FUCKING TRUFFAUT (2023)

FUCKING TRUFFAUT (2023)

Funded by the Reszka Foundation and the Capital City of Warsaw.

A coproduction with the Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin and the Teatr Dramatyczny Warsaw.


»Every film about war ends up being pro-war« (François Truffaut)

The performance Fucking Truffaut by Bliadski Circus Queelective developed for the Maxim Gorki Theatre, under the direction of the Ukrainian director Roza Sarkisian, asks questions such as: Can we still explore and discover new narratives of war discourse? Is critical art possible in times when all culture is put on a propaganda track? How to escape the circle of reproduction of artistic militaristic discourse? Does society need theater when kamikaze drones are flying overhead? To explore the answers to these questions, Bliadski Circus Queelective’s practice does not emerge from a discourse of trauma, but rather from a performance of possibilities. Thereby Queelective queers war discourses, experiences, and representations. The special guest of the evening will be Antonina Romanova – a Ukrainian queer artist and trans soldier – who will connect with Berlin via internet.

Director Roza Sarkisian Dramaturgy Krysia Bednarek Composers Alexandra Malatskovska Performers Alexandra Malatskovskaya, Antonina Romanova, Babcia, Kiju Klejzik, Vrona (Arek Koziński) Video Performance Antonina Romanova Video Antonina Romanova, Magda Mosiewicz Costumes Babcia, Kiju Klejzik, Vrona (Arek Koziński) Space Kiju Klejzik Curators & producers Agata Siwiak, Dominika Mądry Consultant Joanna Krakowska

festivals

Im Rahmen des 6. Berliner Herbstsalon 2023 LOST – YOU GO SLAVIA


reviews


Body bags with ease.docx Thomas Irmer  ( in english)


"A musical grotesque on the subject of the war in Ukraine that deliberately breaks with previous forms of representation for this subject. While the difficult to perplexing question of theatre in this war has so far been performed with more or less patriotic pathos, the Ukrainian director Roza Sarkisian and her Queelective (queer collective) break the subject down into a kind of camp revue in which Alexandra Malatskovskaya offers musical-like silent songs in English with a powerful voice and a face that flirts with the audience. Our war is your entertainment*. Fashionable furs and pillows are pulled out of body bags as donations from Western Europe, and the service at the front with the

transperson Antonina Romanova serving there is repeatedly recorded on video. The mood is confusingly provocative, the whole thing is almost a breach of taboo, but after a year and a half of war and of course emotionally binding forms for the Ukraine in the theatre - as small as the thing in the MGT studio is at first - it represents a turning point towards new confrontations with the

subject".



"Fucking Truffaut is a thoroughly queer spectacle, and at the same time a revue and cabaret, drawing on the best traditions of the genre: the Berlin cabarets of the 1930s, New York's 'theatre of ridiculous' (ibid., p. 125), circus clowning and drag queen shows. Of course, she does not quote them directly, but she situates herself in the context of a play that deliberately piles up different stage conventions and consciously maintains a certain naivety about the off-stage world in order to disarm grand narratives, strong discourses and demolish dualistic thinking about war. As an audience, we are therefore invited into a theatre space that pretends to be a theatre rehearsal and performance hall, as if not yet fully conceived: props are scattered about the stage, two upright pianos on wheels are placed rather haphazardly and moved from one place to another in the course of the performance, and a large sofa takes centre stage: a place for rest and relaxation and post-performance conversations with invited guests"



Link to the Trailer on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h3ETkSyygA

Link to the movie about Fucking Truffaut process  by Magda Mosiewicz (in POLISH)

 https://youtu.be/-wmdRxgFb4c

Roza Sarkisian is an Ukrainian theatre director and curator. Her innovative work explores themes of memory, identity, and resistance, often employing queer art strategies and documentary theatre techniques.

Roza Sarkisian holds degrees in Theatre Directing from the National University of Arts named after I. P. Kotlyarevsky in Kharkiv (2012) and in Political Sociology from V. N. Karazin National University in Kharkiv (2009). From 2014 to 2017, she served as the artistic director of Kharkiv’s independent theatre DeFacto. From 2017 to 2019, she was the principal theatre director at the First Ukrainian Academic Theatre for Children and Youth in Lviv, and during the same period, also worked at the National Academic Drama and Musical Theatre in Ivano-Frankivsk.

Her notable works include My Grandfather Dug. My Father Dug. But I Won’t (a Ukrainian-Polish co-production, co-directed with Agnieszka Błońska, 2016), The Great Filter Theory (Theatre of Contemporary Dialogue, Poltava, 2017), Psychosis (Actor’s Theatre in Kyiv, 2018), Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Times (First Theatre in Lviv, 2018), and Macbeth (Lesya Ukrainka Academic Drama Theatre in Lviv, 2019). Additional acclaimed works include H-effect, based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine (a Ukrainian-Polish-German co-production, NGO "Art-Dialog", 2020), Radio Mariia by Joanna Wichowska and Krysia Bednarek (Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, 2022), Ship. Bridge. Body (a co-production of the Theatre of Playwrights in Kyiv, Schaubühne Lindenfels in Leipzig, and Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden, 2023), and Fucking Truffaut (a co-production with Reszka Foundation, Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, and Gorki Theater in Berlin, 2023), Karabakh Memory (Gorki Theater in Berlin, 2025).

Her productions focus on themes of collective and individual memory, national identity, non-normativity, power, and social oppression. She combines radical imagination with queer art strategies, often using devised theatre techniques, personal stories, and elements of (post-)documentary theatre and autoethnography to connect personal experiences with broader social contexts and explore the boundaries between reality and fiction. Working with both professional and non-professional actors, she rethinks conventional aesthetics, introduces new ways of thinking, and creates space for alternative narratives. Her works have been recognized with several awards and invitations to festivals in Ukraine and internationally.

Roza has been recognized with several prestigious accolades, including winning the British Council Ukraine's Taking the Stage 2017 competition, the Gaude Polonia Scholarship 2017 from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, International Mobility Grants through Culture Bridges, the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation Scholarship, Culture Moves Europe, the Artistic Scholarship of the President of Ukraine for 2019/2020, and the Warsaw City Artistic Scholarship in 2023. She was also named "Personality of the Year 2018" in the Theatre category in Lviv.

In addition to her theatre work, Roza has initiated and curated various artistic and educational projects for young people and children, including Desant UA: Independent Ukrainian Theatres Review (2017, Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, Warsaw), Drama Teen Lab (2019, Lviv), and Young Directors for Children (2018, Lviv). She has also been involved in projects such as Voices of the Neighborhood (2019, Lviv), Documentary Theatre for Children Evacuated from near Kyiv (2022/2023, Kahl-am-Main, Germany), Korczak Festival: Focus on Ukraine (2022, Warsaw), and Film and Theatre Workshops (2022, Warsaw). Roza has led numerous workshops for teenagers and has created performances featuring young non-professional actors and people with disabilities.

Roza Sarkisian, Ukrainian theatre director and curator
Roza Sarkisian during a performance rehearsal

Karabakh Memory
Karabakh Memory (2025)
Fucking Truffaut
Fucking Truffaut (2023)
Radio Mariia
Radio Mariia (2022)
Ship. Bridge. Body
Ship. Bridge. Body (2023)
Freedom Square
Freedom Square (2025)
Psychosis 2018
Psychosis (2018)
Queebaret Dresden-Kyiv 2023
Queebaret: Dresden-Kyiv (2023)
TERAZ POLIŻ feat. Panilas - Macica to moja republika
TERAZ POLIŻ feat. Panilas - Macica to moja republika (2022)
My Friends Are Listening to the War | RADIO-THEATRE (2022)
My Friends Are Listening to the War | RADIO-THEATRE (2022)
DEMO. Practical Guide for Beginners (2021)
DEMO. Practical Guide for Beginners (2021)
Wonderful Wonderful Wonderful Times (2018)
Wonderful Wonderful Wonderful Times (2018)
My Granddad was digging, My Dad was digging and I will not (2016)
My Granddad was digging, My Dad was digging and I will not (2016)