The Revolution Devours Its Children!

2014: A director travels with her ensemble to Burkina Faso where they get caught in a revolution. She plunges into protests against the autocratic long-term president and falls into the delusion of staging the political turmoil herself. (production note)


At the heart of the story is the uprising in Burkina Faso in 2014. When I rehearsed at the theatre festival Les Récréâtrales, I witnessed this utopian event. I believe that we can only tell history if we give our own story or perspective. The film questions the Western export of ideas and values "to Africa" and turns this perspective around. Christoph Schlingensief has expressed his special relationship to Burkina Faso with the idea of the opera village. He coined the credo "to learn from Africa". We ask: can we learn revolution? The film shows the main character's longing for political utopias and at the same time her delusion of not wanting to let go of the threads of world history, the ignominy of not seeing herself in the centre of events. For me, this describes a painful contradiction: if world history is written outside the Eurocentric space of thought, can we bear it? (Director's Statement)


Preceding the feature film, Die Revolution frisst ihre Kinder! was an eponymous theater production, staged by director Jan-Christoph Gockel at the Schauspielhaus Graz in 2018, which already integrated scenes from the film shoot in Burkina Faso. In the version produced specifically for the screen, a director (Julia Gräfner) plans a performance of Georg Büchner’s revolutionary drama Danton’s Tod in Ouagadougou, with marionettes as actors. Through the transfer to Africa, Gockel conveys the main idea of the revolutionary drama, namely, the erosion and cannibalization of reformist ideas, within a postcolonial discourse. He questions the extent to which Büchner’s play (including his enlightenment postulate) can be exported from Europe to a country like Burkina Faso, which is ruled by an autocratic dictator. And why this patronizing gesture is bound to fail. 
The Grazer Ensemble travels to Ouagadougou and brings the Burkinabè people the recipe for revolution. The story of Danton and his adversary Robespierre should mirror the two genuine African revolutionary heroes Blaise Compaoré and Thomas Sankara. The latter lost the struggle for power and was murdered in a coup in 1987.

In mockumentary style, Die Revolution frisst ihre Kinder! plays with imagined reality at several levels and fluctuates in a deliberately ambiguous way between fake (director, actors, plot) and real documentary (street scenes of Ouagadougou, interviews with members of the Sankara family and local artists). When actual demonstrations break out on site, the director credits everything to herself and her art. Gockel reveals her as a representative of a neocolonial perspective, which is based on an unacknowledged, hegemonic self-perception.
(Margarete Affenzeller)

Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt

Trailer
Orig. Title
Die Revolution frisst ihre Kinder!
Year
2020
Countries
Burkina Faso, Austria
Duration
73 min
Category
feature fiction, hybride
Orig. Language
German, french, Mòoré
Subtitles
English, German, french
Downloads
DRFIK_01 (Image)
DRFIK_02 (Image)
DRFIK_03 (Image)
Credits
Director
Jan-Christoph Gockel
Cinematography
Eike Zuleeg
Music
Smockey, Matthias Grübel, Komi Mizrajim Togbonou
Sound
Sanfo Halassane
Editing
Eike Zuleeg
Dramaturgy
Jennifer Weiss
Editing Coach
Konstantin Bock
Production
Iris Laufenberg, Schauspielhaus Graz
Art Direction
Julia Kurzweg
Lighting
Ulrich Zida, Trummer, Maman
Costumes
Julia Kurzweg, Zénabou Zoungrana
Make-Up
Zénabou Zoungrana, Julia Kurzweg
Production Manager
Jennifer Weiss
Participant
Komi Mizrajim Togbonou, Julia Gräfner, Michael Pietsch, Raphael Muff, Serge Bambara, Laurenz Leky, Evamaria Salcher, Étienne Minoungou
Puppetmaker
Michael Pietsch, Daniel Kaboré, Moussa Kougaté
Consultant Film & Festival
Jonida Laçi
Production Consultant Burkina Faso
Gerhardt Haag
Available Formats
Digital File (prores, h264) (Distribution Copy)
DCP 2K flat (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
1:1,78
Sound Format
Dolby 5.1.
Frame Rate
25 fps
Color Format
colour
Festivals (Selection)
2020
Viennale - Vienna Int. Film Festival
2022
Budapest - VERZIO. Int. Human Rights Documentary Filmfestival (Best Student and Debut Film)
2023
Innsbruck - International Film Festival