Video
2019
The project starts from a debate born in Albania in 2019 about the complex of the National Theater and the Experimental Theater. The Albanian government, chaired by Edi Rama, approves the construction of a new theater to build the existing one, built in 1938 by the Italian architect Giulio Bertè. Building that was initially thought to be a polycultural and sports center and which was intended as a theatrical center in 1947.
The project of the new theater, approved by the government, sparked numerous controversies from the beginning among the actors, directors, politicians and the population, until the creation of an organized group for the defense of the theater (Aleanca për mbrojtjen e teatrit), splitting public opinion between those who agree that the old complex is demolished and those who are against it.
This debate has put a building at the center of the social, cultural and political discussion of a country, my intention is to make a portrait of this building, a bit like you do with people who at some point, for a reason or for the other, they end up at the center of discussions and a portrait is made of them, in fact, to get to know them better.
A portrait in images of this old building, “caressing” it with the video camera, discovering remote corners, creating a parallel with a young girl in the prime of life, making a video portrait of her too. Details of architecture and details of a body. She, who is in another place, sings a lullaby composed of stanzas written by different people, intellectuals, actors, ordinary people, invited to write “a verse for the theater lullaby” with the technique of the corpse- surrealist exquis, therefore without knowing what others have written and who the others are.
The girl tries to put this lullaby in meters following the music of the music box in her hand, as if she wanted to put the old building to sleep, creating a sort of temporal loop between what is young and what is old, looking for a origin (zanafilla in Albanian) which seems to be lost in the reasons of each of the parties.
