THE FIFTH WHEEL
a film from the Afghan underground 2022, 35 min
Screening at the Deutsches Theater Berlin Bar on 2.5.2022 at 20.30 with a talk afterwards
Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen Digitales Festspielhaus 1.-8. Mai ON DEMAND https://www.ruhrfestspiele.de/programm/2022/das-fuenfte-rad
| Realisation | Robert Schuster |
| Montage | Soliman Saien |
Since the withdrawal of the allied troops, the artists of the all-women Simorgh Theatre in Herat have been rushing from hideout to hideout. In the underground, they deal with texts “From the Reading Book for City Dwellers” by Bertolt Brecht and bring into the picture what this perspective makes possible. Robert Schuster, with the KULA Compagnie, sees himself as a transmitter between these women and an international public.
Eine Produktion der KULA Compagnie für das Brecht Festival Augsburg
in Koproduktion mit den Ruhrfestspielen.
Eingeladen zum segafilmfestival theatre and performance New York 2022
https://segalfilmfestival.org/the-fifth-wheel-by-robert-schuster-kula-compagnie/
Vorführung im Deutschen Theater Berlin, Bar am 2.5.2022 um 20.30 mit anschliessendem Gespräch
Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen Digitales Festspielhaus 1.-8. Mai ON DEMAND https://www.ruhrfestspiele.de/programm/2022/das-fuenfte-rad
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 2.März 2022
The Authors' Foundation has been awarding a prize for outstanding literary works in the field of performing arts since 2007. The uniqueness of the award is that it is a prize by authors for authors. 2022 Women of the Simorgh Theatre, Herat, Afghanistan for their courageous, exemplary theatre and arts actions.
Verlag der Autoren 2022 Preis der Autorenstiftung, Frankfurt am Main
One of the women looks directly into the camera and begins to recite in her language: "Separate yourself from your comrades at the station / Go to town in the morning with your jacket buttoned / Find your quarters, and when your comrade knocks: / Open, oh, don't open the door / But / Cover the tracks!" The poem has three more strophes, and they are all recited until you think you understand the catastrophe being spoken of, even in the foreign language. The catastrophe of flight, of going underground, of invisibility, into which people are forced who have worked as artists because they wanted to be visible. And who are now reclaiming a visibility with this film by showing their faces, telling their stories, scanning the spaces with the camera in which they spend day and night and the next day and the next night and on and on.... With the withdrawal of the Allies in August 2021, the situation of these women theatre-makers has once again deteriorated dramatically. None of them made it to the north entrance of Kabul airport to flee the country. Their names are not on any list of people to be protected.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2.3.2022 Verena Lueken