IDFA at Home: The Hamlet Syndrome
Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski / PL, DE, 2022 / 86 min.
From November 10 to 20, every day between 18:00 and 23:00, you can watch a film from IDFA's Best of the Fest or Masters programme online in our virtual cinema. You buy your ticket as usual, the PDF ticket you receive contains the link to the online cinema. Tonight, 12 November: The Hamlet Syndrome.
A few months before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, film directors Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski brought together the Ukrainian theater maker Roza Sarkisian and five young compatriots in an atmospheric theater to create a performance blending Shakespeare’s Hamlet with the performers’ reality.
Like Hamlet, Yaroslav, Kateryna, Rodion, Oksana and Roman also face great existential dilemmas. “To live or not to live,” is Yaroslav’s twist on “to be or not to be”, as he reflects on his physical—and almost fatal—involvement in the battle in the Donbas region in 2014. Kateryna and Roman also fought in that war, while Oksana and Rodion fight as feminists and members of the LGBTQ community in a conservative, intolerant society.
In The Hamlet Syndrome, the depiction of the intense theatrical process is complemented by portraits of the five protagonists: breathtaking insights into their personal lives, in which trauma and raw pain increasingly come to the surface.
Between 18:00 and 23:00, you can start the film whenever it suits you, the film is then available for 4 hours. For example, if you start the film at 22:59, you can watch until 02:59.
Details
Director
Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski
Production year
2022
Country
PL, DE
Length
86 min.
Subtitles
ENG
Accessibility
Part of
IDFA 2022
Documentary lovers, keep 9 through 20 November free in your calendar. The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam presents its 35th edition in cinemas throughout Amsterdam, including several special programmes in Eye.
Share your love for film and become a member of the Eye Society.