Neva

In a politically charged, haunting meditation on theatre and the revolutionary impulse, Chilean writer-director Guillermo Calderón’s Neva tells the story of Anton Chekhov’s widow, the actress Olga Knipper, who arrives in a dimly lit rehearsal room in St. Petersburg in the winter of 1905. As Olga and two other actors await the rest of the cast, they huddle together, act out scenes from their lives and muse on their art form and love—while, unseen, striking workers are being gunned down in the streets by the Tsarist regime. This satirical yet intense performance savagely examines the relationship between theatre and historical context. “The eighty minutes of Neva come at you with the shock that comes when poetry and politics walk hand in hand. Neva knows that laughter is good for the soul, but horror is better” (Stage and Cinema).