Residency 27
Omar Giorgio Makhloufi

DIALOGHI / PERFORMING ARTS RESIDENCIES AT VILLA MANIN

Villa Manin, Residency Space
12 - 19 February 2024
2 - 6 April 2024
22 - 26 April 2024
OMAR GIORGIO MAKHLOUFI
Ceci n’est pas Omar


Residency Team
Omar Giorgio Makhloufi, playwright, director and actor
Diana Dardi assistant dramaturg
Roberta Altin, tutor, anthropologist, associate professor, University of Trieste

Residency open to the public
23 April 2024 at 18:30
Villa Manin, Residency Space
free admission with reservation recommended at residenzevillamanin@cssudine.it

Omar Giorgio Makhloufi, a multifaceted artist born in Italy of Algerian origin, develops in Residency Ceci n'est pas Omar a research project on the profound meaning of the word identity, both personal and cultural.
Actor, director and playwright Makhloufi questions the events that link his paternal family, and in particular his grandparents whom he never knew, to the Algerian War, one of the greatest conflicts in the history of European colonialism.

Through the direct memory of his father and the use of interviews and historical sources, Omar Giorgio Makhloufi traces the complex and intricate history of his family to discover the roots of his own identity, mixed and multicultural, divided between Italy, France and Algeria. In particular, Makhloufi's research investigates the alienation generated by the colonised - coloniser dialectic and questions a controversial and emblematic war.

‘What would my Algerian grandfather think of me? And my grandmother? Is there anything that can still bind us, beyond the mere biological relationship? What can I learn from those grandparents I have never met?’ - wonders Omar, expounding on his uncertainties and the many questions that can lead us to discover in memory the invisible connections that bind us to the past and the present.

Omar Giorgio Makhloufi is an actor, director, playwright born in Calabria from an Arbëresh mother and an Algerian father. Born in ‘93, he graduated as an actor in 2018 at the Civica Accademia D'arte Drammatica Nico Pepe in Udine and previously - in the three-year period 2012 - 2015 - attended the course for actors at the school of Teatro Fraschini in Pavia. Co-founder of the ArtiFragili company, he has always been passionate about music: in 2021 he started his own musical project as a singer-songwriter. His main professional duties gravitate around theatre, which he deals with from different perspectives (as an actor but also developing a strong interest in working as a director).

Diana Dardi (1996) graduated from the Civica Accademia di Arte Drammatica Nico Pepe and attended the Societas' advanced training course Il Ritmo Drammatico. She graduated in contemporary dance at the Arearea company's advanced training course. She graduated from DAMS University in Bologna. She is a dancer in Dance out by choreographers: Mazzotta, Favale, Bertoncelli, Bucci; for SAFest 2019, in the urban dance Skeleton Carne and in L.E.O. Lex extra ordinaria in sezione aurea by Leonardo Diana and in WHY?TE for Album di Famiglia (directed by P. Cerchiello). She is an actress in 98 days, by Serena Sinigaglia and performs in Il Diario di Sonja for the Museo Storico della Resistenza in Lucca. In 2021, she attended the dramaturgy and autofiction course Mi fa male l'autofiction! by Liv Ferracchiati. Together with Pouria Jashn Tirgan, he founded the Cartocci Sonori company in Bologna and collaborates with Kepler-452, the Contaminazioni Digitali and Invisible Cities festivals and the ArchivioZeta company. Since 2023 she has collaborated with the Fraternal Compagnia.