A TRIAL AFTER AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

About the show

Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy (Rio de Janeiro, 1968), who received the Silver Lion in Venice for her oeuvre in 2022 and was Holland Festival’s associate artist in 2024, returns to Amsterdam with her latest production. Together with actor and co-writer Wagner Moura – awarded Best Actor at Cannes this year for The Secret Agent and nominated for an Oscar – she finds a new approach to Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, in a radical, contemporary adaptation that invites the audience to take a stance. Transplanting Ibsen’s themes to contemporary Brazil, A Trial offers a sharp look at authoritarianism, fake news and public judgement. In 2022 Jatahy was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for her body of work in theatre. Ever inventive and deeply political, Jatahy combines audience participation and filmed footage, creating a one-of-a-kind performance each night. The Holland Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, and the Festival d’Avignon, the three oldest festivals of Europe, join forces for the co-production of A Trial – after An Enemy of the People, marking the start of a multi-year collaboration leading up to their shared 80th anniversaries in 2027. The three festivals share a common origin. In 1947, in the aftermath of the Second World War, they were founded independently of one another with the same underlying vision: that art has the unique power to unite cultures and offer a common language in a fragmented world.