In 2025, the “Parallel City” universe expanded beyond the immersive route with the production of the first film adapted from the performances. The film captures the neighbourhood’s atmosphere and stories, translating the live experience into a cinematic form while preserving the connection to the people, places, and themes that defined “The Parallel City: Iosefin.”

The immersive theater project assumes

collecting stories from three historical areas, to give life to the affective memory of the city;
co-creation as an artistic act in which the audience becomes an integral part of the performance, through active participation in the documentation, staging and performance of the play;
enhancing the material heritage of the city, in Iosefin, Fabric and Elisabetin

From New York to Timisoara

TIMISOARA: a border town,
a city full of unsuspected stories
of Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Serbs, Jews.... a city challenged today by the refugee problem

partner

The Parallel City shows (Iosefin, Fabric and Party in Elisabetin) are part of the project Urban Dilemmas: The Parallel City developed by the Diogenes Cultural Association and the Hungarian State Theater "Csiky Gergely", in co-production with the Children and Youth Theater "Merlin", the German Theater of Timișoara State, with the support of the Timișoara Polytechnic University, the Timișoara Public Transport Company, the Timișoara Regional Railway Passenger Transport Branch, the New Mileniu Reformed Center Timișoara, Thespis Theatre, PopUp Theatrics, the Faculty of Music and Theater (UVT), LOGS, Josefin Pub , Nokia and others.

The project is part of the National Cultural Program "Timișoara - European Capital of Culture in 2023" and is financed by the Municipality of Timișoara through the Project Center.

Elizabetin

The Parallel City: Party in Elisabetin concludes the Parallel City trilogy created by director Ana Mărgineanu and playwright Peca Ștefan. An immersive theatrical Wonderland, the Parallel City: Party in Elisabetin invites multiple viewings, with the audience being able to choose, at each performance, one of the 5 performative routes available.

Come to Elizabeth >

Fabric

The second part of the trilogy, "Parallel City: Fabric" (2022) mostly takes place inside the "New Millennium" Reformed Center. Agnés, a recent journalism graduate from Budapest returns to her childhood neighborhood to unravel the mystery surrounding the disappearance of her mother, Flóra, 20 years ago. Like a puzzle quest, viewers choose to follow one of six characters who can reveal parts of this mystery.

Come to Factory >

Iosefin

In "Parallel City: Iosefin" (2021) a limited number of viewers can choose to follow the story of Viki (a former corporate woman caught in a race against time to find the money to help three Afghan refugees cross the border) or of Martin (a physics teacher, addicted to gambling, who loses time trying to make it to his own wedding with Viki and simultaneously help an old friend with cancer to whom he owes his life). The stories unfold, in motion, on the streets of Iosefin. In parallel, the spectators can choose a third route in which they transform into the players of "The Game" inspired by the experience of refugees in the Timișoara neighborhood.