Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama. In a theatrical performance that combines video and text, Fien Leysen goes in search of people and places from more than 40 years ago. In 1978, her father, the late VRT reporter Kris Leysen, left for the United States with a camera crew. For public broadcasting, he interviews European youngsters there who will take classes there for a year. He returns with images, but also with stories that no one recorded. On his first night in Birmingham, he was suddenly bombed as "deputy sheriff." An idea of the local sheriff, so that people in town would trust him and want to talk to him. Fien wants to find the students from back then and revisit the town and its people. Hoping to confirm the old story, and find new ones. How has the place changed in the past 40 years? And what will change in the future? Meanwhile, where did the students of yesteryear end up? What did they hope to find in Alabama, and how did they return? A question about past and present, about education, about society, about time, and about how to become a sheriff in another country.

Calendar

Première 01.02.2024