Hope is the beginning of everything

Interview with Lola Arias

 

For more than twenty years now, Argentinian director and author Lola Arias has dealt with human experiences and socio-political developments in her plays, films, texts and other art forms. The topics and the development of her works are always based on conversations and experiences with people from all areas of society. For her current community project, Arias has collaborated for years with former Argentinian prisoners. She was specifically interested in the lives of queer women and trans people with a criminal past. This collaboration initially resulted in «Reas», a film between a documentary and a musical, which celebrated its premiere at the Berlinale a few days ago. Arias will then travel from Berlin to Buenos Aires to stage a theatre evening with some of the film's protagonists. The work is set in the same world and based on the same research and will be staged at the Zürcher Theater Spektakel this summer. A few days before the start of the Berlinale, we spoke to Lola Arias about her working methods, about inequality and the weaknesses of the Argentinian prison system.

 

You’re currently preparing for the world premiere of «Reas» at the Berlinale, a movie that you have described as a «hybrid musical». What is a hybrid musical?

«Reas» is a documentary musical, a genre that does not exist. It is a very unique experiment: the film is based on research and interviews I made with people who were released from different female prisons in the last year, cis women and trans people. So, it’s a documentary in the sense that the script I wrote for the movie is based on the stories they told me, and they reenact experiences they had in jail. But on the other hand, it's a very fictionalised way to tell those stories because they are performing as if they were characters in a fictional movie. Also, scenes are often interrupted by music and dance. So in this sense, it has something that is very real because it's very much based on what they experienced, and, on the other hand, it's very fictional because they are actually performing and dancing and singing in the middle of this former prison that became the set of the film.

«Los días afuera», your new play, will be staged in a fictional reproduction of the same prison and it also shares parts of the cast of the movie and its topics. How can we imagine the relation of those two works of art?

First of all: it’s not new for me to work on two different artistic projects that are based on the same investigation. I did it before with my project on the Malvinas war which turned into the theatre piece «Minefield» and the film «Theater of war». And in the case of «Reas», I think the movie is focused on the time in prison, so actually what had happened to them while they were detained. «Los días afuera» is much more focused on the effect of what happens after jail. How do you go back to society? How do you find a job when you have criminal records? How do you reconstruct your relationship with your family, with your partner, if you still have one?

Prisons all over the world probably come with similar problems, but can you tell us a bit more of the specific problems of the prison system in Argentina?

The prison population of Argentina and in all of Latin America is growing increasingly. In Argentina, over the last 20 years, the number of female inmates has grown significantly because many women were arrested for smuggling drugs on a very low scale. Like Yoseli, the protagonist of the film, who was a mule and was caught with 2 kilos of cocaine. But this massive imprisonment is not helping  to dismantle the drug trafficking chains. They just catch people who are small fish, they don’t catch the bosses. So the drug business is not affected because the smugglers are immediately replaced by others. Most of the people in women’s prisons are there because of drug trafficking and robbery, not because of violent crimes. And, because they live in very precarious and miserable situations, they don’t see any other possibilities to survive than being involved in illegal actions. The prisons in Latin America are basically deposits of poor people – the ones who have enough resources don’t end up in jail. In the marginalised neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires, everyone has a son, a daughter or a friend  who has been in jail. It’s the normalisation of a horrific situation.

You will go to Buenos Aires next month for the rehearsals and the premiere of «Los días afuera».  What will be your focus in those weeks?

Oh, we already started working in October 2023, so currently I'm in the process of writing texts and scenes that are based on the actors’ experiences. We are researching and investigating and thinking about ways to represent and to question certain aspects of their lives. From the search for work, to love and sex during and after imprisonment, to their relationship with the city and the neighbourhoods in which they live.

How does one of your projects change from its first staging until it comes overseas and is shown at a festival like Zürcher Theater Spektakel?

The kind of work I do is always like a living creature. It's not a piece that stays the same all the time. Also, the lives of our actors will have changed, their experiences might have changed by the time the work gets to Zurich and so the performance will basically take place in a new context.

You will tour quite a bit with this piece. What are the wishes and hopes you and the actors have for this tour? What would be the best outcome?

Actually, «Los días afuera»exists because some of the performers who I worked with for «Reas» had the wish to continue working together, to continue our shared research. Of course, it’s also a way for them to have a steady job after having lived under precarious conditions for a long time. So I am already very happy about the perspective for their future they have gained. But probably the most beautiful thing is the recognition and empowerment that performing has given them. It is difficult to predict what will happen in the future, but what has happened already until now is that working together for the film and the play has given them a new network of people, a job and, especially, hope. And hope is the beginning of everything.

 

Credits
Interview: Sascha Ehlert