Photo by IIPM / Maxim Lee

3:40pm – 5:15pm
Milo Rau – The Moscow Trials (Germany, 2014)
90 minutes | Elebash Recital Hall
German/Russian with English subtitles
http://international-institute.de

The project The Moscow Trials attempts to inject urgency into rigid circumstances  of contemporary Russian society through the form of political theatre. In the Sakharov Center–a museum and cultural center in Moscow devoted to protection of human rights in Russia and preserving the legacy of the prominent physicist and Nobel Prize winning human rights activist Andrei Sakharov–a court is being set up. A three-day trial show provides the stage for Russia’s cultural war. There are no actors onstage. The performers are the protagonists of real, political life: professional lawyers, a constitutional judge, witnesses, and experts of all political shades. A randomly selected lay court, made up of six Moscow residents, will reach a verdict after three days. For or against the artists; for or against Putin. A Fruitmarket Arts & Media production in co-production with IIPM–International Institute of Political Murder. Festival of German Film–Special Jury Award 2014.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Seiffert

Swiss director and author Milo Rau studied literature, sociology,  German,  and Romance languages  in  Paris,  Berlin, and  Zurich  under Pierre Bourdieu, Tzvetan Todorov, among others. Milo Rau’s productions have appeared at all of the major international festivals, including Berlin Theatertreffen, Festival d’Avignon, Venice Biennale Teatro, Wiener Festwochen and the Brussels Kunstenfestival, and have toured more than thirty countries worldwide. Rau has received many honours, most recently the 2017 Saarbrucken Poetry Lectureship for Drama and, in 2016, the prestigious World Theatre Day ITI  Prize, of which he is the youngest winner. In 2016, Five Easy Pieces became the first non-Belgian production to be selected for the Belgian Theatre Critics’ Special Jury Award.