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PHOTO / "RED" directed by Eszter Salamon at the Odéon Theatre de l'Europe / Photo © Courtesy of Compagnie Eszter Salamon
RED
DIRECTED BY ESZTER SALAMON
THÉÂTRE ODÉON
PARIS
HALLUCINATING RED
The colour red covers everything. The colour of blood, vitality, love and revolt. With RED Eszter Salamon transforms the stage into a monochrome space.
Much-acclaimed and revolutionary Berlin-based choreographer Eszter Salamon, following her performance in collaboration with the Norwegian National Contemporary Dance Company last year at the Théâtre de la Ville, returns to the Théâtre Odéon with RED during the 2026/2027 season.
RED does not merely reconstruct a loss of work; instead, Eszter Salamon reactivates the provocative power of Valeska Gert to confront, in her turn, the contemporary resurgence of nationalism and urging fascism.
Who is Valeska Gert (1892–1978)?
Gert is one of those artists whom history has methodically silenced. An unclassifiable figure of the Berlin avant-garde, she pioneered a radical, grotesque, and dissident form of performance art as early as the 1920s, before the Nazi regime crushed her career and forced her into exile.
In New York in 1939, and later in Berlin in 1949, she opened two cabarets - the Beggar Bar and the Hexenküche - creating spaces of artistic utopia that gave rise to pacifist poems, anti-fascist songs, and cries against the atomic bomb and collective annihilation. This artistic erasure is no accident for Eszter Salamon’s work: it bears witness to Valeska Gert’s freedom, her spirit of disobedience, and her power to disrupt normality, the status quo.
What does Valeska Gert represent in Eszter Salamon’s work?
Since 2016, the choreographer has dedicated a long-term research project to her, unfolding across several works: the sound installation Love Letters to Valeska Gert (Salzburg, 2016), the performance MONUMENT 0.5: The Valeska Gert Monument (2017), the films Reappearance (2022) and Sommerspiele (2023), and the performance installation Study for the Valeska Gert Pavilion (Lyon Biennale, 2022).
In 2027, at the Théâtre Odeon, with RED, Eszter Salamon continues her work of hallucinating traces of the past through the body, the voice, and memory. Inspired by the figure of Valeska Gert, the performance opens up a space for dialogue, fictional and poetic, between the two artists.
RED continues the dialogue Eszter Samon has started with Valeska Gert through a direct, confrontational approach that remains true to the German performer’s radical spirit.
RED is not a nostalgic tribute. RED is not dance. RED is a performance, drawing on the fragments of fractured memories. Eszter Salamon presents a committed piece that interweaves voices, guitar, poetry, our past and present, and above all, the art of painting, as material and artistic gesture.
ratings 9.0 / 10
“RED” by Eszter Salamon / Théâtre Odéon, Paris (France)
13 May – 28 May 2027
VIDEO / "La Sentinelle" directed by Ali Cherri, starring Nahuel Perez Biscayrt / Video © Courtesy of La Semaine de la Critique Cannes
LA SENTINELLE
DIRECTED BY ALI CHERRI
STARRING
NAHUEL PÉREZ BISCAYART
FRANCE
LA SENTINELLE
Sergeant Lafleur had a nightmare.
Contemporary artist and filmmaker Ali Cherri presented his latest short film La Sentinelle at the 79th Cannes Film Festival.
The intense drama portrays the inner struggle of Sergeant Lafleur, a soldier, in the midst of preparing for war. The watchguard goes on duty and struggles with his silent burden of task and discipline. His body helplessly struggles between strength and falling asleep. To keep himself awake, he replays his nightmare as an experience.
The director drew a mental landscape for the unexpected duo, Éric Cantona (the doctor) and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (Sergeant Lafleur), where the military madness of our contemporary world and the warmth of the healing and embracing bodies clash with each other.
“What interests me are soldiers who are apart, out of the norm, and do not fit our idea of perfect, brave soldiers. A fine combination of strength and tenderness that appears briefly.” Ali Cherri
ratings 8.5 / 10
“La Sentinelle” by Ali Cherri / 2026 (France)
PHOTO / "La Sentinelle" directed by Ali Cherri, starring Nahuel Perez Biscayrt
/ Photo © Courtesy of La Semaine de la Critique Cannes
VIDEO / "The Brutalist" trailer / Video © Courtesy of A24
THE BRUTALIST
DIRECTED BY BRADY CORBET
STARRING ADRIEN BRODY
USA
AN AMBITIOUS OVERDOSE
THE BRUTALIST is an absolute masterpiece. A few days ago, the movie won the Golden Globe for the Best Motion Picture Drama, the Best Performance by a Male Actor Adrien Brody, and Best Director Brady Corbet. The film clocks three-and-a half-hours with an old-fashioned interval.
Escaping post-war Europe and poverty, visionary Jewish-Hungarian architect and survivor of the Holocaust, László Tóth, (Adrien Brody) hauntingly portraying architect, designer Marcel Breuer‘s life, although Tóth’s character is entirely fiction, following the original script by Brady Corbet and co-writer Mona Fastvold. Tóth arrives in America to rebuild his life, his work, and his marriage that being forced apart during wartime and fascism with the eccentric patronage of Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce).
It has a storytelling force about Jews, antisemitism, capitalist adventure, violence, rape, drugs & alcoholism, the unassimilated immigrant experience and about America’s mediocracy, naivety, and greed versus the tragic and painful depths of Eastern-European culture and expertise.
The film is full of delicate signs. When Tóth arrives to New York on an immigrant ship, and staggers up from the dark to the light, to freedom, to get his first ecstatic glimpse at the Statue of Liberty, Corbert films the statue upside down, giving the first hint of the Euro-American parable.
THE BRUTALIST is electrifying with stunning shots, and it is certainly Brody’s very best performance, well-earned after his Oscar-winning breakthrough movie The Pianist. He’s remarkable and ready for his next Oscar.
ratings 10 / 10
“The Brutalist” by Brady Corbet / 2024 (USA)
THE
BRUTALIST
VIDEO / "The Room Next Door" trailer / Video © Courtesy of Warner Bros. UK & Ireland
THE ROOM
NEXT DOOR
DIRECTED BY PEDRO ALMODOVAR
STARRING TILDA SWINTON
JULIENNE MOORE
USA
CHECK ON ME
IF I AM STILL THERE
The movie unites Swinton, Moore, and Almodóvar. It’s Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, and it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2024.
Ingrid (Julienne Moore) is a best-selling author, and Martha (Tilda Swinton) is a former war correspondent and cancer patient. Their friendship goes back to their youth when they worked together in journalism and spent their nights partying in New York. Almodóvar portrays a beautiful friendship between two humans who lost touch over the years.
The film’s core is death and cancer, not an easy subject, but Almodóvar treats both with incredible attention and the utmost delicacy. The film is fragile; that is what makes it so gorgeous, as death and euthanasia are still taboo and not part of our culture. It is, however, not a sad movie. It is a beautiful, slow journey and a controversial story about what makes life worth leaving.
Unlike Martha, Ingrid is terrified of death, as she writes about in her books, when Martha reaches out with an unprecedented request. Ingrid is frightened, and reluctant, but realises what she has to do.
“I don’t know what to say” Ingrid
“I am hoping you say YES” Martha
“YES to what?” Ingrid
In “The Room Next Door” Almodóvar is without his signature style of genre and gender-defying work, camp humour and melodrama, complicated relationships to explore transgression, desire and identity that tend to come up in all of his films. After viewing the film, many people attacked him for losing his power in cinema, but maybe they were just not sensitive enough to accept another rhythm. It feels throughout the film that most of the shoots were in slow-motion, in Wong Kar-Wai style, although they were not. There is an unseen discipline from Almodóvar.
The movie is just as well-constructed as the architectural brutalist deco where Ingrid and Martha spend their last days. The scenes are filled with gorgeously hued clothes, colours, and a lot of reds. The photography and scenes are breathtaking. Almodóvar is not only a poet but a refined painter.
Ingrid is there to show her affection, love and friendship for Martha — to understand what she is going through. What we owe to our friends is to set up a space next door for them, physically or spiritually, and never forget, that the real act of friendship is to check on one another in the morning and make sure we’re still there.
ratings 10+ / 10
“The Room Next Door” by Pedro Almodóvar / 2024 (USA)
'Cinema can fill in the empty spaces of your life and your loneliness.' Pedro Almodovar
SEX
DRUGS
AND CHARLESTON
Nightlife, black-ties and bursting creative energy stand in stark contrast to the rising poverty and unemployment rates. The economy, the culture, and the government are all undergoing radical, unseen changes. Prices are skyrocketing, and the porn-industry is boosting. The country is in turmoil, on the brink of collapse.
We are, however, not writing 2023 London but 1923 Berlin. Back to the roaring twenties, to Babylon of pleasures.
If the end of the world is coming, then why not party the nights away?
ratings 9.5 / 10
"Babylon Berlin" / 2017 (Germany)
VIDEO / "Babylon Berlin" trailer / "Zu Asche, Zu Staub" by Severija / Video © Courtesy of BMG
BABYLON
BERLIN
DIRECTED BY TOM TYKWER
ACHIM VON BORRIES
HENDRIK HANDLOEGTEN
STARRING LIV LISA FRIES
GERMANY
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