultural life as well as the memory of suffering, including the Holocaust, while calling for respect for others and peaceful coexistence."
In theatre, he has created a strong network of connections with France through good relations with many French authors and institutions, and he has performed in several plays that encompass the production from the era of Classicism to the present day.
As a great Francophone and Francophile, Waltl has been an irreplaceable factor in the French-Slovenian relations for many years, the institute added.
Related: The Return of Jewish Ljubljana in the Story of Two Men
