Thomas Ostermeier

It portrays the memories of Matilda Kshesinskaya and her love affair with the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II. Matilda, a Polish-born ballerina from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, had a brief and intense romance with Nicholas between 1892 and 1894, before Nicholas married Alexandra Feodorovna and was crowned Tsar after his father's death. It also explores their relationship, facing societal pressures and interference from Nicholas's mother, Empress Maria Feodorovna, as well as Matilda's involvement with other members of the imperial family, the Romanovs, such as Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich and Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich.

Berlin playwright Lisa follows her husband Martin to Switzerland, where he manages a private school. However, when her twin brother Sven’s leukaemia begins to wreak havoc on his health, she decides she must return to her roots, which has significant consequences for her relationship.

Lars Eidinger is one of Germany’s most talented and versatile actors with his love of improvisation and physical acting style. This documentary seeks to dispel some of the mystique surrounding this exceptional actor’s unique art and also provide an exciting insight into the world of theatre and filmmaking.

When Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of the Schaubühne in Berlin, decided to go to Ramallah in September 2012 to stage Hamlet at the invitation of the Al-Kasaba Theatre, he knew that the Shakespearean verses would find a particular resonance there. The idea of the trip came from intense contact with theatre professionals in Palestine, and most especially with the Freedom Theatre in the refugee camp in Jenin. Under the watchful eye of the film director Nicolas Klotz, the tragedy of the Danish prince intersects with that of young Palestinians. The film is, moreover, a view on another tragedy: the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis, the former director of Freedom Theatre, killed by an unknown assassin in April 2011.

His eyes electrify contemporary theater. Co-director of the prestigious Schaubühne in Berlin, this German director captivates French audiences with his explosive and electrifying adaptations of Brecht, Ibsen, and Shakespeare. From his anarchist youth, Thomas Ostermeier has retained a taste for excess and radicalism. After his Richard III, acclaimed last year at the Avignon Festival, he revisits Anton Chekhov's The Seagull at the Théâtre de l'Odéon until June 25, against a backdrop of rock music, references to Article 49.3, and the war in Syria.

Thomas Ostermeier’s productions of classic plays which visit Britain from the Schaubühne in Berlin, of which he is artistic director, usually display at least one crucial element of flagrant reconceptualisation. In this case, however, what distinguishes his new version (edited with Florian Borchmeyer) of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 drama is its resolutely low-key approach. It is Hartmann’s composure that personifies the tone of the production. The set is simply a white box on which locations and descriptions are written for each act (“photographs on the walls” is, yes, written on the wall), and the affair is played as an administrative rather than a political or moral issue.

Henrik Ibsen's drama from 1882 in Ostermeier's vision since 2012. Dr. Stockmann discovers that the source of drinking and spa water is riddled with pathogenic micro-organisms, caused by industrial effluence. He wants to publish the findings in the newspaper and demands that the city council re-route the water pipes. Influential citizens and local journalists promise their support. However, his brother Peter, the mayor, raises some serious concerns: The economic prosperity of the spa town will be threatened. Suddenly the support for Stockman from the town's policymakers begins to wane. They spread seeds of doubt about his plans and try to cover up the fact of the contaminated water. But Stockmann insists on transparency and intends to go public on the matter. For him the affair has long since ceased to be about the polluted health spa, his target is society as a whole.

Hedda and Jørgen Tesman come back from their honeymoon to their brand new house in the western part of the city. It is apparent from the start that the couple is a mismatch, and it becomes clear that Hedda will soon be bored to tears by her petit-bourgeois existence. Until she hears a man she loved a few years back is in town, the writer Eilert Løvborg.

Richard of Gloucester uses murder and manipulation to claim England's throne.

In Thomas Ostermeier's stage version of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film, Maria marries German soldier Hermann Braun during World War II. The couple spend over a decade apart due to forces largely beyond Maria's control. To survive in postwar Germany, she becomes a sex worker, a wealthy industrialist's mistress, and eventually a ruthless capitalist during the German economic miracle, while still asserting her loyalty to Hermann.

King Lear, as he ages, decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. However, the transfer of power comes with one condition: a declaration of love from each of them to their father. If Regan and Goneril serve him the speech he hoped for, Cordelia, his favorite, does not give in to the hypocrisy of her elder sisters. The restraint of his daughter triggers the anger of Lear who, humiliated, disinherits her.

If you climb, you risk falling. For master builder Solness, this is doubly true. He had started out as a clerk in an architect's office, but soon got his own commissions and pushed his boss more and more to the side. Marrying a wealthy woman and her stately possessions came in handy for him. When the house he inherited fell victim to a fire, he subdivided the site and placed single-family homes on it. His boss became his employee, as did his son, and finally he made his fiancee his accountant. She adores him, which he only uses to keep the family dependent. Solness is considered a happy person. But he is driven by fear and feelings of guilt.

In the heyday of rock 'n' roll, Vernon Subutex was one of the most knowledgeable and renowned record store owners in Paris. But since the digital revolution finally forced him to close his doors, this soon-to-be fifty-something, penniless, single and unattached man has been scraping by on the charity of Alex Bleach, an old friend who became a pop star. When Alex is found dead in a hotel bathtub, Vernon finds himself out on the street. The shortened film version of a very rock 'n' roll show.

The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king Claudius, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet.

Bella Figura is a play where the stage direction "flottement" (a suspension, indeterminacy, or oscillation) occurs frequently, indicating a moment of silence when the characters and audience are left in ambiguous tension. The playwright Yasmina Reza wrote Bella Figura specifically for the Schaubühne director Thomas Ostermeier, and I imagine that she included these floating silences with him in mind.

No synopsis available yet.