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Teatr åttonde dagen
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Teatr åttonde dagen
IDFA 1992

Teatr åttonde dagen

Eighth Day Theatre
Joanne Helander, Bo Persson
Sweden
1992
78 min
Festival history

An authentic human drama about theatre and freedom, about exile and revolution during the constant changes in Europe. The film follows a legendary Polish theatre group in the period before, during, and after the recent revolutions in Eastern Europe. In 1986, the group is prohibited to perform in Poland. Its members are forced to play underground: in monasteries and churches. A number of them succeeds in leaving Poland and starts travelling around Western Europe. It takes years for the whole group to reunite. From then onwards, they go from one country to the next and are repeatedly faced with new existential and psychological problems. Will their exile be temporary or permanent? How will Western Europe react to the merciless image the group gives of the Eastern Europe apocalypse? Finally, the totalitarian ice in the East starts melting. Censorship in Poland becomes less strict. The Solidarity trade union exacts the downfall of the communist state, and the theatre group returns to Poland, which is involved in a state of quick and radical changes.

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