The Golden Lion Festival is the only theater festival that concentrates all theatrical trends of modern artistic progress. The festival has gained prestige in the international theatrical environment and forms a positive international image of the city of Lviv and thus contributes to the development of cultural and tourist relations of Ukraine.
The festival received its name in 1992 as a full-fledged festival of Ukraine. And already in fact the first «Golden Lion» was clearly formed as a festival of theatrical experiment. The word experiment became the key word in the concept of the festival in 1994, was called the first festival of youth experimental theater. 
Since 1996 it has been held under the motto «Classics through the eyes of experiment».
During these years the festival has already found its place among the public. In the city of Lviv come crowds of people from all over Ukraine and Europe — among them there are both fans of the theater, and just tourists. Lviv, until recently associated primarily with tradition and history, is becoming a lively cultural center of Europe. Every evening, the square in front of the Lviv Opera House turns into a stage for free theater performances and street actions.
The International Theater Festival «Golden Lion» is the state scheduled festival of Ukraine, which takes place every two years in Lviv at the Lviv Academic Spiritual Theater «Resurrection».
The festival cooperates with such famous European festivals as «BITEF» (Serbia), «Kontakt» (Poland), Chekhov Festival (Russia), «Nitra» (Slovakia) and many others.
Over 4 thousand actors from Belarus, Turkmenistan, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Moldova, Serbia, Slovakia, Belgium, France, Holland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Russia, Germany, America, England, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, the Republic of Sokha, Austria and other countries took part in the festival «Golden Lion». The guests were such outstanding theater stars as Ada Rogovtseva, Donatas Banionis, Rimas Tuminas, Roman Viktyuk, 
Danel Olbrychski, Konstantin Raikin, Valentina Talyzina, Bogdan Stupka, Grigory Gladius and many foreign producers, directors and famous critics.
The festival brings a fresh stream not only in the theatrical life of the city, but also in the whole Ukraine, Europe, gives an opportunity to feel the trends in the development of theater art and understand the modern language of the theater scene.
During the festival you can see not only stage performances, but also large attraction street actions on different squares of old Lviv both in the daytime and in the evening. Undoubtedly, never without a colossal theatrical carnival, in which artists from many countries of the world take part.