At a flea market near the German-Polish border in 2008, Polish director Janek Turkowski came across a vintage 8mm projector and a box containing 64 reels of carefully archived film. Each reel contained fragments from the everyday life of a woman: Margarete Ruhbe. Fascinated by the material and by the idea of interweaving memory and history in general, he began to reconstruct the life of this unknown woman in an artistic sense. Layer by layer, he uncovers Margarete’s life and creates a subtle, one-hour performance for 26 people, the seemingly unexciting images and documents raise questions that touch us all in some way. «We glimpse sun-dappled holidays and learn about a woman who lived an ordinary, happy life during deeply unhappy times. In its own way, that modest story is altogether remarkable.» (Financial Times)
Created and Performed by: Janek Turkowski
Video: Margarete Ruhbe, Martyna Głowacka, Adam Ptaszynski, Marcin Piatkowski, and Janek Turkowski
Set Design: Wiesława Turkowska and Janek Turkowski
Music: Roger Anklam and Przemek Radar Olszewski
Translations: Jeannette Boettcher, Marcin Piatkowski, and Andrzej Wojtasik
Management: Iwona Nowacka
