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Festival TransAmériques
May 22 to June 5, 2025
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HATE RADIO

MILO RAU | INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF POLITICAL MURDER

In the Rwandan hills the massacre was carried out with machetes, but on radio broadcasts people were killed with words. This raw, visceral piece leaves no one unscathed.

Details

WORDS THAT KILL
The banal is sometimes the impetus for something monstrous. In Rwanda in 1994 during a radio show broadcast by Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, the groundwork was laid for a savage genocidal scheme. Insidiously and with cynical casualness, slipped in between jokes, riveting sports coverage and a song by Nirvana, the discourse of hate swept over the airways and went viral, creating a massive surge of fear, racism and the ruthless negation of the other, the pariah, the “Tutsi cockroaches”. In the Rwandan hills the massacre was carried out with machetes, but on the radio shows people were killed with words.

In a glass tube that is an exact reproduction of the RTLM studio, the impassioned Swiss director Milo Rau reconstitutes the genesis of hatred, and the scorching, corrosive words of dehumanization once again spew forth into the ears of the spectator, who cannot escape them. This raw, visceral piece leaves no one unscathed.

Credits

PRODUCED BY IIPM – INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF POLITICAL MURDER
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY MILO RAU
PERFORMED BY AFAZALI DEWAELE + SÉBASTIEN FOUCAULT + DIOGÈNE NTARINDWA + BWANGA PILIPILI +
ON VIDEO ESTELLE MARION + NANCY NKUSI
DRAMATURG AND PRODUCER JENS DIETRICH
SET AND COSTUME DESIGN ANTON LUKAS
VIDEO MARCEL BÄCHTIGER
SOUND DESIGN JENS BAUDISCH

COPRODUCTION HAUPTSTADTKULTURFONDS (BERLIN) + MIGROS-KULTURPROZENT (SWISS) + PRO HELVETIA – SCHWEIZER KULTURSTIFTUNG (SWISS) + KULTURAMT ST. GALLEN + KUNSTHAUS BREGENZ + ERNST GÖHNER STIFTUNG (ZOUG) + HAU (BERLIN) + SCHLACHTHAUS THEATER (BERNE) + BEURSSCHOUWBURG (BRUSSELS) + MIGROS MUSEUM FÜR GEGENWARTSKUNST (ZURICH) + KASERNE (BASEL) + SÜDPOL (LUCERNE) + VERBRECHER VERLAG (BERLIN) + KIGALI GENOCIDE MEMORIAL CENTRE

WITH THE SUPPORT OF KULTURELLES.BL (BASEL) + AMT FÜR KULTUR LUZERN + GOETHE-INSTITUT BRUXELLES + GOETHE-INSTITUT JOHANNESBURG + BRUSSELS AIRLINES + SPACIAL SOLUTIONS (MUNICH) + COMMISSION FOR THE FIGHT OF THE GENOCIDE (KIGALI) + DEUTSCHEN ENTWICKLUNGSDIENST (BONN) + CONTACT FM KIGALI AND IBUKA RWANDA + HOCHSCHULE DER KÜNSTE BERNE + FRIEDE SPRINGER STIFTUNG (BERLIN)

PRESENTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF GOETHE-INSTITUT MONTRÉAL + MINISTÈRE DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES D’ALLEMAGNE

WRITTEN BY CATHERINE CYR
TRANSLATED BY NEIL KROETSCH

WORLD PREMIÈRE AT HEBBEL AM UFER, BERLIN, DECEMBER 1, 2011

 

MILO RAU | INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF POLITICAL MURDER (COLOGNE+ZURICH+KIGALI)

Duty to Remember
Often suffused with an aura of controversy, the stage works of the writer and director Milo Rau provoke and disturb the spectator by incorporating harsh reality, or fragments of reality, into the performance.

Full biography