Das Arturo-Projekt (The Arturo Project)

"The gangster play that we present is known to our whole continent.” With these lines, the narrator clears the arena for Brecht's play “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui”, a play that seems to be alarmingly relevant today. And this is exactly why it needs a revival, claims the late theatre director Uwe Bertram in Robert Fischer's insightful documentary “The Arturo Project”. The film is the result of a collaboration between the Theater an der Wasserburg, the stilt theatre Die Stelzer, the small family circus Boldini, and a group of gifted musicians. What starts out as a collaboration of very different artists with defined roles, more and more develops into real interaction, in which the performers learn from each other and change along the way; even art and life sometimes swap roles. Through interviews, performance clips, footage of the artists’ shared life and work, and the visualization of the political context, the filmmaker captivates while highlighting the truly contagious commitment of the performers. The audience dives into a Felliniesque world of revue-like numbers, artistry, and dreamlike moments that happen both inside and outside the tent. A grandiose spectacle, but one that does not ignore the dark truth of Arturo Ui. "Therefore, learn how to see and not to gape," warns the narrator in the play’s epilogue - Robert Fischer's film shows how art can teach us to see.