Neva

In a politically charged, haunting yet humorous meditation on theater 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. Calderón savagely examines the relationship between theater and historical context in this ominous and tightly crafted work that allows a palpable terror to creep through the theater walls. Calderón’s Diciembre was a hit at the Under Radar Festival in 2011.