Invisible Game

The Play: INVISIBLE GAME deals with illegal push-backs occurring in Europe’s border regions, on the example of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The play is based on the material of real and documented, unpublished as well as already published, cases. In collaboration with investigative journalists, a theatre evening is created which reflects the current fundamental conflict of borders in a colonized world and tells of the dissolution of the boundaries of the human body.

The plot: Two students from Nigeria have travelled to Croatia for a table tennis tournament. A few days later they find themselves in a camp for refugees in Bosnia. What happened? They were kidnapped by police forces in Europe. Shortly after that, an emergency cabinet meeting of the Ministry of the Interior takes place in order to cover up the faux pas. Meanwhile, the police officers in charge are already busy with the next so-called “push-backs”. A Bosnian family on the other side of the border is inadvertently dragged into it all. The EU and other member states send ambivalent messages.

The plot: A web is spun of post-colonial fears, economic interests, proto-fascist structures, power struggles, and above all a system of violence and oppression. A system that tortures people after they cross the borders so they don’t come back, so they don’t even try again. Their mobile phones are destroyed because the police forces are afraid of video recordings. These people themselves call their attempt to cross the borders sarcastically “game”. This light formulation hides the very real danger of violence, torture and repression. On the other hand, a perfidious invisible game is being staged in the name of the “Europeans” and to the detriment of the “Others”. It is a narrative in which some people cross geographical borders while other people cross borders of human dignity, human rights and other people’s bodies.

With INVISIBLE GAME, David Stöhr, Matija Vlatković & Ensemble look at the central players in this game. The material for this work was compiled and made available over years by human rights lawyers, investigative journalists and countless others.

The shows will be followed by panel discussions with experts. These include affected people, journalists, lawyers, human rights NGOs, political representatives and people in solidarity. The panels serve as a multilateral exchange and address questions about the human rights-based and realpolitik-based framework for action and the legal classification for the exercise of the fundamental right to asylum of refugees.

The discussion on 11.11.2022 is supported by Heinrich Boell Foundation.

With

• Eric Marquardt, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA
• Nicole Vögele, Journalist
• Carsten Gericke ECCHR Migration Team
• Milena Zajovic, journalist, activist, Zagreb
• Moderation: Vera Wriedt, Hertie School, Centre for Fundamental Rights

The panel discussion will be livestreamed via Facebook 

Venue: Heimathafen Neukölln, Karl-Marx-Strasse 141, 12043 Berlin

Ticket reservation: T +49 30 22 01 36 980, E KARTEN@HEIMATHAFEN-NEUKOELLN.DE

Language: theater plays: German with English surtitles, panel discussion: English only.

Dates:  theatre plays 7 - 9 p.m., followed by panel discussions 9:15 - 10 p.m.

20./21./ 22.10.2022 - sold out -

03./4./5./11./12./11.2022 - sold out -

Contact: Katja Giebel, Department Eastern and South Eastern Europe, Heinrich Böll Foundation, E giebel@boell.de