Partisan – Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz 1992 - 2017

“The theatre is the final partisan.” Frank Castorf’s statement refers to a society that increasingly closes itself off towards new ways of thinking and aesthetic transgressions. This quote is the starting point for “Partisan”, a documentary homage by Lutz Pehnert, Matthias Ehlert and Adama Ulrich, dedicated to the 25 wild and wonderful years of Frank Castorf’s directorship of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.

As a director and head of the theatre, he enabled the Volksbühne to become a place of new beginnings and avant-gardes from the early 1990s. The film follows Castorf during his work on “Faust”, his final production at the Volksbühne, and takes a look at the engine room of this theatre factory. Comrades-in-arms like Sophie Rois, Herbert Fritsch or Alexander Scheer talk about the unique working contexts at this theatre, news flashbacks bring special moments from the past 25 years back to life. “Partisan” is a declaration of love for a theatre and its team: They may belong to the past, but their example of aesthetic pertinacity will continue to have an enduring effect.