When the House Burns Down

When Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of the Schaubühne in Berlin, decided to go to Ramallah in September 2012 to stage Hamlet at the invitation of the Al-Kasaba Theatre, he knew that the Shakespearean verses would find a particular resonance there. The idea of the trip came from intense contact with theatre professionals in Palestine, and most especially with the Freedom Theatre in the refugee camp in Jenin. Under the watchful eye of the film director Nicolas Klotz, the tragedy of the Danish prince intersects with that of young Palestinians. The film is, moreover, a view on another tragedy: the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis, the former director of Freedom Theatre, killed by an unknown assassin in April 2011.

First part of a "trilogy of modern times" (the second one is La Blessure, and third - La question humaine). Paria follows the path of two characters, Momo and Victor. Momo –remarkably played by Gérald Thomassin– lives in the streets, while Victor, on the edge of poverty, loses his apartment when he loses his job. Their destinies will come across during the night of the “millennium” which will be celebrated in a social pick-up bus.

Blandine arrives at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, seeking a reunion with her husband Papi in Paris. Despite articulate claims for asylum, she is held in a cramped cell along with a number of fellow Africans, humiliated, mistreated and told that they can expect immediate deportation. Papi enquires of her whereabouts at Arrivals, and is met with disinterested, misleading responses. When Blandine is hurt in a skirmish on the runway as the authorities try and force her out of the country, circumstances and a sympathetic employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs save her from expulsion. She is finally reunited with Papi in a communal squat, its inhabitants sharing harrowing stories of their time in France. With work, money and food scarce, and her confidence shaken by her less than warm welcome to the country, Blandine cannot find the enthusiasm to leave her damp mattress.

A young girl disappears in a forest in the heart of São Paulo, Brazil.

A portrait of the unforgettable actor Michael Lonsdale, already starring in La Question humaine: one last performance, between Artaud and Plutarch, before turning into impalpable stardust.

Intertwined interviews of filmmaker Pedro Costa and philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy.

The day after the November 13th terrorist attack in Paris, Michka Assayas’s weekly radio program on rock ‘n’ roll is haunted by this mass murder.

A young girl disappears in a forest in the heart of São Paulo, Brazil.

A portrait of the unforgettable actor Michael Lonsdale, already starring in La Question humaine: one last performance, between Artaud and Plutarch, before turning into impalpable stardust.

In the autumn of 2014, playwright and theatrical director Romeo Castellucci participated in the Festival d'Automne in Paris. Nicolas Klotz resumed the show, questioning its creator in a triptych dedicated to his daring creative process.

« In the shadows of Low Life, a secret ceremony dedicated to thirteen guardians of humanity’s common treasures, love and resistance, youth and poetry, equality and difference, insurrection and revolution. Saxifrages … These rootless plants’ windblown destiny is a soft perseverance doubled by an imperceptible intransigence, which, in time, imposes on the hardness of stones a patience that can break them. » – Saad Chakali