Belgrade's Convict Actors Find Freedom Behind Bars

Around 12 inmates were dancing, crying and laughing on a stage in one of the court rooms at Belgrade County Prison as they acted out a scene from a play based on a cult Italian comicbook.

In the audience at the impromptu 'theatre' last week, some of their fellow inmates fell about, splitting their sides with laughter as they enjoyed the show - a sign that the performance had, at least temporarily, eased the tedium of prison life.

The play, entitled 'Alan Ford', based on the comicbook series about secret agents which was highly popular in the former Yugoslavia, was the second such performance by prisoners organised by an NGO called the Centre for Rehabilitation with Imagination.

Marina Kovacevic, the director of the play and the head of the Centre for Rehabilitation with Imagination, said that taking part was a way for prisoners to become socially rehabilitated in a creative and liberating way.

"This type of working with inmates is some sort of drama therapy and my goal was to make something where the prisoners are having fun and becoming socially free," Kovacevic told BIRN.

"I wanted to help them cure in a way, because art can be a strong medicine," she added.

Kovacevic began her "prison art therapy" in September 2015 with a performance of 'Notes from Cell Number 12', based on the novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which was held at the Dom Omladine cultural centre in Belgrade.

But last week's performance was the first time that the prisoners performed a play for their fellow inmates alone.

One of the actors, 33-year old Bojan Veljkovic, who has been serving a sentence for theft for more than a year now, said that acting was his way out of prison depression.

"This really helps. It makes me not think about problems...