Born in Rio de Janeiro, Christiane Jatahy graduated in theatre and journalism and has a Master’s degree in art and philosophy. In 2011 she created and directed the feature film The Lack That Moves Us, filmed without interruption for thirteen hours using three handheld cameras. This version, which is still presented in national and international festivals, was screened in Brazilian cinemas for twelve weeks. The raw footage was also projected simultaneously on three screens on the occasion of a 13-hour film performance at the Parque Lage Art Gallery, the São Luiz theatre in Lisbon and the CentQuatre in Paris. In London, she created and directed the project In the Comfort of Your Home, a documentary and video installation presented simultaneously with the performances of thirty Brazilian artists in British homes. She was a guest of l’École des Maîtres in 2016.
She explored the relationship between theatre and film in Strindberg’s Julia in 2012, which was awarded the Shell Award for best director, and in 2014 took inspiration from Chekhov in What if they went to Moscow?, which won the Shell, Questão de Crítica and APTR Awards and is still shown at festivals in Europe and the USA. In 2016 she completed the trilogy with La Forêt qui marche, a performance freely adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth combining documentary, performance and live cinema.
She wrote a play at the invitation of the Comédie-Française, La Règle du jeu, inspired by Jean Renoir’s film, and in 2018 began the diptych Notre Odyssée based on Homer’s Odyssey. The first part, titled Ithaque, premiered at the Odéon–Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris; the second part, Le présent qui déborde, was filmed in Palestine, Lebanon, South Africa, Greece and the Amazon. This film converses with theatre and combines fiction with real stories of refugee artists. This work was shown at the Avignon Festival and has toured in Europe, Asia and the USA.
In 2021 she began the Trilogie des Horreurs. The first part, Entre Chien et Loup, which premiered at Avignon, studies the mechanisms of fascism based on Lars Von Trier’s film Dogville. In the same year, the second part of the Trilogy, Before the Sky Falls, is based on Macbeth and focuses on toxic masculinity. Part three, Depois do silêncio (After the Silence) deals with slavery and its consequences on structural racism.
Christiane Jatahy is an associated artist at the Odéon – Théâtre de l’Europe, at Centquatre-Paris, at Schauspielhaus Zürich, at Arts Emerson Boston and at the Piccolo Teatro de Milano. The Vértice company is supported by the Ile-de-France Regional Cultural Affairs Department.
In January 2022, Christiane Jatahy was awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for her theatre work.
Photo ©Estelle Valente
