My Life After / Mi vida después — Lola Arias (Argentina) | FESTIVAL AKCENT 2014

The Chilean performance of The Year I Was Born, which Akcent presented last year, was the continuation of a project created by director Lola Arias several years ago in Buenos Aires. After last year's success Akcent now presents this new production. Audiences will be able to compare the fates of the protagonists and the victims of the military junta through the eyes of children, today 13 years old.

In My life after six Argentinian actors born in the 70’s and early 80’s reconstruct their parents youth from photos, letters, tapes, used clothes, stories, dim memories. Who were my parents when was I born? What was Argentina like before I learned to speak? How many versions are there about what happened before I existed or when I was so young that I can’t remember?

Each actor reconstructs scenes from the past in order to understand something from their future. As if they were their parents’ stunt doubles, they put on their clothes and try to represent their lives.

Carla reconstructs the conflicting versions about the death of her father, who was a sergeant in the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP). Vanina looks at her childhood photos again trying to understand what her father did as an intelligence officer. Blas puts on his father’s cassock to represent his life at the seminary. Mariano listens again to the tapes left by his father, who wrote a column about cars and was a member of Juventud Peronista, the Peronist Youth. Pablo relives the days of his father as a clerk in a bank taken over by the military government. Liza revisits the circumstances when her parents left Argentina and went into exile.

My life after operates around the borders of reality and fiction, the encounter of two generations, the intersection of national history and private stories.

¨ When I was 7 years old I used to wear my mother’s clothes and walk around the house stepping on my dress like a miniature queen. Twenty years later I find a pair of my mother’s jeans from the 70’s and they are just my size. I put them on and begin to walk toward the past. On an avenue, I meet my parents when they were young and we all go for a motorcycle ride around Buenos Aires. My father’s up front, then my mother and I ride behind, my arms wrapped around her waist, and the wind is hitting me so hard it’s like it wanted to erase my face¨

Lola Arias

SOUVENIR SHOP 2 – An interactive installation by Eliška Vrbová and Renata Malá
A memory shop in the form of a non-traditional jukebox. Instead of your favourite songs you can choose a trip down memory lane with a miner from Kladno or a grandmother from the Ore Mountains.
Located in the foyer of the theatre throughout the festival.

5. TH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OD DOCUMENTARY THEATRE

Prague – Archa Theatre and Baráčnická rychta / Plzeň – KC Peklo

November 20—30

Complete program of the festival

The co-organizer of Akcent is  Plzen 2015 – European Capital of Culture.

The following performances will be presented in Plzen:

Thursday, 20 November, 19:30 , Plzen – KC Peklo theatre - video
Kim Hwang (South Korea) – Pizzas for the people
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il loved pizza. He decreed that the whole nation must taste this delicacy. But in Pyongyang there is only one pizzeria. Kim Hwang created a video in which he teaches North Koreans how to bake pizza themselves. With the help of Chinese businessmen he smuggled disks with the video into North Korea. The result of all this is the subject of Hwang's film-theatre performance.
In Korean with Czech and English subtitles.

Thursday, 27 November, 19:30, Plzen – KC Peklo theatre
Barbora Schneiderová / Storytelling CZ and Plechárna Černý most
Sheet Metal Suburb
Five stories from the Prague suburb of Černý Most. Who can best tell you about the houses, streets and people in Černý Most? Those who live there. The storytellers are people from the suburb, neighbours and friends. You can meet them every day in the same bus or convenience store.  Five different perspectives on life in the suburbs.

Sunday, 30 November, 19:30, Plzen – KC Peklo theatre
Jana Svobodová, Philipp Schenker / Theatre Archa – vadí-nevadí.cz / Who's a chicken and who's a hero?
In the small East Bohemian town of Kostelec nad Orlicí three communities live side by side: long-time ethnic Czech residents, Roma, and foreigners in the local refugee camp. A team from the Archa Theatre together with representatives of all these groups created a moving theatrical depiction of life in a regular town.