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Holland Festival: Depois do silêncio

Christiane Jatahy (BR)
Fri 7 Jun ’24 - Sun 9 Jun ’24
Theatre and film about the effect of the Afro-Brazilian and indigenous communities violent past and reality.
Fri 7 Jun ’24
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Sun 9 Jun ’24

Brazil was one of the last American countries to abolish slavery in 1888. One hundred and thirty-six years later, many citizens are still exploited, discriminated and robbed of their land. Together with three actresses and in her unique visual language, associate artist Christiane Jatahy explores the effect of Brazil’s violent past and reality today.

One of the ways she does this is by using as a basis the internationally acclaimed 2018 novel Torto Arado (translated in English as Crooked Plow) by Itamar Vieira Junior about two sisters, Bibiana and Belonísia, who are driven apart as a result of inequality. Jatahy was also inspired by Eduardo Coutinho’s iconic documentary film Twenty Years Later (1984) about the murder of Brazilian peasant leader João Pedro Teixeira.

Working together with the Afro-Brazilian and indigenous communities of Remanso and Iúna - Chapada Dimantina in the mountainous Bahia hinterland, Jatahy shows the despair and resolve of the original inhabitants. Blending theatre and film, past and present, fiction and reality, she tells the story of two sisters for whom freedom is but a charade in the aftermath of their ancestors’ enslavement.

''The title refers to the silence that is imposed on Afro-descended and indigenous people, robbed of their land and of a space in which to tell their stories. Depois do silêncio is the possibility of a change, the seeds of revolution.'' Christiane Jatahy (in: Bruzz)

  • Duration: 105 min.
  • Language: Portuguese / surtitles: English, Dutch
Part of

Credits

based on the text of 'Torto Arado', Itamar Vieira Júnior (published by LeYa) direction Christiane Jatahy text Christiane Jatahy artistic collaboration Thomas Walgrave scenography Thomas Walgrave light design Thomas Walgrave photography Pedro Faerstein video Pedro Faerstein music Vitor Araújo, Aduni Guedes sound design Pedro Vituri mixing Pedro Vituri costumes Preta Marques collaboration text Gal Pareira, Juliana França, Lian Gaia, Tatiana Salem Levy cast Gal Pereira, Juliana França, Caju Bezerra, Aduni Guedes cast film inwoners van de dorpen Remanso en Lúna, Chapada Dimantina production Cie Vértice - Axis productions coproduction Schauspielhaus Zürich, Le Centquatre Paris, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Wiener Festwochen, Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa, Arts Emerson, Riksteatern, Théâtre Dijon-Bourgogne, Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, deSingel, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Temporada Alta, Centro Dramático Nacional

About the maker

Christiane Jatahy (b. 1968) is an author, theatre director and filmmaker who lives and works both in Brazil and Europe. Since 2003, she has been developing a body of work that explores border zones between artistic disciplines, between reality and fiction, actor and character. Sharing her life and work between Brazil and Europe she is a ‘a harsh and acute observer of the violent cruelty of our world.’ In her work she addresses contemporary and historical realities of her home land and global burning issues such as postcolonial legacy, racism and inequalities or migration.

In her work Jatahy not only employs the tools of theatre with cinema, but she also blends facts with fiction in a very intricate way. In 2004 she started researching how to play with the borders between the two, by making documentary work and turned that into fiction. For example in the piece Conjugado, about women living alone in a big city, she spoke to many women about their experiences and transformed collected material into a play about society as well as about individual choices. The piece (and later a film) The lack that moves us in 2005, about a group of actors waiting for the last one to arrive was based on a documentary.

The notion of home is a recurring theme in Jatahy’s work, that she approaches from a wide variety of angles: it's about ancient roots, and being displaced by wars and political circumstances, but it is also about the inherent human capacity for creating new homes and connections. In 2012 Jatahy made In the comfort of your home, a series of interventions, documentaries, performances and video installations by Brazilian artists in the privacy of their homes in London. In 2013, she developed the audiovisual and documentary installation project Utopia.doc, the first in a series of works concerned with the issues of home, exile and migration. The themes of home and belonging will also be central to the work Crossings, a community project in Amsterdam, meant to build conversations between people who otherwise would be unlikely to meet. 

Christiane Jatahy collaborates permanently with many artists – musicians, performers, editors, designers– who she considers family. During Holland Festival 2024 she will present her own work, in collaboration with these artists, and some of her collaborators will present their own projects. Christiane Jatahy sees her role as associate artist to generate new artistic connections, on a small as well as on a big scale.