Wilson Tanner Smith, Lisandro Rodríguez, u. a.: FESTIVAL OSTEN: AUS GEGEBENEM ANLASS

Drawing on the expertise of local actors and through the lens of international artists, it searches for hope in people, structures, gatherings, and narratives.



1: SUPER NORMAL THINGS

Apocalypse fatigue, trauma, climate change, propaganda, personal disintegration – it has all become super normal. But how do we hold on to confidence? Wilson Tanner Smith (USA/FI) & Gaurav Singh Nijjer (INDIA) engage in a fragmented monologue with the voices in their heads and those out there in the world. They attempt to grasp, on a human scale, what it means to empathize and to care – while the thought arises that it is always too little, and far too late.


2: A SUNNY DAY IN TANGIER

Argentinian Lisandro Rodrígues recounts an encounter between psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a master of acceptance, and soccer star Diego Armando Maradona, a specialist in repression. She talks about death and grief, he about life and a successful game. She recounts the day her house and archive burned down. It is the same day that he is convicted of doping and suspended. They talk jokingly and seriously about God, ghosts, the future, and war, and the big question: Is it better to accept death and repress life, or to accept life and repress death?



3: IN LIVELY EXCHANGE / MUCH ANEW IN THE EAST

The political climate is changing radically, especially outside the big cities. The participants of Festival OSTEN feel this too. How do we deal with it? Where do we get our strength and confidence? What do we have to learn to accept and what do we have to block out in order to find the strength to carry on? In open discussions, Sandy Bieneck (director of the Wolfen Women's Center), Rita Gehlhar (committed retiree), Christine Koschmieder (artist and activist from Aken), Matthias Eggert (mayor of the city of Zörbig), and Fred Walkow (chemist and former head of the environmental department) talk about their experiences in the Bitterfeld-Wolfen region.