Ceci n'est pas Omar

Omar Giorgio Makhloufi / Diana Dardi

CREDITS

Ceci n'est pas Omar is an act of physical dramaturgy. An identity, family and historical-political investigation. A boy, Italian, of Algerian and Arbereshe origins, engages in a public melee with his own identity. A Facebook post casually informs him of the death of the Algerian grandmother he never knew: this discovery catapults him into the intricate family history of migrations and missed relationships.

With irony, estrangement and grotesqueness, Omar embarks on an interior and ritual journey in search of himself. He explores voids and unearths questions and aspirations. Each time, his changing body takes on a different narrative: it is a 'second generation' body — Arab, colonised, European, decolonised, Italian, coloniser, citizen and foreigner.

Omar contemplates missed connections in languages he should have known, staging reunions that never happened and shifting his gaze quickly between the various cultures of origin. Yearning for self-determination, he navigates dates and historical conflicts: behind him reverberate European colonialism, the Algerian War and the Black Decade, and a mestizo, conflicted and fragmented present with which he must come to terms.

Duration time: 50 minutes